Win or lose, you will always be a winner with these gold plated playing cards with a 24ct stamp on the back. It comes complete with a full deck but you might want to frisk your friends before they make an exit.
China Buys Alaskan Gold, Eurozone Faces Heavy Re-Financing in July
THE PRICE OF GOLD was little changed overnight in Asia and early Monday in London trade, holding within 0.5% of last week’s all-time Dollar high as Tokyo stocks slipped but European share crept higher.
The MSCI index of world equities lost 3.5% last week in Dollar terms. Spot gold prices dropped $1 per ounce to $1256.
Crude oil and energy prices today ticked back from Friday’s surge, but overall commodity markets were little changed, with silver prices also flat.
“August gold futures matched Friday’s high of $1259.50 overnight,” notes a London analyst.
The gold price in Euros rose towards last Friday’s two-week high at €32,800 per kilo, as the Euro held flat near $1.2350.
New data today showed broad M3 money supply shrinking in May for the fourth month running across the 16-nation currency zone.
The Japanese Yen was also steady at ¥89 per Dollar on news that sales by large Japanese retail stores sank 4.0% last month from April.
Gold priced in Yen ticked higher to €3624 per gram, some 3.5% below mid-May’s new 27-year high.
“Trading has slowed to pedestrian pace,” says one Hong Kong dealer today.
Consumer gold demand across Asia and particularly the Indian sub-continent tends to flag over the summer, rising again as the autumn Diwali festival approaches.
But “Imports [to India] might be 75% less than June last year because of the high prices,” says Suresh Hundia, head of the Bombay Bullion Association.
“If gold prices go up further, then we might see a steep rise in recycling,” reckons Shrikant Zaveri, chairman of Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri, the oldest gold jewelry retailer in India – the world’s No.1 private consumer market for gold.
“We have seen a little shift in the buying pattern toward gold coins and bullion. That might probably continue.”
On the geopolitical front this weekend, “Serious challenges remain,” said the government leaders meeting at the G20 summit in Toronto yesterday.
“We are going to avoid [the 1930s'] mistake” of withdrawing stimulus before the economy heals, added US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner. But he agreed to the G20′s joint vow to “deliver fiscal sustainability”, specifically aiming to halve each nation’s budget deficit by 2013 and reducing outstanding debt by 2016.
Following last month’s €110 billion rescue package, Greece said today it will return to the bond market in July with a €4 billion debt issue.
Spain must finance a cash deficit next month of perhaps €15bn, as well as €24.7bn in redemptions on existing bonds, says analyst Javier Pérez de Azpillaga at Goldman Sachs.
This coming Thursday marks the end of the European Central Bank’s “long-term refinancing operation” for Eurozone banks, with perhaps €70bn of liquidity expiring completely according to Luca Cazzulani at Unicredit.
Analysts at Barclays Capital reckon that Spanish, Irish and some Italian banks have become most dependent on ECB finance since 2007.
“For swingeing budget cuts to work in countries like Greece, Ireland and Spain, policymakers need to retain the confidence of the people,” says Steve Barrow, chief currency strategist at Standard Bank.
“Right now, they seem to be losing this confidence, especially in Greece [where] strikes are a very regular occurrence [and] we have seen violence as well.
“Electorate discontent and political change are likely to feed the deep scepticism that exists in the [bond and currency] market.”
At the central-bank level, “Central bankers have to think in the long term as custodians of national wealth,” says Rhona O’Connell of GFMS Analytics, writing at MineWeb.
Noting last week’s UBS survey results – which said 1-in-4 reserve managers now favors gold as the “most important” asset of the next 25 years – “the shifting tides in sentiment are informed by increased concern over fiscal imbalances, currency dislocations and sovereign risk, all of which have escalated over the past eighteen months,” O’Connell says.
Last Thursday, gold-and-silver miner Coeur d’Alene said that China is buying and processing production from the company’s new Kensington Gold Mine in Alaska.
State-corporation China National Gold – the No.1 gold miner in what it now the world’s No.1 gold mining nation – will process ore delivered from Kensington in the first such deal between the People’s Republic of China and a US precious metals mine.
Adrian Ash
BullionVault
Gold price chart, no delay | Buy gold online at live prices
Formerly City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and head of editorial at the UK’s leading financial advisory for private investors, Adrian Ash is the editor of Gold News and head of research at BullionVault – winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Innovation, 2009 – where you can buy gold today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.
(c) BullionVault 2010
Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.
THE PRICE OF GOLD held tight vs. a rising US Dollar on London’s wholesale market early Tuesday, trading back down from $1240 to last night’s two-session low of $1232 an ounce.
World stock markets caught up with Wall Street’s late fall, and commodity markets also fell.
Crude oil lost 1.5% to $76.60 per barrel.
“Gold’s price action [on Monday] was quite bearish,” says the latest technical analysis from Scotia Mocatta.
The bullion bank notes how the Dollar gold price yesterday recorded “an outside day” on its candle-stick chart, starting above Friday’s finish but ending beneath Friday’s low.
Also spotting “key reversals in riskier assets such as the Euro and the S&P500,” today’s market-note from Japanese metals conglomerate Mitsui agrees that “the yellow metal [could have] put in a short-term top.”
“We could be forming a topping pattern but…it is early days and nowhere near formed yet,” says Phil Smith at Reuters Technical in Beijing.
The People’s Bank of China today acted on its weekend promise of “greater flexibility” in the Chinese Yuan, raising its target exchange rate to the Dollar by 0.2%.
Gold priced in Yuan slipped to a 1-week low beneath CNY 270 per gram, almost 2% below Friday’s new all-time record.
The US Dollar meantime pushed both the Euro and Sterling down to 1-week lows on the currency market.
UK and Eurozone investors wanting to buy gold today saw the price recover one-third of Monday’s 1.9% drop, trading at £842 and €1008 per ounce respectively.
“The World Cup, Wimbledon and the emergency budget…Market professionals have plenty of excuses to sit on the sidelines at the moment – and they are taking it,” says the FT‘s Alpha blog, noting that London’s most actively traded stock on Tuesday morning was Stanelco, “a sub-penny share bioplastics group that recently had to go cap in hand to its shareholders for a cash injection.”
Ahead of the weekend’s G20 meeting in Toronto, Tuesday meantime brought the UK’s new coalition government’s emergency budget, plus the start of the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting on US monetary policy.
“With most analysts focused on the first rate hike coming in the first or second quarter of 2011, it is not going to be too long before the wording changes,” says Steven Barrow, chief currency strategist at Standard Bank in London.
Holding US interest rates below 0.25% for the last 18 months – and driving the real rate of interest 2% below zero after inflation – the Fed has repeatedly vowed to keep rates “exceptionally low…for an extended period.”
“Not only do we think that the euro zone debt crisis can help keep yields low on a global basis,” says Standard Bank’s Barrow, “but the US economic data is looking the worse for wear right now – and that too could mean lower rates for longer.”
Formerly City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and head of editorial at the UK’s leading financial advisory for private investors, Adrian Ash is the editor of Gold News and head of research at BullionVault – winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Innovation, 2009 – where you can buy gold today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.
Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.
THE PRICE OF WHOLESALE gold bullion rose to a second all-time high vs. the Dollar in two days overnight Monday, touching $1265 an ounce as world stock markets rose sharply on China’s weekend promise to “enhance [the] exchange rate flexibility” of its Yuan.
The AM Gold Fix in London was set at $1259.50 an ounce, some 13% higher for 2010 to date.
“Pull backs [in gold] should be shallow,” says one London dealer.
“Whenever the metal reaches new highs, we might see some profit-taking and producer selling,” agrees Walter de Wet at Standard Bank.
“[But] with gold above $1250, we believe the path is now set for the metal to test $1280.”
Over in the bond market on Monday, German and US government debt slipped in price as equities rose, nudging 10-year yields up to 2.75% ad 3.28% respectively.
The Euro held near its best Dollar rate in 4 weeks around $1.24.
Sterling touched a new 6-week high of $1.49, pushing the price for UK investors wanting to buy gold back below £850 an ounce by lunchtime in London.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng stock index closed the day 3.0% higher, and Tokyo’s Nikkei added 2.4%, as traders reacted to Saturday’s news from Beijing, the timing of which “is hardly accidental” according to Stephanie Flanders, the BBC’s chief economics correspondent.
This week brings the G20 meeting of leading economy politicians in Toronto. The People’s Bank – the world’s No.1 central bank by currency reserves, and the fifth largest gold holder –has been accused by US politicians of unfairly holding the Yuan too low so as to steal export share from other nations.
The PBoC has yet to say what “flexibility” will mean.
Last week also brought news that Saudi Arabia’s official gold reserves are twice the level previously announced, rising to 14th in the league table of sovereign-state central bank hoards at 323 tonnes.
“The official sector will be a net buyer of gold this year,” reckons UBS precious metals strategist Edel Tully.
“If there is any theme to the bullion rush, it is fear that the global currency system is unravelling,” says Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph.
“Or, put another way, gold itself is reclaiming its historic role as the ultimate safe haven and benchmark currency.”
The volume of gold needed to back shares in the SPDR Gold Trust ETF crept one tonne higher last week to a new record of 1307 tonnes.
New data, released after Friday’s close, showed the speculative position in New York gold futures and options rising but remaining well-below record levels in the week to last Tuesday.
Equivalent to 984 tonnes of gold bullion, the leveraged “net long” position held in Comex derivatives by hedge funds and other non-industry players hit an all-time peak of 1021 tonnes in Oct. 2009.
“Gold has once more returned to its true role – the ultimate safe haven,” says the latest Fortis Bank Nederlands Metals Monthly, produced by London consultancy the VM Group.
“That won’t change until three factors coalesce,” it says, pointing to individual governments dealing with their debt issues “effectively and in unanimity”, plus a firm US economic recovery, and proof that emerging-market growth – “China especially – is not going to be derailed.”
Formerly City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and head of editorial at the UK’s leading financial advisory for private investors, Adrian Ash is the editor of Gold News and head of research at BullionVault – winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Innovation, 2009 – where you can buy gold today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.
Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.
The World Land Trust (WLT) elephant has been designed by SHO Fine Jewellery in partnership with Swarovski to produce what is expected to be one of the most glamorous and eye catching elephants of the parade. Named the Pearly Prince, the elephant features a different design on each side. One half is covered in Swarovski crystal pearls with the other side showing a pearl and crystal encrusted skeleton, symbolising what may be the fate of the Asian elephants if action is not taken to protect their threatened habitats. It is the only elephant in the parade with tusks and features 11,000 Swarovski pearls and 13,000 crystals and took 480 hours to create. Wow, talk about bespoke with luxury for a wonderful cause. You can see this magnificent elephant at Coutts & Co. Watch the making of the Pearly Prince here.
In aid of the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK, Goldgenie teamed up with the Bobby Moore Foundation and Stephanie Moore to create a limited edition Bobby Moore Signature iPod Touch range. The launch of this event was held at the Micro Anvika in Harrods, London with the support of top Premier League footballers Carlton Cole, Sol Campbell and friends. 10% of the selling price of each signature range Gold iPod will be paid to Cancer Research U.K Trading, which gives its taxable profits to Cancer Research U.K (registered charity no. 1089464) for its work in relation to bowel cancer.
THE PRICE OF GOLD jumped to new record highs for Dollar investors on Friday morning, peeping through the “resistance” identified by several bank analysts at last week’s peak of $1254 an ounce.
European stock markets held flat but emerging Asia ended the week 3.6% higher – the best showing of 2010 so far.
Commodity prices fell, with US crude oil contracts losing 1% to $75 per barrel.
G7 government bonds slipped in early trade, nudging interest rates higher.
“The direction of official [government] policy looks inflationary, but the economic fundamentals look deflationary,” says Phillip Coggan’s Buttonwood column in today’s Economist magazine.
“Faced with this dichotomy, investors who buy both Treasury bonds and gold are not displaying cognitive dissonance. They are just hedging their bets.”
“Given the possibility of a further decrease in the Dollar, it is risky for [Asian central banks] to depend heavily on US Treasuries,” says veteran gold trader Bruce Ikemizu at Standard Bank in Tokyo.
“Gold may be their best option as it is nobody’s liability,” he tells Bloomberg.
Last night’s new all-time record close in US Dollars encouraged “fresh positions looking for the break higher” in gold says one London dealer.
“The $1267 level [in gold] is our short-term Elliot wave target,” says another technical analyst.
UK investors wanting to buy gold today saw the price rise to £850 an ounce, as Sterling retreated from a 3-month high to the Dollar on news of weaker-than-expected UK mortgage lending.
The Euro held in a tight range on the forex market, putting the gold price in Euros 1.4% higher at €1018 an ounce.
“The high price of gold is…a story of [Eurozone CDS bond insurance] rates affecting the stability of the Euro, which in turn is affecting the price of gold as investors flee from the Euro to the Dollar or directly into gold,” says Nic Brown’s analysis team at Natixis.
The French bank’s weekly commodity report notes that, on a rolling 3-month basis, the correlation between the US Dollar and gold has flipped from –0.75 to +0.85.
It would read +1.0 if gold and the Dollar-Euro exchange rate moved together in lockstep
“Given that gold is an international store of value, its price in dollars should be inversely related to the value of the Dollar,” says Natixis. “So conditions must be extreme to push the correlation so far into positive territory.”
One week before the G-20 group of leading economies meets in Toronto, “Economic policy around the world has taken a major wrong turn, and the odds of a prolonged slump are rising by the day,” says Nobel prize-winner, Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.
“German politicians seem determined to prove their strength by imposing suffering – and politicians around the world are following their lead.”
“Are these hardships necessary?” asks the Financial Times‘ Samuel Brittan of the latest UK and German ‘austerity’ measures.
“There is some hope that the more pragmatic German and French leaders may make their austerity a matter of words more than deeds. And all is not lost so long as the Obama administration and China’s leaders stick to quasi-Keynesian policies.”
Formerly City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and head of editorial at the UK’s leading financial advisory for private investors, Adrian Ash is the editor of Gold News and head of research at BullionVault – winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Innovation, 2009 – where you can buy gold today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.
Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.
24 Karat Gold Plated Playing Cards by Chips & Games
