Financial Sense Blog

The RMB is unlikely to become a serious reserve currency in the foreseeable future. There are a number of reasons for this. First and most obviously, there are few realistic mechanisms by which the world can acquire RMB. Either China needs to run a large current account deficits, or it needs totally open domestic financial markets in which foreigners can easily acquire domestic RMB-denominated bonds to the tune of several percentage points of China’s GDP annually. I discussed why in a blog entry five months ago.

It's happening. The world is getting smaller. No, the physical world is not shrinking. And the number of people populating the planet is not going down, at least not yet. Instead, what we are referring to here is the human condition on mother earth.

The past couple weeks have been choppy in the equities market. While the strong intraday moves are great for day traders, it is extremely difficult for swing/position traders who normally hold positions for 3-60 days in length, which is my focus with this writing.

It is too soon to develop good estimates of the likely economic and financial effects of last Friday's massive earthquake and subsequent devastating tsunami, particularly with the situation in the damaged nuclear plants still unresolved.

I am at a loss for words (something that rarely happens to me) as to why so many in the Precious Metals Sector have become so negative at this juncture in this Historic Precious Metals Bull Market. No doubt, many have “2008-itis”, thinking that the Dow is going to crash. Of course, that has been the daily mantra since the top in 2000, hasn’t it?

It has become a media tradition for moves in the gold price to be related to some political event or a civil war or a major tragedy such as the earthquake in Japan, when the events have a negligible effect on those markets. We find it unfortunate that this happens because it is misleading. For instance, this morning we were informed that the gold price had risen in the dollar, because of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami. In fact it was almost entirely accounted for by the fall in the dollar against the euro. The gold price shows its market movements most clearly in the euro, not in the U.S. dollar. A glance across the euro gold price of the last week reinforces that statement, whereas the gold price in the dollar clearly shows the movements in the euro plus the moves of the U.S. dollar against the euro. This piece looks at some of the worst of the misleading statements that may confuse or misdirect gold and silver investors, should they add credence to these statements. It also looks at what pieces of news will move gold and silver prices.

Banking crises unleash powerful deflationary forces of deleveraging and falling monetary velocity. In this environment, people, corporations, and eventually governments are unable to pay their debts and default. Government defaults typically lead foreigners to sell the local currency, and you get a currency devaluation. A devaluation makes prices for imported goods more expensive and leads to inflation. At the same time, governments and central banks fight the downturn with more expansive monetary policies, which leads to higher inflation.

Japanese earthquake, a flawed economic recovery, the S&P showing a classic reversal pattern, the dollar, housing and more.

Public sector employees, the workforce ‘elite’ led by state and municipal workers, are now storming legislative chambers to preserve their special status. Wisconsin is the current case study in what happens when the government, a monopoly service provider, confronts the fact that the taxpayer is tapped out and can’t take it anymore – when there simply isn’t enough money.

After focusing on the energy sector the last few months we return to another long term bullish story – agriculture.