Financial Sense Blog

This morning’s data on payrolls and unemployment from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was a strong report. The question is whether it is sustainable.

Last Monday the Washington Times offered us the following headline: “Financial terrorism suspected in 2008 economic crash.” The story refers to a Pentagon contractor's report, titled “Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses."

As we prepare for Friday’s employment report, it is a good time to review both the market’s outlook for the next few months and our possible investment approach.

I don't think so, Scooter. In a recent discussion I mentioned the fact that former Fed member Larry Lindsey has been talking up the idea of a potential fiscal trap for the US. To be honest, this idea has already played itself out in Japan and day by day is coming to a Euro theater near you in terms of individual country experience.

The Table below shows the figures that the WGC commissioned from GFMS, which confirms last year’s gold market activities in gold.

So today, two bits of news came out: Unemployment declined to 8.9% last February, as the U.S. economy added 192,000 jobs; and the Federal Reserve signaled that it is definitely-definitely-definitely ending Quantitative Easing 2 (QE-2) in June, as originally scheduled, on the assumption that the economy is improving, and therefore no further extension of QE-2 will be necessary.

The auto industry financing has been getting into some truly dicey lending standards of late. According to CNW Marketing Research, new cars sold to consumers with a subprime credit rating increased about 60% in 2010 from the prior year

The effect of geopolitical events on oil prices has lessened since the 1970s.

The gold (GLD) and silver (SLV) meteor keeps soaring in the skies over Wall Street as the US dollar (UUP) is parachuting into new lows. The spot price of silver this week broke $34.40, zooming into a record high area unseen since 1980. On March 1, gold followed its poorer brother by breaking out at $1425.

As the story goes, someone asked an economist how his wife was doing, and the economist answered "compared to what?"