The boyz are working hard.
A couple of hours ago, gold was taken down $18, oil was taken down $7/bl, and Dow jumped 100 points, – all in the space of a few minutes.

WOW

Nice post.
How high do you expect gold and silver metals to go, and in what time scale?

Many thanks.
Petre.

$1,200 and $25 before the end of the year – but $3-5,000 over next two years and $194 for silver!

here we go, another newsletter writer/analyst telling people that buying Junior resource stocks is a good idea! Will these guys NEVER learn? All the juniors do is go one way and that is DOWN. Gold price goes up – they are usually flat on the day. Gold price goes down, then Juniors TANK. Yes, you could buy a basket and hope one hits high grade unexpectedly but otherwise its just the single best way to lose all your money.
I have lost most of my investment savings by investing for the past year in junior resource stocks. The BEST one is only down 10% and the worst is down 86% in a single year. Yes, its my own fault as I took far too much risk, and I blame no one buy myself. But please, people, take a look into the history of these stocks before you buy any. The only time they actually go up is the short time they’re being pumped by Newsletter writers who are keen to sell their positions to the unsuspecting public. The whole game is rigged so the public lose money time and again.

Whatever you do, do not sell out now! There will be an enormous rebound in all gold related stocks and the juniors will fare best. Have a look at Jim Sinclair’s site, he thinks 1000% on quality juniors is coming and he is the man who got the gold boom right…who else did that? How can a bear market in the juniors last when the metal is soaring upwards? It makes no sense! Market anomalies always correct.

The problem with all these little companies is that there is effectively a high level of counter-party risk. Do you know what is going on in their boardrooms? Can you believe what they say in their annual reports? Can you really be bothered to spend your time reading those annual reports in the first place? My father bought into an Australian mining company (Poseidon) in the 1970s and never saw a return on this ‘investment’.

Anyway, why take the risk of buying juniors when you can easily buy they real thing (a gold ETF)? However, as far as buying gold right now goes, I’m also a contrarian. Most likely there will be a big surge in the price as this is the ‘asset of final resort’ in a failing global economy, but my guess is that the big boys will make sure that the little guys are driven out of the market before that happens, so watch for the price going down first.

Lawrence.
Agree, junior juniors are problematic.
I prefer those on the cusp of first production, or maybe a few months into extraction, with decent reserves and a long and expanding shelf life.

What do you see in the time scale and the price variations of the “big boys”?

They do seem to have been rather busy today, (thursday), don’t they!

>>What do you see in the time scale and the price variations of the “big boys”?

Oh my goodness, if only I could answer that! Having watched the gold price for a while now it does seem that there’s quite a lot of market manipulation and also, recently, something of a de-coupling from oil. Until a few months ago oil and gold rose and fell pretty much in step but then oil put on a dramatic spurt and gold has been left in the ground (excuse the puns!). We are in a global ‘bubble economy’ and speculation by ‘the big boys’ moves from one asset class to another — from property to emerging markets to soft commodities to oil and so on. It seems to me that the ultimate choice must be gold because this a speculation is against the world financial system — a kind of ’speculation of last resort’. The interesting point here is what the central banks will do about it. I believe that the US still holds a massive amount of gold and could possibly be behind some of the market manipulation I’ve referred to. Clearly it isn’t in their interests to allow an alternative, parallel financial system based on ‘hard’ currency gold to come into being — so what will they do? Will they be forced to return to a gold standard or will they continue to manipulate the market to make gold less attractive? If only I knew the answer…

Gold’s time in the sun is very close as the US financial system seems close to collapse – Soros is apparently shorting the main markets with his own cash…says the Evening Standard scoop today.

Thanks for that — an interesting article. Not sure I would want to follow Major and Lamont and bet against him!

Peter/Lawrence.
Concerning the above.
The reason oil parted company from gold earlier this year is probably related to intense speculation in oil futures.
This has attracted political scrutiny, and the boyz are departing.
Where will they go?
There are massive naked shorts on gold and silver, and voices are raising concerning these. We have seen recently in the US financials chosen for protection by Bernanke and Paulson what the removals of naked shorts can do.
I also see many financial entities offering new funds that have gold as a part holding, – this could be bullish if the entities are to be trusted.

Time to read the entrails

Time to read the entrails. There you have it. Judgment has come to this. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Well it does look like the big boys have been active recently. Gold has now broken below $800 and so I would guess the next stop will be $750 and then possibly even lower. Looking at this, when none of the fundamentals have changed or perhaps even got worse, can only lead to the conclusion that the market is very heavily manipulated. As suggested, this is most likely an attempt to shake out the weaklings prior to the real push upward in the autumn (but of course I make no guarantees!).