A bear market and high rates of inflation have many people wondering if the country is heading toward another recession. When a recession hits, there’s a decline in economic activity that continues for several months. Sales, income, employment and production all tend to drop during a recession. Even if the idea of a recession has […]
We know that people are concerned about precious metals investing in their self-directed IRA due to the recent selloff in metals and commodities in general. It’s easy to get concerned when you see corrections all the way to the mid-1500s for gold. But, you have to ask yourself why would gold suddenly just fall out […]
No one has a crystal ball and no one is 100% accurate in trying to predict the US economy. However, as wrong as people may be at a detailed level, its not too hard to see larger, more macro trends with some good level of predictability and accuracy. As such, we are seeing 2013 as […]
We wanted to take a moment and provide some insight o what is happening with our self directed IRA account activity. As of November 2012 we have funded more than $464M in self directed IRA deals. Below is a graph that give you a good idea of what the activity level looks like. The significance […]
Recently my bank started issuing $50 and $100 bills from the ATM machine. Every time I go to a store or restaurant to spend one these crisp bills, the clerk or the waiter either holds the bills up and scrutinize them like they are analyzing a diamond, or they call over a manager who is […]
There is another, pronounced trend taking place in the metals markets. There appears to be a significant shift to holding physical gold. As evidence of this trend, we refer you to the chart below which shows the yearly net change in demand for physical gold versus the amount of demand for holding paper gold via […]
The World Gold Council just released their Q3-2012 Gold update. We thought that we would review some of the highlights. Q3 Summary Gold (US$/oz) returned 11.1% in the third quarter as investors responded to further central bank measures aimed at stimulating the economy. Volatility decreased during the period, with gold prices experiencing little movement in […]
Wholesale inflation shows that prices increased by 4.7% for energy related goods and 0.2% for food. That is a total of 4.9% annual increase in the price of energy and foods. Core inflation (what the good ‘ol Fed and government uses) shows around 2.3%. What does this mean? What these numbers reflect is: 1. Inflation […]
The Sept 2012 jobs numbers came out and shows a decline in unemployment to 7.8% — down from 8.1%. Really? Does this seem plausible. The net number of new jobs created was 114,000. That is a very low, weak number and is not even enough to maintain steady state for the overall economy. So what’s […]
We contend that inflation is not in check and is not within reasonable boundaries. […]
As we have mentioned before copper prices reflects the future expectation of of consumer demand. Consumer demand comprises 2/3rd of the GDP. Copper is a major metal used in numerous consumer goods and related services. The current price pattern for copper is showing a head and shoulders pattern. Without getting too technical, this basically is […]
In the June 18 meeting of the Fed ad FDIC they reviewed what are known as the Basel III standards for Banks. As a result of that meeting, the following key points were established: 1. Tier 1 assets, for banks, are the safest assets that a bank can hold in reserve 2. Gold is defined […]