Beppe Grillo is a well know TV personality/comedian in Italy. At age 64 he ran for political office in Parma, and won. He has been doing a lot of talking since, and his philosophies have become very popular.
Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans was interviewed on CNBC on Monday, and he indicated that he was in favor of continuing asset purchases at a rate of $85 billion per month all the way through 2013.
Investors are concerned about inflation. But how can investors attempt to inflation-proof their portfolios? Buy TIPS? Short Treasury bonds? Stocks? Real Estate? Commodities? Gold? Currencies? Or should investors regard those warnings about inflation as fear mongering?
Silver, the people's metal, is making a comeback, and its not hard to understand why. Everywhere you look, people are becoming more concerned regarding financial crises, fiscal irresponsibility, and political incompetence.
There wasn’t a lot of conviction today. Trading desks were quiet. The market got off to another quick start today and then faded. The averages were off slightly for most of the day before buyers came in near the end of trading.
We made a positive start to the last quarter of the year on Monday with the U.S. manufacturing sector moving firmly in the growth column after staying in contractionary territory over the preceding three months. This is particularly significant as the U.S. reading bucked a worldwide trend evident from PMI readings from the Euro-zone, China and many other Asian markets.
Prior to adding to our risk exposure, we would like to see some improvement in several risk-on/risk-off ratios. The three risk-on vs. risk-off ratios below can assist in monitoring the health of the current rally.
Wholesale gold prices hovered in a tight range just below $1780 an ounce for most of Tuesday morning in London, just below a new 2012 spot market high touched yesterday following comments from US Federal Reserve policymakers.
FrankenMarket was fed a heaping helping of unsound and inflationary monetary policy at the last FOMC meeting. Buying un-payable legacy debt with newly printed money is nothing if not intensely inflationary.
