...Gold is about to undergo a profit-taking event...as a result of the USD beginning a rally, probably beginning today. I'm looking for the dollar index to test the downward sloping 200 day moving average [see chart below] before rolling over and continuing the secular trend. This should drive gold down into a final intermediate degree bottom around $1694 or so before testing the all-time highs at or slightly above $1900 sometime before the end of the year. [Let me explain why that is most likely going to happen.] Words: 401

Optimism has seized stock markets in the past month on the back of better economic data in the United States and a late-summer lull in the euro crisis. Market volatility is at its lowest level in years. [That being said, however,] BofA's top economist Ethan Harris...thinks the U.S. economy is "in the eye of the storm" right now. Below is what Harris sees on the horizon. Words: 363

We all know that high debt is a growth killer and, at the moment, the U.S. has a budget deficit of about $1 trillion. That's a very big number...The question is, at what point do countries have to deal with high debt levels? How high do debt levels have to be before one has to deal with the problem by lowering budget deficits? Also, what are the consequences of such debt and budget reductions? Words: 500

With negative sentiment toward China reaching an extreme in recent months, patient investors have been rewarded with this week’s news of improving data from the Asian giant. [In fact, according to BCA] this appears to be a good time to be investing in China, as stocks are historically cheap. Words: 760

The Canadian ratio of debt to income hit 163.4% in the second quarter, up from 161.7% at the end of last year, according to figures released Monday by Statistics Canada. That’s the highest ratio of debt to income ever recorded in Canada, and more inflated than the levels witnessed in the U.S. and Britain before their housing market collapses in the mid-2000s. Words: 625

This presentation* by David Rosenberg, comes courtesy of Joe Weisenthal (www.businessinsider.com). I’ve disagreed with Rosenberg on the recession call in the USA for a long time now, but we’re on the same page about a lot of the macro trends. Here are three pertinent trends that are worth highlighting from the presentation. Words: 555

Many investors are treating inflation as a certainty because the Fed has expanded its balance sheet to unheard of levels through its quantitative easing strategy. Some have even gone so far as to say that this program will utterly destroy the U.S. currency. To demystify this conclusion, I’m going to explain quantitative easing and why the Fed is using this monetary strategy. Afterward, I’ll explain why gold is still positioned to rise even if inflation continues to be low. Words: 786

For over two years now, I've been warning that the 2008 Crash was just a warm up and that the REAL Crisis would occur when the stock market realized that the Central Banks, lead by the US Federal Reserve could NOT actually hold the financial system together. Well, the Crisis I've been warning about is here. [Let me explain.] Words: 306

There are several variations of Long Wave theory, but the most famous is based on the work of Nicolai Kondratieff, a Russian economist who gave the various stages seasonal names, with summer and autumn denoting the peak of financial speculation and winter the aftermath of the resulting crash. The conditions for a global catastrophic failure are in place. Snow (in the form of trillions of new dollars and euros) is falling. There’s no way to know which dollar (or which external event) will start the avalanche, but without doubt something will. [Let me expand on why I hold that view.] Words: 888

Gold is one of the rarest metals in the world, and has a long history as a valuable and intensely sought-after element. The precious metal has served as the basis for physical currency for thousands of years, and many monetary systems throughout human history have utilized a gold standard that focused on the precious metal. Exploration and production of gold has become a major industry in regions that maintain significant deposits of the metal, and quests for gold have been the impetus of countless expeditions and discoveries. [Below are a list of the top 10 gold producing countries, the top 10 gold producing companies and a definitive guide as to the multiple options of investing in the metal.]