Gold has traded between $1,607 and $1,631 so far today…as of 8:20 am Pacific, the yellow metal is off $31 an ounce at $1,611…there is strong technical support at $1,600…Silver is 89 cents lower at $30.34…Copper has fallen 15 cents to $3.10…Crude Oil is 94 cents lower at $85.17 while the U.S. Dollar Index is up more than one-third of a point to 77.44…
Markets are nervous ahead of Sunday’s EU summit on the euro zone debt crisis and so they should be…the level of coordination that is required by the euro zone to fix this problem is extraordinary and quite possibly not within the grasp of these 17 nations…
Angry protesters vowed to bring Greece to a standstill on the second day of a general strike today while disgruntled lawmakers vote on the details of a deeply unpopular austerity package needed to stave off bankruptcy…Parliament is expected to give a final green light late in the day to the belt-tightening plan required by the EU and the IMF, after backing it in principle in a first reading on Wednesday despite the country’s biggest labor action in years…given how economic conditions are deteriorating in Greece, it’s very difficult to imagine how this economic basket case is going to be able to stave off bankruptcy…
Existing U.S. home sales in the U.S. fell 3% in September, more than expected, but a handful of encouraging economic reports, including the Philly Fed Index, point to an American economy that’s still moving forward, albeit very slowly…
Weekly jobless claims in the U.S. fell slightly more than expected, slipping 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 403,000, according to the Labor Department this morning…economists surveyed by Reuters had expected a drop of 4,000…the important and less volatile four-week average fell for the fourth straight week to 403,000…that number, however, has to fall even more and stay consistently below 375,000 to signal sustainable job growth…
According to a report from Credit Suisse, wealth in Canada has rebounded from the erosion of the recession…”While wealth per adult in the United States is still 8% below the 2007 level, Canada’s wealth in domestic currency is now 3% above the 2007 figure,” the global wealth report stated…”This reflects the fact that Canada’s financial institutions and housing market did not suffer a collapse during the global financial crisis”…according to the report released yesterday, Canada is eighth in the world in a ranking of aggregate household wealth, and 13th in terms of wealth per adult, at $245,000 (U.S.), compared to $248,000 in the United States…that’s a sharp reversal from 2000, when Canadian mean wealth was just 56 per cent of the U.S. figure when expressed in U.S. dollar terms…
The standard of living for Americans has fallen longer and more steeply over the past three years than at any time since the U.S. government began recording this statistic five decades ago…the average individual now has $1,315 less in disposable income than he or she did three years ago at the onset of the Great Recession – even though the recession ended, technically speaking, in mid-2009…stagnant incomes, falling net worth and inflation are all contributing to a falling standard of living…
The CDNX is down 17 points at 1509…the risks in this market continue to be very high even though a rally higher is still possible…
The surprising news yesterday that Agnico-Eagle Mines (AEM, TSX) is halting production at its very profitable Goldex Mine, and writing off its investment in Goldex due to poor rock stability above mining activities, sent AEM shares tumbling to their lowest level since 2008…markets don’t like negative surprises and this unfortunately is not helpful, from an investor confidence perspective, to TSX Gold producers in general…the Gold Index fell 5.4% yesterday and is weak again this morning…Goldex, which was expected to produce nearly 200,000 ounces in 2011, represented 15% of AEM’s production and was one of the lowest-cost underground operations in the industry…AEM says it can follow its current growth plan without Goldex by expanding existing operations and building a new mine in Nunavut…Visible Gold Mines‘ (VGD, TSX-V) exploration at the former producing Joutel Project will take on even more importance for AEM given the unexpected blow at Goldex…
One look at the chart for Richmont Mines (RIC, TSX) tells us there is more trouble ahead for the markets…Richmont has been one of the top performing Gold stocks on the TSX this year but the chart is now showing weakness and that’s not an encouraging development…
Is everyone scared enough yet? Can we turn on the money printing machines already and finally bring this fiat ponzi scheme to its sad an inevitable conclusion? Regime change & new ecomomic reality required by all of the western world lets hope US does not go the way of Greece because there are way more guns and ammo in the US!!
Comment by Hugh — October 20, 2011 @ 7:42 am