Silver Editorials & Commentary

Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) was instigated by a credit induced collapse of the US financial system and perpetuated in December of 2008 by desperate financial policy makers as a fix to problems they created in the first place.

Silver is a basket case in terms of paper prices and the emotions that come with it. Of course, the metal itself, (when held out of the system in personal position) does not do much at all. It is worthwhile to keep this in mind during the next inevitable illegally...

First, here’s some background. Two years ago this month, a subscriber (Dr. Jeff Lewis – www.silver-coin-investor.com) had a chance social encounter with an employee of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and as a result suggested that I contact the agency...

The divergence in the NYSE and NSADAQ continues. We are looking for a resolution. But what is the timing? Here is our cycles and basic seasonality chart for your reference:

Hedging out the currency risk from international equities is currently en vogue after investors in the Japanese equity market dramatically enhanced their returns by hedging out the yen exposure in 2013. Market participants investing in international equities, must...

Briefly: In our opinion speculative long positions are still favored (with stop-loss at 1,850, S&P 500 index). Our intraday outlook is bullish, and our short-term outlook remains neutral:

Before we can move on to a hypothetical example of a difficult period for stock-and-bond-only portfolios, it is important to understand the concept of bond market vigilantes.

Janet Yellen has a BIG problem on her hands. The Fed has been tapering its QE programs to the tune of $10 billion per month or so. The problem with this is that the Fed is once again behind the curve and the markets are already smelling inflation.

After three months of consistently disappointing jobs numbers, the markets were as keyed up for a good jobs report as a long suffering sailor awaiting shore leave in a tropical port. The just released April jobs report, which claimed that 288,000 jobs were created...

Riddle me this: Why would anyone ever buy junk bonds or a junk bond fund? Before we get to the answer, I would like to point something out that seems to be a given, but that astonishingly few investors think about: bonds are debt instruments, so investing in bonds...

The S&P 500 closed at 1,848 on December 31, 2013. Fast forward 125 days and not much has changed. The S&P 500 was projected to open at 1,873 Monday morning. The number of inputs causing investors to pause in 2014 is almost unlimited, but we can zero in on...

Texas is oil country. The state I now call home leads the nation in oil production and would be one of the top oil-producing nations if it were its own country. But that doesn’t stop us from exploring other promising oil opportunities further afield. I recently...

David Tepper is the founder and manager of the multibillion dollar hedge fund Appaloosa Management. He is also well known for an appearance made in the financial media back in September of 2010. In that segment Tepper made the case to investors that stocks would go...

The broad stock market is expected to retrace some more of its last-week’s gains, as investors react to economic data announcements, negative geopolitical news. However, there have been no confirmed uptrend reversal signals so far and it seems that our profitable...

Next week could be a decisive time period for the stock market. According to Erik Hadik, a cycle analyst who is widely followed and has a good track record, this is when indices will be coming into a cyclical period of intermediate and major cycle peaks. This...

Hell Hath No Fury Like Silver Headed For Glory

Topping patterns show up from time to time and sometimes they amount to something and other times they do not. This time the topping pattern coincides with the beginning of a seasonal pattern which includes the worst 6 months of the 4 year Presidential Cycle. I...

Big trend is down with a multi month consolidation in progress, while COT data is not supportive of higher prices overall; caution and patience is advised.

Current investing model favors equities and both the growth and energy sector are on major buy signals. Investors should stay invested and new money should wait for the 4 year cycle bottom in coming months.

Jobs Report Means Stronger Growth, Right? The economic bulls got a blowout number from Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report.

As the markets hang up near highs, let's look at a bullish sign:

Stagflation: When the general level of prices rises due to the purchasing power of currency-money falling, instead of price inflation due to a general increase in demand. The credit cycle that normally drives advanced economies through boom and bust is turning out...

Given the market expected the Fed to taper again this week, Friday brings the most important economic event of the week; the monthly employment report. The Bloomberg consensus forecast calls for a gain of 215,000 jobs, with a forecast range of 190,000 to 279,000.

The European Union (EU) may be an economic and political union of 28 member states but there has never been little doubt that its centre is in Germany. As a whole, the EU is the largest economy in the world with a GDP of $17.4 trillion (2013). Germany is the largest...

With another Fed meeting and prospective taper coming down the pike this afternoon, we thought we would frame the question of the times (Are 10-year yields headed higher or lower? - see Here) with a bit more historical perspective to what we perceive to be a "...

The greenback isn't what it used to be. At least for now, when there's a "flight" to U.S. Treasuries; historically a sign of "safe haven" demand; the U.S. dollar has not only not benefited but has increasingly been on the losing end. Is this a temporary sign of...

What is it about retirement that causes confident, successful businessmen and -women to lose that edge when they invest their own life savings? Many otherwise dynamic people become virtually impotent in the face of retirement investing. I have many friends who were...

If investors have learned nothing else from the events of the last five years, they’ve at least learned that fighting the Fed doesn’t pay. Indeed, the biggest lesson of all since 2009 is that monetary liquidity is the single biggest determinant of future stock...

Along with the highly publicized loss of leadership from big tech, the US stock market is now in danger of losing another, and possibly more important leader, the piggies or banking sector. While the weekly chart of BKX has not yet broken down, it is very close to...

Yesterday’s market action has been quite bullish. We may see some short-term uptrend, however, the S&P 500 remains in a month-long consolidation. Will we see new all-time highs for the broad market? In our opinion, small speculative long position with a...

Geopolitical events tend to involve a high degree of uncertainty. A geopolitical event involving Vladimir Putin involves a massive degree of uncertainty. Russia/Ukraine developments Monday contributed to a volatile session on Wall Street.

I wrote to Silver last week, and she answered back. I’d like to share our correspondence with you… Dear Silver, Happy Anniversary. It was on April 25, 2011 that you hit $49.80 per ounce in the New York spot market.

Today, three years later, you sell for around...

The government’s “ingenious” solution to end the Great Recession was to recreate the same wealth effect that engendered the credit crisis to begin with: The definition of the wealth effect is an increase in spending that comes from an increase in the perception of...

First off, it is pretty audacious to label any investment asset as the world's cheapest when you consider the implications of that claim. Most of the world's investors are value oriented, always on the prowl to find undervaluation and if they could identify the...

I have presented a case for the formation of an important market top in the DJIA. At this time, it is a possibility which borders on probability, but which is by no means certain until it has been proven correct by the market itself. The good news is that we...

The myth that we owe it to ourselves is overdone. Debt is out of control, and we have no intention of paying it down. It is somewhat of a joke that we make that claim.

The NYSE breadth indicators are still strong so we may see a little end of month – beginning of month rally next week, but otherwise the market is following the average for the 2nd year of the Presidential Cycle quite closely so I expect the next several months to...

Silver is on major sell signal since 2011. Short term is also on sell signal. Big trend is down with a multi month consolidation in progress, while COT data is not supportive of higher prices overall; caution and patience is advised.

Current investing model favors equities and both the growth and energy sector are on major buy signals. Investors should stay invested and new money should wait for the 4 year cycle bottom in coming months.

One of the many tenets on Wall Street is that debt investors are often a step or two ahead of stock investors when it comes to identifying slowing economic growth. From a common sense perspective, it makes some sense. Debt investors tend to be more risk averse, and...