"When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe." … Frederic Bastiat
Evil talks about tolerance only when it’s weak. When it gains the upper hand, its vanity always requires the destruction of the good and the innocent, because the example of good and innocent lives is an ongoing witness against it. So it always has been. So it always will be. And America has no special immunity to becoming an enemy of its own founding beliefs about human freedom, human dignity, the limited power of the state, and the sovereignty of God. – Archbishop Chaput
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Gold priced in terms of the British Pound is surging higher being reinforced in its upward trajectory by news that the Bank of England was further expanding its bond purchase program (Read this as its version of QE). This is more evidence that nearly the entirety of the Western World Major Central Banks are completely engaged in the process of adulterating their currencies.
They BOE has now set a program target near the 325 billion pound mark or $513 billion dollars. That is not exactly chump change.
This is also the reason that bears at the Comex are increasingly having difficulty in capping the price of the metal there as it is surging higher across a variety of foreign currency terms.
Gold is surging higher later in the session today having caught a gust of wind that took it all the way to major overhead resistance at $1780. The ability of the market to REMAIN ABOVE $1750 caught the attention of momentum based traders and that was all she wrote. Up it went taking the weak-handed shorts out of their positions until the bullion banks could regroup and start their selling again at $1780.
Bulls have their sights set on putting a handle of "18" in front of the gold price. The Central Bank pals - the bullion banks - are going to try to prevent that. If the bulls can keep gold above $1780, they should be able to take out the bullion banks.
Downside support now becomes the $1750 region.
There seems to be a type of stealth bull market in the platinum group as the metal begins moving up and regaining lost ground against the price of gold. The metal has been grinding higher since the beginning of the year and is currently up nearly $400 since then but has mostly gone unnoticed by the financial press.
It is unusual to see the metal trading at a discount to the gold price. Apparently some of the hedge funds have taken notice and are moving into platinum especially as news filters out of a strike in a large South African mine owned by Impala.
Platinum, while often viewed as a precious metal, is greatly affected by economic news due to the fact that it is also an industrial metal used largely in the automotive exhaust systems. Obviously any news that is considered bearish for overall global growth tends to depress its price. Conversely, a growing global economy in which consumers worldwide opt to buy new cars, is bullish for the metal.
As such, platinum has been greatly impacted by the risk off or risk on trades. Notice how it responded to the QE I and QEII programs with the former beginning in late 2008 and the latter kicking back in during 2010. Then look at what happened to it in late 2011 when investors were watching European woes proliferating with what seemed like not much of a Central Bank response at the time.
That all changed at the beginning of 2012. Near zero interest rates and the expectation that the Central Banks would be keeping this environment intact for the foreseeable future have now combined with supply related issues and are driving the metal higher with strong showings the last two sessions in particular and the first two months of this year.
