Gold

This week, we'll look at several interesting ratio charts that plot gold against some of the world's best known consumer brands (McDonald's, Nike, Verizon, Target).

With financial markets distorted and leveraged to the hilt, global risk today is greater than ever. There is an obvious path that small and big investors can take to minimise this risk. The best solution is to create your own Gold Bank that will almost entirely eliminate financial risk and provid...

Do Microsoft's results mark the end of a cycle for growth stocks? Will the prospect of lower rates be enough to reverse the current trend in investor sentiment towards technology stocks?

Is gold still the foundation of our monetary system? This question is worth asking as central banks accumulate record quantities of the golden metal. In fact, a detailed study of central bank gold inventories reveals a certain consistency in the monetary strategy of most countries.

The US real estate market is paralyzed as it awaits a Fed rate cut, while the reduction of import duties on gold in India stimulates demand for precious metals.

The collapse of the correlation between the gold price and real interest rates raises many questions. In the old paradigm, it was unthinkable that the gold price would trend firmer during a phase of sharply rising real interest rates. Gold and gold investors are now entering terra incognita.

This week, we will look at an index of major gold mining stocks, HUI, and see that while the index does a nice job of identifying gold peaks and bottoms, mining stocks generally have not provided the positive leverage to the metals that precious metals investors sometimes claim.

Gold is currently benefiting from concerns over the dual problem of debt and deficit in the United States. The more tangible the signs of economic slowdown, the more gold will succeed in reaching highs.

As political parties, currencies, stocks, bonds and other bubble assets fall, the indisputable winners will be gold and silver.

Gold will probably continue to rise until ETF outstandings reach their highest levels, which is still a long way off. Especially as demand for physical gold remains very strong. Despite the high price of an ounce of gold, central banks continue to buy precious metals on a massive scale.