Here's a video from the World Resource Investment Conference 2013 in Vancouver

May 26 and 27

Are the markets telling us how close to the bear's bottom are we now?

Over the past several months I took a break from posting in the midst of the negative throng.

I'm back.

I am interested in the gold cycle as you know and all I saw was the inexorable gringing away of resource valuation and the legion of complaints about that situation.  The wide accusations of manipulation is but a single story line from a blame-oriented position.  I find that argument useless.  Everyone tries to manipulate what they think they control—that should be obvious.  The ones who think they control things are trying to—duh!

If you were in their position isn't that what you would do?   That is: try and protect what you have spent your whole life in.

But the truth is the harder they try and maintain their situation the deeper they have to go and at some point they will hit bottom.  They know this.  They are planning for it.  They will place themselves in position to remain wealthy and in control.  So the cyclical bear will turn—when they are ready.  Cry and whine as many do they should be paying very close attention.

This bear promises to make many wealthy people—especially those who already are.  But don't get caught in the rear-view morror on this one.  The whining is a trailing indicator that you are missing out—Don't!

On watch:

G


Here's a nice review of our accumulated circumstances in markets.  It kinda puts the present 'hope and fear cycle" into our time line.

Equities, miners nearing major turning points

In recent weeks we’ve written about the decoupling or negative correlation between the equity market and mining equities. As the miners take a hard turn lower and the S&P 500 continues higher, this current trend is all the more obvious. At the same time, commodity prices have been in a cyclical bear and have struggled to gain traction. Our forecast for 2013 is for these cyclical trends to shift. It won’t happen instantly but it will slowly evolve in the coming months and quarters. Today, we see that the equity market is ever closer to that cyclical top, miners are about to retest a major bottom and hard assets have a new catalyst.
 
First let us take a look at the miners. From top to bottom we plot GDX, GDXJ (larger juniors) and SIL (silver miners). It doesn’t take a technician to see where these markets are headed in the coming days. GDX will test $40, GDXJ will test $17 and SIL will test $19.50 and perhaps $17.



As we pen this, the S&P 500 is trading at 1501 and faces very strong 13-year resistance at 1550 as well as the all-time high at 1576. Look at the chart below. Does this look like a market you want to buy? How in the world will the market break past 13-year resistance, much less even sustain a breakout move after a four-year rally?



Nevertheless, the typical Wall Street cheerleaders, I mean strategists are predicting the usual 10-15% advance and are justifying that with the belief that the economy will strengthen and valuations will pick up. I guess they forgot that margins are at record highs and therefore corporate earnings have likely peaked. At the same time, the typical trader has hopped on board the trend yet can’t rationalize his long position beyond the idea that “it’s going up.” I guess they forgot about the ominous economic headwinds, stagnant earnings and the blatantly obvious massive resistance at 1550.

Beyond the technicals, one should see that sentiment is arguing for caution...

Read full article here.

So how well has gold performed over the past 5 years?

Pretty good.

I still remember that top investors all saw gold as having no value.  Well it certainly never LOST value out performing all the other asset classes.   Maybe that's what they meant?

=)

G

DISASTER WATCH: Oh This VACANT SUMMER

It's like they're all on vacation and the pot was left on the stove and has gone dry... meltdown coming IMO

The market is losing its (partici)pants.  The masters of the equity universe are leaving the building.  Methinks they've gone too fr driving everyone from the game.

Is it too late for gold with big bad Bernake's helicopter without fuel?

G

More to come.

YIKES!—Bill Gross joins the 'Stocks are Dead' Club—is the end near?

As I said—YIKES!

G

After the the " Flash Crash", MF Global Theft, and today's recent market glitch. It's no surprise that many are abandoning the market in droves. We been witnessing this for years which is apparent by the anemic market volume. The below article is about Bill gross joining the stocks are dead club. There is very little confidence left or people with jobs to be participants, retail has been dead for years. All that there is now is institutions and hedgies with black box algo systems, so this is the new normal. Sad days indeed.

I personally have been still trying to find the bulls in this whacky market and ACI JAG are a few of recent, but as I told much of you over the years, take the profits out of the stocks and put them into something real. The financial cliff is approaching and I wouldn't want to be holding paper when it hits.

-by TheInvisibleHand
-----------------------------------

Bill Gross Is Latest to Join 'Stocks Are Dead' Club

By Jeff Cox | CNBC – Tue, Jul 31, 2012 1:11 PM EDT

Stocks will no longer generate the kinds of returns they've had over the past century, ending the "cult of equity" that has been Wall Street's mantra for generations, Bill Gross, managing director at bond giant Pimco, says in his monthly market analysis.

He also predicts the stock market's consistent annual return will be reduced to a "historical freak" that will never be repeated.

Read more here

Investing Legend Quits the Markets as it Continues to Destroy Itself

Nasty day today!

Clearly, the powers-that-be are losing it.  Legends are leaving not just electing to stand on the sidelines.

How soon will 'they' let gold run?  Are they ready yet?  It looks to me that we do not have long to wait.

Funny money is getting a 'black-humor' quality while gold remains cheap in the face of growing cracks in the monetary systems machines.

G

First article:

Investing Legend Louis Bacon Has Had Enough Of Algos And Central Planners, Calls It Quits

Markets are toast as Louis Bacon plans to give back 25% of his fund to investors as "liqudity and opportunities have become more constrained." As Bloomberg notes, Bacon is struggling to make money in his typically macroeconomic trend exploiting fund as "the risk on / risk off environment appears to be an abiding presence that has keep engagement low." Macro funds lost an average of 1.3 percent in the first six months of the year. Bacon, pointed out that "Markets are increasingly distorted by central banks’ attempts to squeeze drops of growth from an over-indebted private sector across much of the developed world." The U.S. markets are hindered by "a caustic political environment and an anti-business administration," he said.

U.S. banks have retreated from making markets in many securities because of the Dodd-Frank legislation, which limits them from trading for their own accounts. Bacon added that 'in some Kafkaesque absurdity,' the rule is "named after the two high protectors from regulatory oversight of perhaps the most egregious of U.S. financial miscreants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

Bacon pulls no punches as he goes after inept regulators in Europe and the US, and describes the state of affairs as "Disaster Economics, where assets are valued based on their ability to withstand a lurking disaster as opposed to...

Read full article in Zerohedge here. 


Second article:

Algorithm — The Madness in the Machine

 With this kind of brainlessness allowed in the markets it's no surprize that so many are out of the markets where the machines play!

Broken Market Chronicles: Algos Gone Autosell Wild - Video Explanation Of What Happened

Still scratching your head over what happened this morning (this would be everyone at the SEC but not their porn webstream vendors - even they by now realize just how broken the market is)? Don't be - courtesy of Dennis Dick and Premarket Info, here is a 20 minute video explanation parsing the tape and showing precisely what happened that impacted nearly 150 stocks.

Read more here

The Coming 'Great Gold Pivot' and the New Fiat System

Note: This has been extensively rewritten having distilled the essence of my thinking from the 'rant' of the previous version. —G
 

As I, like the rest of most of my friends, gape in fearful wonder at the financial drought and critical damage to the world's exchangeable currencies caused by the manipulative greed of those who own and operate it, I have cause to look deeper into the potential of little moves which may fell the monster.

I see a scenario emerging where the top 1% can be seen, through market behavior, manipulating the markets to retain (and increase) their wealth and power.  This is not unusual and were I in that position I would, if my existence revolved around wealth and power, be predisposed to do the same. 

Caught in this cycle of planetary change they probably see their danger.  With severely damaged economies shrinking the foundation and extendability of their ascendancy they must be seeing gold's historic behavior as a raft in the storm—like everyone else is.

Unlike everyone though they have benefited greatly from the fiat system which can be seen in the massive gap between their wealth and everyone else.  I believe they are in the process of positioning themselves to use gold and their trading power to use gold as a 'pivot' to migrate their wealth over the inflation abyss and into a revitalized fiat with shrunken debt. 

However, there may be blindness in the unbridled self-interest leaving them with limited vision and the danger of entitlement.  It is that group that has essentially generated the present condition.  I do not see an evil conspiracy rather a shared myopia of political and economic leadership caught in this clear cycle of planetary redefinition.

Though we may want to believe we are above natural law nothing could be further from the truth.  Human beings have never be separate from nature.  As such the larger movements of change are natural.  As with any cycle what was a the top will tend to be on the bottom.  The 'best' are predisposed to clutching to the view of their ascendancy of course.

The beginning of the 'Great Gold Pivot' can be seen in the trading behavior of gold.  Revealed in extended sideways trading gold-price manipulation, holding the price of gold and other precious metals in a range that benefits accumulation.  This I see as the transfer of wealth in preparation for the use of gold and other precious metals as the pivot. 

However, the pivot itself may be in great danger of falling flat with so much attention being given it. The spike may both look different this time especially if there is so little participation by the much much larger group of the relatively unwealthy and unpowerful.

Why?  Because the relatively unwealthy and unpowerful may be in the process of changing the game right under the feet of those who at present hold the board.

Historically the 'board' has consisted of a set of positions held by the 1% actively limiting participation of the 'great unwashed masses'.  But things are different now.  The board's positions are losing relevance to a world of people that communicates freely amongst themselves without effective censorship on the web.  But it is also knowledge and information that flow freely which greatly diminish the potency of the tools of the 1%.  Indeed this has also resulted in the machinations of the manipulators being unmasked more effectively and in real time which, coupled with the previous points, reveal the true shift in power away from the traditional powers.

Thus the stage is set for what may be both a diminished gold bull cycle and a new system of monetary exchange ripped from the grasp of divide-and-conquer's traditional masters

The core thread of the whole theme is exchangeable value and who controls it.  Gold has historically been the ultimate store of value because everyone thinks it is.  But the thinking is changing as the 'masses' perception of money's present masters' activity rises to general awareness.

It is very important to understand it is people who have always determined value.  But up to now that determination has been utterly manipulated.  

The idea of fiat currency is actually quite functional much more so than gold.  The only problem with the fiat system is that it has been controlled and manipuated by 'special' self-interest groups.  This is now revealed as problematic for emerging planetary society as it continues to move towards democratic management—political and otherwise.

Is there a system, a currency system that has the potential to cut the shackles of the powerful moneyed tribes?

Yes there is: Bitcoin

This or something similar is the little stone that could be the path of the changing economic reality.

Begin your research and add your mind to the change for the better which our world needs now.

G

PS  Here is a video, article and links for Bitcoin.

      Video: Bitcoin & The End of State-Controlled Money — http://t.co/E6LFeFi8

      Start looking into this and be prepared to be safe from the falling giants. —G