Tuesday 20 December 2011

Gold now bearish, SIlver more bearish! 2011-12-20.

OK, it's been 4 weeks since the last p[ost by me. I couldn't believeit was so long. During that time, gold has done nothing positive, silvee has done nothing positive.

Gold reached a breakout point at $1760 on its pennant formation and then completely broke down and smashed down right out of the pennant by a long way. Silver went under $30.

Interestingly, on the Point & Firgure chart on silver on http://www.stockcharts.com/, the PO (Price Objective) on the chart for silver swiched right from $46.0 to $22.00 in an instant! Take a look!

http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/gallery.html?$SILVER

Gold's smash down from the potentially bullish pennant was a bit of a shock and it just cratered below $1600. Europe is a mess.

While the EU is a mess that dollar index moved above 80 to 81+. Imagine what might happen to gold and silve if the USDX goes up to 90 as it did in 2008. They will get SLAUGHTERED.

Just an opinion, remember I am a useless trader. No advice is intended or implied in this post. This is just commentary.

Wednesday 23 November 2011

Bearish for silver, undecided for gold? 2011-11-23

"You never had the things you thought you should have had,
And you'll not get them now,
And all the while, in perfect time, your tears are falling on the ground
No, No, No don't cry..."





Hey, that's the story of my life and maybe the story of the goldbugs' and especially the silverbugs' life!

Are we still gonna get the big drop to $1400 gold and $20 silver?

Well, these charts say maybe not for gold and maybe yes for silver.

This is not investment advice as Al Korelin says - because I am a crap investor.





Saturday 1 October 2011

Clive Maund bearish, my call on Fresnillo and the Pt:Au ratio breakdown. 2011-10-02

I liked Clive Maund's commentaries on silver recently:

As someone interested in the silver miner Fresnillo that is on the UK stock market (I live in the UK and have some Fresnillo shares), I had noticed a magnificent bearish rising wedge pattern that had formed as it made repeated new highs in the face of poor performance from silver and the rest of the stock market:


This pattern worked out wonderfully and the price crashed to below 1600, the target zone.


I wondered if the target for the deline in gold and silver had been reached after this decline in Fresnillo. So, one might have expected a bounce here, perhaps. Also, there is a gap down in the decline between about 1920 and 1860 that ought to be filled on the upside.

However, the silver chart has looked so ominously like 2008 since May this year, with a tepid post-decline rally being like that in 2008. So I am not sure that it is the end of the decline and it is great to see an important commentator whom I have watched since about 2002 give great charts to show this.

There instinctively looks like a target of about $21, which was the last major high in silver from March 2008, in the same way as the late 2008 silver crash went to the previous major high from 2004 (and 1998) at $8.40 after a brief consolidation in the $15 area.

To my view, the $50 top now = the $21 top in 2008, $32.50 now = £16 in 2008 and $21 now is potentially the bottom = $8.40 in the 2008 crash.

It would also be a magnificent 60% decline from $50 to near $20, the same percentage as 2008. The big worry is that we haven't had big bank failures yet and if we do get them we could easily get a crash to $20 or maybe even lower!

To me the chart of Fresnillo crashed below the 1600 target to less than 1500 - and 1600 now looks to me a bit like potential resistance. If that is true, then things could get very nasty quite soon in the silver space. The signals though are a bit mixed.

More nasty signs are the breakdown of the platinum:gold ratio below the 2008 low of 0.965 and the recent upsurge in the gold:silver ratio.





I am going to watching Clive Maund's commentaries like a hawk to see if he is correct.

I wonder though if silver might hold up better this time, since after going down to $8.40 in 2008, it then went up by nearly x6 to $49.75! I wonder if that might bring buyers in sooner this time, anticipating this possibility. It's a fascinating market; history is being made here.

Thursday 22 September 2011

The bearish rising wedge in Fresnillo was bearish! + 2011=1933? 2011-09-22 2213 UK time BST

Two posts ago I observed the bearish rising wedge pattern in Fresnillo the key silver miner.

Well, that pattern has indeed worked out and was indeed bearish!


Please note: This is not investment advice in any way, merely a market observation about a stock that (unfortunately right now!) I do own to a small degree.

Here's a little idea. If this crash thing in the markets continues with strengthening US dollar, then we are in the second leg of the great deleveraging. That would be like 1933, perhaps.

For me,
1. Year 2000 = 1929 = crash of speculative stock market bubble
2. Year 2008  credit crash in USA etc. = 1931 crash in Credit-Anstalt in Austria, then Germany, then UK off the gold standard leaving only USA on godl standard (most prudent creditor nation). Senior currency GB pound debased while new senior currency US dollar remains prudent for a while.
3. Year 2011 = 1933 = crash in the stronger currency Euro area, Germany being somewhat equivalent to USA in the 1930s as more prudent creditor nation. Greece is on the equivalent of the gold standard in 2011 with no printing press, thus credit collapse moves to those weaker Eurozone nations locked into Germanic tight monetary policy, similar to to crash moving to the USA in 1933 because it remained on gold when all around were debasing.

WATCH OUT! 1933 IS ABOUT!

Tuesday 20 September 2011

The platinum:gold ratio a sign of credit crunch #2? 2011-09-20 1858 BST UK time

Here is a great chart. This is the chart of the platinum:gold ratio from stockcharts.com. Recently, the ratio has dipped below 1.0, a rare and remarkable thing for recent years.


I have been wondering whether it would be a good idea to swap some gold for platinum but here in the UK there is a prohibitive VAT tax on platinum of 20%, isn't that outrageous? That tax is on most things by the way; oh, the boundless greed of government!

I just listened to a super interview with Rick Rule on King World News, where he gives his always interesting view of the markets. This time he gives some time to platinum.

I decided to pull the $PLAT:$GOLD chart up again on stockcharts during his interview and lo and behold, the ratio is making a double bottom as I write at a ratio of about 0.97!

The first low was in the credit crunch of 2008 and we are right back at that low again, making an almost perfect double bottom. There has been a very slight bounce but it would be fascinating to see whether the ratio makes a double bottom and rallies or is it breaks down on this current Greek and Eurozone credit distress below 0.97 and plunges to a new low.

At any rate, one might therefore think of the gold to platinum ratio (that way around) as acting like a credit spread; this ratio is making a double top, or maybe it is about to break above 1.03 to a new high. Bob Hoye of Institutional Advisors and Howe Street radio talks of the gold:silver ratio acting like a credit sptread. I am gonna ask him if he thinks the gold:platinum ratio is similar.

Here is the gold:platinum ratio chart (the inverse of the one above).

Monday 12 September 2011

Is this a perfect rising wedge pattern? 2011-09-12

I was looking at the new highs of silver miner Fresnillo thinking, "Great! I own some of this stock and it's going up repeatedly to new highs!" A little later, I read an article on bearish rising wedges and then I thought, "Uh oh!!"


Here is the chart:

Oh well, the chart won't come up on my stupid computer. Look at it here!:
http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/gallery.html?FRES.L

and tell me that it isn't an amazing example of a bearish rising wedge. Now some analysts say that this pattern is usually found in bear markets though here we have new highs with Fresnillo in a bull market instead.
The target might be about 1600 for Fresnillo since the downmove usually wipes out the entire upmove made while the wedge was forming. Note the lowering volume at each of the new highs, typical of the bearish rising wedge formation.

It will be fascinating to see if this wedge pattern works out or if Fresnillo takes off instead.

1. Wedge formed:

2. Breakdown? :

Saturday 27 August 2011

Gold - are we at Point Z already? P&F and daily charts look like silver

The charts of gold and silver in the last post showed some similarities over a period of a couple of years and my wondering whether the move in gold this August to next May could follow the move in silver August 2010 to May 2011 in a magnificent top.

The gold move has been more parabolic than the silver move was in the early stage of its rally from $18 to $50. The action in gold is a bit like the ending action in silver near $49 if you look at the http://www.stockcharts.com/ daily and point and figure charts in gallery view.

Silver at $49.50 or so did a double top within about a week. The first top was on Sunday night followed by a $5 drop all of the next day to the mid-40s level. The next top was the next Sunday night followed by the $6 drop in 11 minutes and a follow through drop to $32. They are chronicled in other posts and charts on this blog.

If gold is at point Z, ie at the top like silver was near $50, then it has happened much faster in gold than it did in silver. Silver took 8 months to get to $50 while gold has topped at $1920 in as many weeks.

Pierre Lassonde says "September is always a good month for gold" inhis KWN interview and sees an attack on $2000 in September.

The alternative case would be an ABC type correction in gold (A-wave down already happened and we are in wave B up, then the C wave would be to follow) or we could double top at $1920 like silver did at $49.50 and have a crash and burn for a while in gold.

This could prepare for a credit crisis crash in all assets this autumn with gold to $1400 and silver to $20 or so and an Au:Ag ratio of 70:1.


The alternative scenarios are that gold is at an earlier stage in this move. Interestingly, the first correction in this move on the gold daily chart doesn't even show on the weekly chart. This second correction is obvious on the weekly chart, a bit like the Christmas 2010 correction in silver. In that case, gold could have much further to run.

There are limits to 'Visual Analysis' as James Dines describes 'Technical Analysis'. Gold looks overbought at $1900 so needed a pullback, if only for a few days or weeks.

I find this move to $1900+ a little scary. The gold price topped £1000 sterling during the GATA conference in London, when it also topped Jim Sinclair's $1650 too. Soon gold was at $1900 or £1130. Amazing. A bonfire of all the currencies, except gold. We are in deep crisis with 'new levels of government with whole new powers' sa quoted on Jim Puplava's show this week. Unfoirtunately those powerful people seem powerless to stop the wreckage of our lives. Or maybe they want it.

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Two similar charts - gold and silver a year apart: possible gold target $2690. 2011-08-17 22:22 BST

Take a look at these two charts. Look at the similar features. They are stockcharts.com public weekly charts in the gallery view mode for Gold and Silver. i noticed the uncanny similarities a couple of months ago and labelled the features. Then I lost them! So now the breakout has occurred, I re-did them and the similarity seems to gel.

Here they are:



The first feature I noticed was that both charts had a quadruple rolling top formation around the November timeframe: silver in 2009 and gold in 2010. I then looked for other similar features. They are:

1. A new Spring high for the upmove followed by a lower high in an A-B-C type correction;
2: A new rally with a higher peak mid year.
3: The quadruple rolling top formation centred around November.
4: A new May high for the upmove followed by a lower peak in a small A-B-C type correction;
5: A magnificent breakout.

When I heard James Turk and Ben Davies talking about big mid-year rallies in gold for 2011 (James Turk talking about $1800 gold and Ben Davies talking about a +$400 move), I wondered if the similar patterns hinted that gold might have a similar breakout to the one we experienced in silver from August 2010 to May 2011. The gold breakout has now followed in August 2011, true to the pattern. No guarantees that it will match silver's move, but what if it does?

Gold has had its initial breakout and we seem to be in the repair mode of a correction since I made these charts. Gold topped at about $1820 and corrected to around $1725. It has now repaired the price to about $1780. Interestingly, this correction (so far, as of 17/8/2011) doesn't even show up as a single down candle on the weekly chart.

That recent breakout move up to $1820 has a bit of a parabolic look to it. Dan Norcini has said that as the price moved up to $1800, there was considerable covering of short positions. Then there was the correction to $1725 and the subsequent repair to $1780 as of today (17/8/2011). So, where might the equivalent point on the silver chart be? I have marked these points on the silver rally X, Y and Z.

X would be the point where the move in silver accelerated. I called that the November 'Fireworks' in silver around November 5th 2010 with increased volatility. Interestingly, the period after that was a period of increasing silver prices with some small corrections with short covering and long liquidation observed closely by Dan Norcini in his blog at the time. That would be a good parallel to gold right now and was at the $27 price range in silver.

Y would be the point where silver started a potentially parabolic move in the high $30s price range, say around $35 and it had a small correction and consolidation there.

Z would be the really undeniably parabolic move in silver to the top at $49.75 with the large corrections (a $5 drop in one day followed by a double top formed over $49 and the 11 minute $6 plunge to $42 and then price crashing to $32 over the next few days.

However, gold has dropped since reaching $1820 over a few days to $1725 or so intraday and now rallied back more than the Fibonacci 61.8% retracement of the downmove and gone to nearly $1780+. In fact, 75%of the fall has been retraced in the rally. maybe gold is forming a bullish flag pattern (a oennant) or maybe it is going to move through to a new high soon, similar to silver at points X and Y.

The most optimistic scenario would be to say gold is currently at point X ad the rally could last until next May.

So, what might be a target for gold based on these charts?

Start of silver rally was $18. Point X = $25, Point Y = $35, point Z = $40.
X, Y and Z are 39%, 94% and 177% above the starting point.

If we assume gold is at Point X now at about $1780 and the rally started at approx. $1520 (the average of the last short term high and low). Point X is an increase of 17%.. Proportionately therfore, points Y and Z could be at 41% and 77%. On this model, Z would be the top of the rally before a big correction. If gold goes to point Z it could reach :

$1520x1.77 = $2690 by end of May 2011.

Do your own due diligence! No advice is meant or implied by this blog. I have long positions in gold and am excited about it right now.

Sunday 7 August 2011

We know that over here, Lord Keynes said that gold was a barbarous relic but he is a dead western economist and he's irrelevant now. It's what the Asians think that matters most.


Robin Griffiths on Jim Puplava's Financial Sense Newshour last weekend:

Technician Robin Griffiths is Bearish on Equities, but Likes Gold

"We know that over here, Lord Keynes said that gold was a barbarous relic but he is a dead western economist and he's irrelevant now. It's what the Asians think that matters most."

Tonight he is proved correct. Gold opens in the Asian market on Sunday night up $20 at a brand new all-time high with a big gap up and a big green candlestick. This gives a jump from $1663 to $1689, so +$26 in 30 seconds. The old high was about $1680.

ABout 4 minutes later, the top of this spike was $1695. Now it has pulled back to about $1685.

Robin Griffiths is proved right in 4 minutes. The Asians evidently want gold!


Tuesday 2 August 2011

$1650 gold target reached. Congratulations to Jim Sinclair! 2011-08-02 20:20 BST UK Time

Just after I posted the last blog entry, I looked at my CMC Markets trading screen and gold spiked up just over $1650 per ounce. That is the target that Jim Sinclair has been quoting for almost the entire length of this bull market, since about 2001 I think. I am pretty sure that I remember seeing it myself in his articles as early as mid-2002. Even so, his later forecast of a date of January this year was off by 6 or 7 months.

Incidentally, I noticed the $1650 gold price at 20:20 UK time, which is in line with Mr. Sinclair's 20-20 vision of the gold market.

Missing the GATA conference but a bit richer! 2011-08-02 19:58 BST (UK Time)

Well, the GATA conference is sold out. It's a star-studded event with Sinclair, Sprott, Embry, Rickards, Davies, Salinas-Price and others, inclusing the Murph! A real goldbugs' fest. It's sweltering hot here in the English Midlands and London is even hotter. Maybe storms are coming. If Al and Roger were there from Korelin Economics Report, I might have been even more interested in going to see GATA in London. My pal is a bit crestfallen because it's too late to book now; it's all sold out.

Still, that will save me $800 US dollars or £500 quid conference fee, so I could nearly buy half an ounce of gold for that. Of course, there would also have been hotel and travelling expenses, as well as drinks at 8 quid a pint on top of that. Gold is $1640 today and I made a bit of money spreadbetting during my lunch break at work.

It's just started to rain. Thunderstorms are forecast but it's supposed to be very hot again tomorrow. It would be like an oven in London and I hate the hot weather - and thunderstorms. I am a temperate climate kind of guy.


Well, the GATA conference is sold out. It's a star-studded event with Sinclair, Sprott, Embry, Rickards, Davies, Salinas-Price and others, inclusing the Murph! A real goldbugs' fest. It's sweltering hot here in the English Midlands and London is even hotter. Maybe storms are coming. If Al and Roger were there from Korelin Economics Report, I might have been even more interested in going to see GATA in London. My pal is a bit crestfallen because it's too late to book now; it's all sold out.

Still, that will save me $800 US dollars or £500 quid conference feeso I could nearly buy an ounce of g, old for that. Of course, there would also have been hotel and travelling expenses, as well as drinks at 8 quid a pint on top of that. Gold is $1640 today and I made a bit of money spreadbetting during my lunch break at work.

It's just started to rain. Thunderstorms are forecast but it's supposed to be very hot again tomorrow. It would be like an oven in London and I hate the hot weather - and thunderstorms. I am a temperate climate kind of guy.

Gold is £1010.36 pn Kitco right now; $1645.90 or €1160.11. SO it's a whole percent over £1000 sterling, that used to be the strongest currency in the world; the only cureency to be minted in gold on all five inhabited continents. What a disgrace those central banker money printers have been and are.

Jim Sinclair will be pleased that gold might get over his major target of $1650 during the conference or even before it starts. Of course, his bet was that it would get to $1650 this January and he would have lost a million dollars if anyone had taken him up on it. Luckily for Jim, no-one had the guts to do it. He wasn't far out on the timing, just 6 months or so. It's been said never give a price and a time for a market forecast, just give one or the other.

Happy partying to those at GATA Gold Rush 2011 on 4-6 August in London! We will miss you. I suspect I wouldn't have fitted in because therewill be some egos there and I am just a piddly little tiny goldbug private investor. It should be a great do.

Monday 18 July 2011

New meaning to 1000 gold - 1000 Pounds Sterling! 2011-07-18 21:46 BST

There is now a new significance to 1000 gold. When I started this blog, gold was challenging its old 1980 high at $850 in late 2007. It then hit $1000 in 2008 before the credit crunch. One thousand Euros gold €1000 came in 2010 in the teeth of the first real show of the Greek crisis in the Eurozine. Now, today, gold temporarily hit £1000, 1000 pounds sterling, my country's ever depreciating currency. I wondered if this would ever happen, but I didn't expect it in July when it's the off-season for gold usually.

Image from the brilliant www.kitco.com website.

The up to date graph of British pound gold is here, select the desired currency or group of currencies from the sidebar.

The price has just dipped under £1000 for now; it's £999.12 as I write.




Saturday 16 July 2011

Gold breaks out to new highs! 2011-07-16

Gold breaks out to new highs! This has been something of a surprise to many of us, all except James Turk who has been saying we were going to get a big summer rally in gold like in 1982.

Perhaps the danger of a bigger drop in gold and silver has diminished a lot with this and $32 may be the floor for this silver correction with $1470 the floor for the gold correction. It appears the correction in Au and Ag could be over with this breakout in gold.

Gold broke above its all time high at about $1577 and went into the 1580s, then retracing intraday to touch $1577 again as a quick test of that level for support. The move has then gone to $1595 with minor intraday corrections on the way. Silver meanwhile has rallied to $39 and is showing signs of wanting to go over $40. The week ended as it did in the big February to May silver rally with gold and silver hitting the highs at the end of the day, rising right until the last tick on the chart. This was hapening as silver was on its way to $50 in April 2011.

I was wondeiring if we swould have a major credit crunch event that would strengthen the US dollar and smash down silver to $21 and gold maybe to $1400 or so. Bob Hoye has been talking about a 100:1 gold:silver ratio sometime in this credit contraction. I can see where he is coming from but think $100 was excessive, maybe 70:1 would have been possible if gold had correctedt o$1400 and silver to $20. This would have been comparable to the 84:1 ratio in the credit crunch of 2008.

However, in the gold and silver rally from Feb to May this year, gold was late in going to new highs, while silver was flying upwards, as Eric Sprott and others reported dollar inflows into silver market being equal to or greater than dollar inflows into his physical gold products. Same for James Turk. So silver flew and gold trudged up. We didn't see much sign of any gold speculation and blow off, no parabolic move at all. The recent gold correction was mild to say the least, from $1570 to about $1470, about $100 or so, only 7%.

So gold now looks ready for an extended breakout here perhaps. Silver has been participating too, since the speculative long positions in silver were largely washed out in the $49.75 to $32 correction in May.

It would be fascinating to see how gold and silver would react if we had another credit crunch and more bank failures, perhaps on the Euro crisis if Greece and other countries default and cause a derivatives maltdown on credit default swaps, etc. Greece/Portugal could be the 2011 equivalent of the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008. Maybe we might still see a gold and silver correction in the near future but would it go lower than gold $1470 / silver $32? However, with the demonstration that the gold and silver bull market resumed quickly after the 2008 credit crunch, maybe the reaction of the precious monetary metals this time might be a little different. Hold on to your hats!

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Gold and silver - summer coming - tedium in the extreme. 2011-06-07

*YAWN!*

We have continuing rally in gold and silver from the lows about a month ago. Who knows where or whether it is going to stall?

looking at the charts since the May tops, gold at $1548.20 has retraced most of its downmove, more than 61.8% of it, more like 75% in fact. Silver has been much more tepid. It hit its head three times on overhead resistance after retracing close to 38.2% of the downmove, a typical Fibonacci level - and today at $37.32 or so is only about 30% of the way from the May bottom back to the previous high. The gold:silver ratio is 41.48, way above the 31 it reached in May at the tops, when the excitement in silver was red hot.

I am wondering whether we get rangebound here, if we get possible new highs in gold soon or whether we get another downleg like 2008. Ross Clark did an interesting piece on Howestreet.com on the US dollar last week, looking for the possible start of a multi-year cyclical rally. However, it is no certainty, he says, but he sees some parallels to 1987 and 1995.

Then, Adam Hamilton did a nice artivle on silver downlegs. However, when he measured the 2008 downleg, he counted the initial one from $21 to $15 in his comparison. There was another large downleg after a few months, when the Lehman business blew up in September 2008 and silver was smashed down to about $8.40. With credit spreads widening and other leading economic indicators going negative, one might wonder if we are going to get a repeat of a 2008 style crisis that could smash silver again in another downleg from here in a large C downwave in an A-B-C correction (that would mean that we are in a B-wave up now). That as I see it is the danger to the long side of silver - and possibly even for gold.

However, gold has shown a lot of strength, surpassing a 61.8% upside retracement of the May slump. that looks good. A repeat of 2010 with serious jitter over European Eurozone debt and some stock market scares might serve gold well on the upside as it did last year. There were a couple of $100 corrections for gold last year but it had good upside strength in US dollar terms overall and absolutely rocketed to over €1000 in Euros too before correcting in Euros later in 2010. The gold price has again surpassed €1000 in 2011 and has wrestled with the highs in Euro and British pound terms just lately on this rebound. It seems that any breakout in £ and € gold would be unlikely to be coincident with a big fall in USD terms. A major and fast dollar rally would be required for that. Of course, if we get a Lehman style crunch, that could happen. So really, who wants to bet on this market right now, especially since we are in the typical seasonally weak season? James Turk as usual sees a big gold rally coming (this summer). I like him but he has been far too bullish on gold, predicting a top at $1500 in the 2008 spike that reached only $1030 for instance. So I take that with a pinch of salt. He sees $1800 this year. Maybe it will happen in the fall when seasonal strength could come into play. I think it is a fool's errand to try to predict this market for the rest of 2011, especially since we do not know what Bernanke and the Fed are going to do about stopping, slowing or revamping the Quantitative Easing QE2 money printing that is scheduled to end in June 2011.

To a significant extent, all bets are off until then and markets are on hold.

Wednesday 11 May 2011

Silver $22.77 target? I hope not! 2011-05-11 22:02 BST

Silver $22.77 target? I hope not!


I saw gold and silver both slowing down in their rally yesterday (Tuesday).


Gold was approaching very near its 50% retracement of the downmove, at $1520.19 on my chart and silver near a 38.2% Fibonacci retracement of its down move, at $39.44. Both looking a bit toppy. Interestingly, these Fib levels were also support and resistance where short-lived trading ranges occured in gold and silver on 5th May 2011 in the morning. I fancied going short on a spreadbet but didn’t want to gamble really.

Gold went just beyond the 50% Fib target to 1528 and silver turned almost exactly on its 38.2% Fib target at $39.52 intraday, within 8 cents. Now it's Wednesday and both have turned down from these points.


I asked Al and Roger Wiegand if they thought silver is going below the $33 low to form a big A-B-C correction? A 38.2% upside retracement of the $49.75 to $33 crash is very stingy, nowhere near enough to form a nice bullish flag. An equal sized downleg of $16.75 would take the price from this interim high of $39.52 to $22.77 if that occurred!

This comment was posted by me earlier today at:

http://www.kereport.com/2011/05/10/big-al-trader-rog-answer-question-listener-brad/

Here are my CMC markets trading screens. Both prices are nearly at Fibonacci levels that are also prices that were trading sideways going into 5th May during the crashes:


.

Thursday 5 May 2011

Silver: 38.2% retracement of entire 2008-2011 move reached 2011-05-05











The retracements for this selloff in silver have been analysed by Roger Wiegand and Ben Davies with respect to the move from the last low of $26.35 to the high of $49.75 to give an idea of the story so far.

I wondered if the correction might be in respect to the entire bull market wave from the low of $8.40 in the 2008 credit crisis to the high of $49.75. Ross Clark on Howestreet has just mentioned this for possible analysis in his interview this week.

Those Fibonacci targets would be:
38.2%: $33.95 / 50%: $29.07 / 61.8%: $24.20.

These were calculated from:
49.75-8.40=41.35 move from 2008 low
41.35*38.2/100=15.80 retracement
41.35*50/100=20.68 retracement
41.35*61.8/100=25.55 retracement
 
Targets are:
38.2%: 49.75-15.80=$33.95 - just about reached today 05/05/2011.
My trading screen showed $34.15 at 9:15 pm in the UK.
50.0%: 49.75-20.68=$29.07
61.8%: 49.75-25.55=$24.20
 
See chart:
So we have just about had a 38.2% retracement of the entire move from $8.40 to $49.75. That's pretty significant, especially with nearly all of it coming in only 4 days!

Sunday 1 May 2011

SILVER SMASH $6 IN 15 MINUTES - DID YOU HEAR IT HERE FIRST? 2011-05-02 0052 BST

I watched the opening of Asian gold and silver trading. Gold gapped up about $10 on the start at 11:30 pm British Summer Time (BST) on Sunday night 1 May 2011. Silver ralled about 30 cents, then ...
I was reading some articles and listening to a podcast. When next I looked at my trading screen I saw a huge drop on the silver chart. I coudn't believe the scale running down the side. From about 48 to 42?!

Gold was down about 20 dollars and SILVER DOWN 6 DOLLARS IN 15 MINUTES!

This occurred from about 23:20 to 23:35 BST. It was basically a vertical drop in silver. Gold rallied a bit and then did another wave down to finish $33 down in the next half an hour while silver 'stabilised' between $42 and $44.
The price changes were (top to bottom from my chart):

Gold:  $1577.51-$1543.67=$33.84 down
Silver: $48.177-$42.152=$6.025 down!

THAT'S ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGEOUS!

Looking at it later, I have labelled the times on the upper left. The vast majority of the smash occurred in 11 minutes between 23:26 and 23:37 British Summer Time on Sunday evening. There is not a single green 30 second candle for the lower $4 of the fall!


Of course, liquidity is probably thin; it's the middle of the night in london and NYC after all. If you look at the latest COT report on http://www.traderdan.net/, Dan Norcini shows that there are a lot of small speculators long at the moment - I guess they will have been wiped out pretty much by this move if leveraged.

If I switch to any other time frame on my live charts, even daily (covering the last 10 months) or weekly charts (going back to 2007), this 15 minute move shows up. The drop looks huge on the daily chart.

Is this why there are no limits up and down for silver now?

% moves:
Silver: -6.025/48.177*100= -12.51% in 15 minutes
Gold: -33.84/1577.51*100= -2.15% in about 40 minutes
Gold:silver ratio at start of move:
1577.51/48.177=32.74


Gold:silver ratio at end of move:
1543.67/42.142=36.63(That will make Bob Hoye happy!)


$ move ratio Au/Ag:
33.84/6.025=5.62 as against actual price ratio of ~35:1


% move ratio, i.e. silver's leverage to gold
6.025/48.177*1577.51/33.84=5.83


Silver moved down nearly 6x as fast as gold.


That's consistent with last Monday's fall of $5 in 24 hours and the last part of the rally just before that fall.


.

Tuesday 26 April 2011

Roger Wiegand intuitive and technical spot on again. 2011-04-26

On Jay Taylor's show last week segment 5 for

http://www.miningstocks.com/radio/jayradio.php ,

Roger Wiegand said that we should be very careful at the $48-51 level for silver because there would likely be a correection on profit taking or an expectation of a top at the old top from 1980 at the $50 level. He said the correction could be $5 or even larger, up to $15. He was correct! As silver spiked up to $49.78 (price quoted by James Turk on Al Korelin's show 25/4/2011 here) this marked a top and there was an almost immediate $3 drop on and A-B-C correction - but there was more follow through and silver was down $5 in a 24 hour period, as shown so clearly on the Kitco multi-coloured 3-day chart (updated version at this link):
Wow! Red day = down day in this case! This drop is more than the entire silver price was 10 years ago. There was a parallel $22+ drop in gold too by the way.

My CMC Markets charts show a drop in gold from $1518.58 to $1492.85, a move of -$25.73 and silver moving from $49.826 to $44.636, a -$5.19 move. The ratio of these in $ terms is 4.96:1 ie 5:1 gold: silver $ move.

To work out the % move ratio (silver had been outperforming gold 6:1 on the upside, we can calculate this easily. It is % silver move / % gold move = 5.19/49.826*1518.58/25.73=6.15. Silver had 6.15x the downside move of gold, as against what I calculated on the upside move last week 6.25:1 in % terms. Silver is leveraged 6:1 vs gold on the upside and downside right now!

Thought for the Day:
I thoroughly recommend the interview with Nicole Foss, one of the most sensible interviewees on financial radio on Jim Puplava's Financial Sense Newshour this Easter weekend. It can be found at:

http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/big-picture/2011/04/23/02/nicole-foss/preparing-for-the-next-tsunami

Title: "Nicole Foss- Preparing for the next Tsunami
The peaking of oil prices and the coming Depression. Resource Wars to follow."

One of her many statements: "I doubt very much that the Chinese Century will look like the American century did. There simply won't be the energy to support it."

Monday 25 April 2011

Leverage of silver to gold getitng insane? 2011-04-25

I listened to Bill Haynes and Dan Norcini on King World News weekly metals wrap this weekend 23 April 2010.
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/4/23_KWN_Weekly_Metals_Wrap.html

Bill Haynes said the market is getting a little frothy looking at the trading at his shop. Also, for every $ invested into gold, $2.50 going into silver at CMI Gold and Silver. He said silver may pop to $50 and then a correction possible.
Dan Norcini mentioned Asian market silver $46.80 gold $1513 Fri morning:
 Bill Haynes said that gold was up nicely but angle on silver is very steep – many waiting for correction not one yet – may drop hard.

Eric King mentioned gold +$18 silver +$3.48 for the week. So the ratio of the move was 5.172:1 on gold:silver in $. That’s 1.2% in gold and 7.4% in silver. That has silver moving 6.25 times as fast as gold over that week!

Compare that to 2 weeks previously: 9th April 2011, gold +$45 silver +$2.87, $ ratio 15.67:1 in $ terms (cf Isaac Newton historic gold:silver ratio) prices were $1475 Au and $42.26 Ag, so silver moved about 2.3x as fast as gold in % terms.
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/4/9_KWN_Weekly_Metals_Wrap.html

So it’s gone to an extreme this week ending 23 April.

Maybe we are in for a sharp correction… Well we got one, silver down $3 on Easter Monday, gold down about $15; gold down only $5 for each $1 in silver ,so the leverage worked the other way! Silver down 3/49.5=6% and gold down 15/1500 = 1%. So silver moved 6x as fast as gold on the downside too!

No wonder many of the gold stocks have been lagging a bit. Maybe people might have been buying silver instead, to get their 2x to 6x leverage to gold!

I have also mentioned in previous posts the Silver Leverage Indicator (SLI) by Roland Watson, which would probably be analogous to the RSI on the silver:gold ratio as used by technical analyst Ross Clark, as silver rises much faster than gold, both the SLI and Ross’ RSI would go into high territory. A high SLI according to Ronald Watson happens near a top, like 1980, 1998 and 2004 for instance, although he uses a kind otrailing or rolling 4 year average for this indicator. That would therefore require Ag:Au % leverage of 2:1 to be sustained for a couple of years before a top was in, I guess.
http://1000gold.blogspot.com/2011/04/comment-on-ross-clarks-analysis-43.html
and

http://1000gold.blogspot.com/2011/04/in-reply-to-howe-street-broadcast-by.html

Thought for the Day:I wonder if the precious metals stocks lagging the physical metals is a kind of backwardation – i.e. people have been buying the metals for delivery now, rather than buying metals in the ground that cannot be delivered yet.

 

Friday 22 April 2011

Silver parabolic move started at $40 a few days ago: 2011-02-22

Silver has started its parabolic move at the price point of $40 a few days ago (see chart). Up to that point the price was still below the original trendline extended from the 10 cents/day rissing trend channel in August/September 2010 that also contained the intermediate top on 2 January 2011. There has been a clear break above this now.



For how long will this continue? It has been in place only for about 7 trading days.

If there is a blow-off move, will that be THE top in silver or just an interim top? And where will the top be? Unless the move breaks quickly, $50 might be reached next week, then what? Such a move could go to 60, 70 or even $100 if this is like the 1979-1980 move.

However, the weekly chart looks scary. We are now 8 months into the breakout above $20 starting at the end of August 2010.


The weekly chart looks a bit alarming and maybe the parabolic move started a bit earlier, maybe 5 or even 13 weeks ago when the 18.9 cents/day trend started after the correction to $26.38.

In the last few days, silver seem to be in a dollar a day trend. Get up, silver goes up 1 dollar, go to bed again. There has to be another correction in there somewhere surely, after 7 consecutive daily white up candles and 5 consecutive weekly up candles!


Be assured, as soon as I put on my next little spreadbet to go long on silver, the correction will start 1 second later!

After watching Jim Sinclair's gold market analysis DVD, I would probably put power uptrends on a silver chart, something like this:


When will it end?

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Comment on Ross Clark's analysis $43 silver $1600+ gold 2011-04-22

I just commented on Ross Clark's latest interview about gold and silver on Howe Street:

http://talkdigitalnetwork.com/2011/04/debt-threats-work/#comment-338

Interesting as always from Ross. However, is there not something of a contradiction between the upside target of $1550-1600 for gold and the $40-43 target for silver that has already been exceeded. Silver is still moving more than twice as fast as gold in % terms. The Kitco chart currently shows $2.70 up in silver and $28 up in gold in the last 3 days, low to high. That's about 10:1 or 11:1 gold:silver in $ terms while the price ratio is still 33:1 ($1505/$45). Silver moving 3x as fast as gold in % terms then!

Though on the S and P's USA debt outlook downgrade, gold and silver spiked up, silver up 60 cents in 7 minutes (as part of 90 cents up in an hour) and gold up $15 in those few minutes too. Silver then took a tumble below the starting point but gold retained a bit of the upmove on the tumble. Ben Davies of Hinde Capital on KWN has spoken of $400 upmove for gold with silver topping near these levels.

However, silver caught up in the last 2 days and is flying AGAIN today on Wednesday!

Interestingly, on Eric King's program weekly metals wrap 2 weekends ago, Eric described a $2.87 weekly move in silver versus a $45 weekly move in gold. Interestingly, the ratio of the gold to silver move is 15.68:1 in $ terms, about the same as the classic Isaac Newton gold:silver ratio under the bimetallic standard and silver's % move being more than twice that of gold, as has been the case for a while.

I also took a look at Silver Leverage Indicator (SLI) articles of Roland Watson, which would probably be analogous to the RSI on the silver:gold ratio, as silver rises much faster than gold, both the SLI and Ross' RSI would go into high territory. A high SLI according to Ronald Watson happens near a top, like 1980, 1998 and 2004 for instance.

However, if a 15:1 ratio of movement continues, you would get the following price combinations of gold and silver on the upside:
$1480/$40 (recently - starting point), $1630/$50, $1780/$60, $1930/$70 and $2080/$80.

So a $1630 target for gold would go with $50 silver unless silver slows down as gold goes up.

We have to consider: What could make that happen? A new Euro debt crisis as Greece's bonds are yielding 13% now? Another debt outlook downgrade of the USA? A stock market downturn? What? Surely the economy needs to take a hit with perhaps the general markets with a flight to gold contuing and silver stalling.

With the same leverage on the downside, a $300 correction in gold to $1180 would take silver back to $25.

However, silver just keeps outperforming gold. Don't you think it will continue to do this until there is a something of a blow off top in both in the next few weeks/months?

Thursday 14 April 2011

Ross Clark's Silver Exhaustion Alert vs Ronald Watson's SLI. - 2011-04-14

In reply to Howe Street Broadcast by Ross Clark this week:

http://www.talkdigitalnetwork.com/2011/04/silver-exhaustion-alert/

I was reading some old articles by Roland Watson who used to write on silver and he had a thing called the Silver Leverage Indicator or SLI. It is based on (or is in acuality) the rate of change of silver divided by the rate of change in gold (in percentage terms I guess). I have noticed that sometimes silver has been moving 3x as fast as gold in % terms when the Au:Ag price ratio was about 40 or 45:1, giving a 12-15:1 dollar price move gold:silver. However, I cannot find a reliable quantitative description of his indicator. but the silver: gold leverage has been very high recently, no doubt.

Interestingly, on Eric King's program weekly metals wrap last weekend, and he described a $2.87 weekly move in silver versus a $45 weekly move in gold. Interestingly, the ratio of the gold to silver move is 15.68:1 in $ terms, about the same as the classic Isaac Newton gold:silver ratio under the bimetallic standard and silver's % move being more than twice that of gold, as has been the case for a while.

I guess the Silver Leverage Indicator of Roland Watson would be analogous to the RSI on the silver:gold ratio, as silver rises much faster than gold, both the SLI and Ross' RSI would go into high territory.

Very interesting stuff:

http://news.silverseek.com/SilverSeek/1174871399.php

Monday 14 March 2011

Praying for the people of Japan. 2011-03-14

At our Church here in England on Sunday we prayed for the people of Japan in their time of crisis. Everyone here is shocked at the tragedy that has occurred there. The English reporter Jon Snow of UK Channel 4, reporting from Sendai said in the evening news that he found the response of the Japanese to their crisis to be impressive, with so many resources and such a high level of discipline among the people. It is the first time that any of us have been able to see what a tsunami really looks like. We could only imagine what happened in the Indonesian/Sumatran tsunami a few years ago but now we have seen it from Japan on our TV and it will not be easy to forget. Many of us who live in regions like England where even tiny earthquakes are rare are now better able to understand the dangers that they cause.

I know that my favourite model Sayuki Matsumoto comes from Mie Prefecture, so I pray that Sayuki and her family and friends are safe. I have for a long time been interested in Japan but, since seeing Sayuki, I have wanted to visit someday the country that can bring into the world such beautiful people as her. One day maybe, but my health is not so great for me to travel far.

If you are in Japan and reading this, you have prayers made for you from me and no doubt millions of other people from all over the world. I hope that those who are skilled to help can also send practical help in whatever way possible.

Tuesday 1 March 2011

Gold and silver may be on the brink of a breakout - 2011-03-01 1757 GMT

it looks like gold and silver may be on the brink of breakout. Gold at 1429 and silver at 34.54. They are making a hard job of it. Lots of congestion with the old gold triple top from late 2010 at 1423.60, 1424.40 and 1430.60 providing resistance. Silver is near its recent high from last Monday night at 34.4 just in a tight trading range not doing anything while gold battles up through the resistance. Gold is tending to rise more than silver at the moment, because silver is treading water at the high.

If they both go on a rocket ride, it would be good to see!

Friday 25 February 2011

Completion of a ABC correction in silver and gold? 2011-02-25

Well it’s 11:04 GMT London time on 2011-02-25 Friday. It’s been an interesting week of contradictory silver and gold action. They made a high Monday night and silver took a $2 fall. Tuesday, silver made an almost perfect bullish pennant pattern and there was no breakout. The price line just ran out of the apex of the pennant after hugging the upper line looking ready to break out. Gold meanwhile was on the lower line of its pennant. Both climbed on Wednesday but silver without any conviction. Gold went to a higher high, silver drifted about.
The silver pennant seemed to have been morphing into a possible ABC correction with the C-leg to come but gold was still making higher highs.
Gold was stronger than silver, maybe on Libya news and the crude oil spike to over $100 in the WTIC contract.
Then Thursday night/Friday morning came the C-wave down, a magnificent clearout perhaps.
After this, silver is now slightly stronger than gold. My suspicion is that we might get the completion of a C-wave down in gold to one lower low and a higher low in silver to confirm the C-wave bottom. I am going to see if I am correct. In 2 hours time it ay be clear.
All kinds of Elliott Wave patterns were possible during this correction of 3 day duration and it was impossible to call but perhaps it has been resolved now…
However, maybe not! Taking another look at 11:22 GMT I wonder if gold has actually had its ABC correction in the move last night from the highs of yesterday morning. If so, then gold and silver are already in phase. I rather fancy a good move up but could be completely wrong.
It will be fascinating to see what happens when the COMEX opens.
Wow, as a novice trader I can see how much you need to study the markets to succeed. Maybe I should go back to coin collecting!

Footnote, Friday night. Silver has had a slow and choppy upmove, a snall one, with the classic Jim Sinclair "Swiss Stairs" formaiton late on Friday. Could this be the start of a new rally. Wait and see...

I thoroughly recommend listening to Ross Clark's technical analysis of gold and silver on www.howestreet.com here:

http://talkdigitalnetwork.com/2011/02/metals-tracking-historical/#comment-64

with his charts too:
http://talkdigitalnetwork.com/files/2011/02/HoweStreet-Gold-Silver-022111_rossclark.pdf

and also his other interviews and charts this year, all lined from:

http://talkdigitalnetwork.com/author/rossclark/

Listening to all three over this weekend might prepare you for next week, if he is correct in his analysis.

Absolutely excellent! Ross is technical analyst to Bob Hoye who also gives fascinating insights every week in his interviews on the same website.

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Correction and bullish flag in silver all in one day? 2011-02-22

Fabulous correction in silver today! A $2 correction and what might be a bullish flag or triangle with apex at $33. As I write at 2:00, the apex os the triange is 3.5 hours away according to my chart (that would be 23:30 GMT london time). Will we get a breakout or what? It could have done enother leg down earlier to do a Fibonacci 38.2% or 50% correction of the breakout from the Christmas high of $31, but it didn't. Instead we got a flag pattern. Wouldn't it be amazing if this entire correction and flag formation happens in only a single day?

I sent the above message to Aland Roger at http://www.kereport.com/
at:
http://www.kereport.com/2011/02/22/trader-rog-markets-incorporates-situational-alert

I just looked at my charts again. The silver price is right on the upper line near the apex of the flag triangle pattern.

The apex prices at the midlines of the triangles/flags for silver and gold would be $33.005 and $1402 respectively.

Can't wait!

As I close off this message, silver is off a couple of cents. It is actually sliding right down the upper trendline of the flag! "Sliding down the razorblade of life," as Tom Lehrer said in one of his infamous satirical songs.

Sunday 20 February 2011

Just a personal opinion. My call on silver. 2011-02-21 2:54 am GMT

I think silver is going to make a Three White Soldiers candlestick pattern and go into a power uptrend on this breaout from $31. So I thought that this Monday 21/2/2011 will be the third white doldier and will breakout form the trend channel that has formed on the rally that took the price back to $31 after the correction from $31 to $26.

I have reasons for this and will try to post some charts later if anyone is interested!

My call on silver is that it will go to $50 by the end of May, in fact probably sooner. The current rally from $6 to 31 has been at a rate of 18.9 cents per day, just short of the 20c needed to get the price to $50 in about 100 days that remain until the end of May.

The start of the rally from $20 to $30 (in fact the entire rally) was an uptrend that had a rate of 10 cents per day. It took about 120 days from 24th August 2010 until thenend of 2010 to get the price from about $18 to $31. After the correction to $26.40, the recovery rally has been in a tight trend channel (like the start of the $20-$30 rally) but steeper than the first rally. Now we may be seeing the start of a power uptrend as Jim Sinclair call it, and what better time to start a power uptrend than on the breakout from the previous 30-year high of $31?

Do your own due diligence! No advice is meant or implied by this blog. I have a long position in physical silver and am excited about it right now.

Wednesday 9 February 2011

Tullow Oil Interesting New Breakout and Chart: 2011-02-09

Tullow Oil has recently broken out of its funk of the year 2010 when it went nowhere.

It recently broke out to 1400p in the last couple of weeks. This is interesting because this is a breakout above a previous high of a year ago at about 1360p and a possible breakout from what looks like an inverted Head and Shoulders pattern lasting a year. These charts are bring placed here to test whether this kind of technical / visual analysis works. The price target from the new chart is 1645p.

New chart 2011-02-09 for Tullow Oil (TLW.L on the London Stock Exchange):

My previous charts make an interesting comparison because I had a target of 1620 as far back as 2009 with interim targets of 1220 and 1280 that were both reached and exceeded before the price retreated into a trading range until now. Here is the first H+S from 2008-2009:

Once the 1280 target was exceeded, the chart looked toppy:

and went into a trading range for a year, forming the new potential H+S pattern as it went.

This longer term chart combines the others and shows the positions of the two inverted H+S patterns:

I sold some Tullow shares at a profit while they were in the trading range but retained half of my position (which was bought by my father at about 624p). It will be interesting to see if the 1620/1645 targets are achieved in the near future. It is strange because this apparent breakout is happening despite the bad news coming out of some North African countries, or perhaps because of it - or perhaps the Egypt political siruation has had no effect and it is all about Tullow itself!

If this 1600+ target is reached soon, then it will be a valuable lesson to me to have some belief in my chart analysis to have have more patience, to wait for targets to be achieved or at least to continue to watch assets of interest that I have charted before.

This posting is merely a market observation and is not in any way to be construed as financial advice and is not a solicitation to buy or sell any financial instrument at any time.

Monday 17 January 2011

Possible Head & Shoulders top in gold ... and the Euro? - 2011-01-17

OK, here are a couple of charts, firstly of a piddly Head and Shoulders top in gold that is being made a meal of by some analysts and also of a bigger H+S top in the Euro, which has a potential target similar to Roger Wiegand's commentary on:
http://www.kereport.com/2011/01/14/media-news-gold/
entitled Media, the News and Gold.

Gold has a tiny H+S top at the moment; the target may be around $1283, perhaps? That would still be above the June high of 1265, so not even a test of the breakout point. This H+S is piddly. It's only a 1 month or 5 week formation and a $1283 target would probably take the price about to the 200 day moving average. The price isn't that far from the rising 200 dma already and the 50 dma is still rising (just)::

Although the daily gold chart looks a bit like a rollover in price, you can hardly see it on the weekly chart. In fact, a 1283 target would take you about to the 40 week moving average on this weekly chart:

The weekly Euro chart on stockcharts looks a lot like a Head and Shoulders top with a target of about 1.171. A slightly upward sloping H&S topping pattern but target is close to what Roger Weigand mentioned at $1.185. This is a 6-7 month formation since June last year. The target would be a lower low confirming the 2+ year downtrend in the €:$ exchange rate. Actually, the right shoulder would only just be forming from the last large white up candlestick following the large red down candlestick:

This H+S looks a bit different on the daily chart. Again, it seems that the right shoulder is only just forming, so the pattern is not complete. Drawing the neckine a bit higher, that neckline is at about 1.30, a important level in the Euro from years ago (around 2004 when the Euro was $1.30 and gold was in the $400s) and that pattern has already been aborted so it seems. However, there is quote a pronounced head and shoulders look to the whole formation and James Dines calls this 'visual analysis' rather than technical analysis after all:

Blowing a silver trumpet - review of silver 2010 - 2011-01-16

Well, I am quite proud of my silver $30 target as suggested in

Inverted Head & Shoulders in silver: Target $30? 2010-10-17 . 

The chart was this one:


Now for a look at today's chart (daily ticks) coutesy http://www.stockcharts.com/ .


What happens next?

"I have absolutely no idea!" as Doc Morrisey used to say in the wonderful 1970s comedy series 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWpVJU1K2-c

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Carlos Slim richest man and silver / Fresnillo rumour re-hashed, again! 2010-01-04

Wow, talk about old news! I was a bit disappointed when I read about this on the King World News (KWN) blog and then did a google search to see if it was new stuff.

A quick google search shows that this Slim/Fresnillo thing looks like an old chestnut going back to May 2010 ... or even August 2007!

Silver bugs will have to do better than that! It sounds like desperate hype.

Pity. I was thinking about buying some Fresnillo, though I think it might be getting late given the doubling in the last few months. All that upside missed!
Now I am having second thoughts and undecided, feeling a little suspicious of hype, hype, hype.

I have been fascinated by King World News since it started around May 2009 and I think I have listened to every single interview by Eric King on his website. He does get very enthusiastic on gold and silver but I think he overdid it a bit on this one. He has had some brilliant interviews on there over the last year and a half: Michael Berry, Felix Zulauf and, this week for the first time, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital, as well as resource industry stars such as Rob McEwen, Pierre Lassonde and Sean Boyd and great commentators such as Rob Arnott, Chris Whalen, Bill Fleckenstein, etc., etc., "the top people in the world" as Eric audaciously announces in his outro. That always makes me smile. He gets some truly excellent scoops but this one might be a bit of a scoop of something else.

Latest hype:
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/1/3_Is_the_Worlds_Richest_Man_Getting_Into_Silver.html
,
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/1/4_KWN_-_Worlds_Richest_Man_Entering_Silver_Gaining_Momentum.html
,
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/worlds-richest-man-carlos-slim-entering-silver-fray

Not exactly a scoop when the UK Daily Mail newspaper reported it 8 months ago! A few seconds of research was sufficient to find this!

Carlos Slim to dig deep for Fresnillo
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1273418/Carlos-Slim-dig-deep-Fresnillo.html#ixzz1A6YZeoDO
Mail Online 5 May 2010 ... Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, the world's richest individual, ... busy running the slide rule over Fresnillo, the world's largest silver producer.
By Geoff Foster
Last updated at 10:36 PM on 5th May 2010
"Rumours that a cash bid in the region of £8.6bn or £12 a share could soon be tabled helped the shares jump 43.5p to 807p."

Or try this old rumour from 2007:
Why the silver price is set to soar Aug 09, 2007
http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/precious-metals-and-gems/why-the-silver-price-is-set-to-soar.aspx
"If only a tiny fraction of these millionaires, ultra-HNWIs and billionaires decided to diversify out of their extensive property and stock portfolios and invest even a very small amount of their portfolios in silver it would result in the silver price increasing in price exponentially."
... Blah blah blah, Meaningless drivel.

Rumours, rumours. Now the Fresnillo share price is 1682p according to Yahoo Finance UK on 4 Jan 2011. (Update: since this article, the shares have dropped to 1,339 as of 21 January 2011 at 13:38 approximately. According to Yahoo, the 52 week high was 1768.)

Would not Mr. Slim have done better to deploy his billions in 2008 with silver at $9 or even in 2010 with Fresnillo at 8 quid instead of now at 16 quid in January 2011?!

Do your own due diligence! I'm sure Carlos Slim has. He didn't become a billionaire by following loose talk on blogs, even on the FT, which ought to know better.

I am rather disaapointed in King World News for pushing this one. The FT blog participation is a bit shocking but it shows that the FT blog appears to be merely a rumour mill with no credibility. I also note that none of those who replied to the zerohedge post had even bothered to do the 25 seconds of due diligence necessary to see that the story is up to 3 years of age!

Sometimes, I wonder why the always interesting Bob Hoye of Institutional Advisors who is a regular on http://www.howestreet.com/ makes so much fun of silver bugs. I think I may be beginning to realise the reason!