HonestMoneyGoldSilver

14 minutes ago, gji25 said:

 

Well that's one way to clear a room

OK back to posting the random digits:

Just now, James32 said:

Voice of reason 🙏 

3 minutes ago, bobski said:

Current Price

£1,872.89

Live Change

0.06% £+0.97

Live high £1,873.07

 

Live low £1,871.81

Thursday 11th April - gold hits £1870

Friday 12th April - gold tops £1954 intraday before having a big correction back to close at £1886

Friday 19th April - one week later gold closes at the ATH of £1935

I don't particularly want gold to get that hot but a repeat of something like that tomorrow and next week is a distinct possibility now gold has broken £1870

1 hour ago, Dalriada83 said:

My missus got a bumper sticker in the States which we stuck on our front window: "I'm out of Estrogen and I have a Gun".

2 minutes ago, gji25 said:

All that chart shows is that the brics nations summit is under way

The BRICS summit isn't until October AFAIK in Russia. I'll be keeping an eye on that one as it's possible the BRICS might release their crypto project at this summit

BRICS Will Create Payment System Based on Digital Currencies and Blockchain: Report (coindesk.com)

34 minutes ago, flyingveepixie said:

Aye, Tony Martin. That was it. I think he shot the scumbag in the back as he was making his escape.  He served his time but I don't think he was ever aquitted. I heard of another guy who was jailed after running down a burglar in the street and giving him the good news with a baseball bat. On the other hand, I heard of a Sikh who was set upon in the street and killed all three attackers with his ceremonial knife which he was legally allowed to carry, and I think he got off. I have no references for these examples.

I'm a big fan of Sikhs, great people. Sikhs, Gurkhas, Japanese, Taiwanese, Hong Kongers, even Chinese. All good as gold. (you can infer who doesn't make the gold list by those I haven't mentioned). I saw stats today that 75% of burglaries aren't attended by the police in England - that's not 75% of crimes going unsolved that 75% of cases when the police don't even bother to show up! You can take a wild guess who the criminals are breaking into 500+ houses a day with zero repercussions. So if you're keeping your gold at home make triple sure to make the thieves think twice. Stick up a few 2A placards with American flags if you have to

3 minutes ago, Chronos said:

Gold's Pause:

https://www.zerohedge.com/the-market-ear/golds-pause

This article repeats almost precisely what I said above - obviously to be taken with a huge dose of salt 😂

4 hours ago, MBTPSilver said:

A really good week for silver, up nearly 5% vs gold's 0.6%. Could see some movement in either direction at lunchtime when the BoE decision is announced.

The Chinese are still infatuated with gold but the recent margin restrictions on the Shiffy (SHFE) have redirected some of the attention from gold to silver and other base metals. Silver is a vital strategic resource, the optimal solution for all electronics including solar panels, batteries, military technologies, etc. There is silver in every electronic device in your home from light switches to your dishwasher. The big surprise with silver is how long its taken to see any significant price action. Silver should have been well north of $30 in 2023 and while it did approach that in 2024, it was slapped down hard at the $30 level. It will be interesting to see what happens if/when silver gets close to $30 again like it did on Friday 12th April, almost exactly a month ago

Anyway, as you pointed out and continuing the trend throughout 2024, silver is outperforming gold:

3 minutes ago, Thelonerangershorse said:

Could be interesting as several people reckon the Fed may have to raise rather than cut.

Yep I've been saying it here for at least 6 months. Jamie Dimon reckon they need to approach 8% to fully tame inflation. They won't though as raising rates is racist

7 hours ago, Happypanda88 said:

I would encourage you to spend 2 or 3 ounces of your yellow metal and travel around China to see things for yourself. lt'll enable you to view things from a different angle.  Being on the ground to observe with your own eyes will likely even change your perception.

I have travelled much in the last 6 months around China and SE Asia, namely Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore. My last trip was to Hohhot and surrounding areas in Inner Mongolia last month. There were four of us travelling independently. None of us have been. Before going there, my perception of the place was it is old, rustic, rural, dusty and far less developed then other parts of the country.  But when we landed and saw the number of planes on the tarmac, a large modern airport and high rise buildings in the distance, it changed my mind and I was eager to explore.

After 7 days, I got a good idea of the area. Taxi drivers are the best people to get information - whether it be the cost of living, price of houses, people's wages, places to visit etc. 

Everything was so affordable, from food, hotel, transport. Our hotels (international 3 star equivalent) ranged from 200-230RMB (approx. £23-26) per room. The journey (22km) by taxi from airport to hotel was 47RMB (£5.10). Local buses were 1 or 2 RMB (11p or 22p) depending on route. Petrol was 8.8RMB (97p) a litre, LPG about half the price. 

A very nice meal with lamb skewers, other meat dishes and veg for four of us rarely exceed 200RMB, so 50RMB per person. Cheap meals like a noodle or rice dish range from 12-17RMB.  Most locals tend to eat out and restaurants are everywhere in the city. 

So with the relatively low cost of living, an unskilled manual worker earning around 4000 RMB (£440) per month aren't so poor because everything is so affordable.

With this in mind, using GDP as measurement of a country's wealth is non-sense. What matters is the standard of living and the cost of living for the general public. If someone in the UK earn 5 times as much as an average chinese worker but his salary is eaten by the high cost of fuel, food, taxes, accommodation then what the **** does it mean ?  Who is poorer ?

Now a bit on gold.  What surprised me the most was the number of gold jewellery stores in Hohhot. They sell a variety of .999 jewellery just like those stores found in the south of the country. I thought the people there would be less well-off.  Later I found out that some people have land that sits on mineral and coal.  So they are very well off. Which explains the number of high end German SUVs I saw on the road.

China has a five thousand years continous history. A written history of 3,500 years. Gold plays a big part in weddings as gifts. To say that China has 1g of gold per capita is laughable and I don't know if I should take you seriouly. But I don't anyway.  Especially when you made a remark that all religions are banned in China. 

As I say, I would encourage you to get off your comfortable armchair, stop being an armchair expert, spent a bit of money and travel around China if it certains you so much.

China is an enormous country and an enormous topic. I have been though (Shenzhen and Hong Kong). I will never again visit mainland China. I am a Christian and I have spoken out against the CCP. I'm worried about Hong Kong as if the CCP want to they can arrest me and put me in jail for 7 years because I refuse to praise the Communist Party. For useful idiots I'm sure China is wonderful, the Soviet Union was wonderful too for the party members. Not so great for everybody else though

You can have as much material wealth as you want but if you don't have freedom of speech, freedom of capital (the ability to freely take your money out of China), freedom of movement (the ability to visit another country as and when you please) and freedom of religion, then you are dirt poor in the ways that really matter

6 hours ago, Happypanda88 said:

I would encourage you to spend 2 or 3 ounces of your yellow metal and travel around China to see things for yourself. lt'll enable you to view things from a different angle.  Being on the ground to observe with your own eyes will likely even change your perception.

I have travelled much in the last 6 months around China and SE Asia, namely Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore. My last trip was to Hohhot and surrounding areas in Inner Mongolia last month. There were four of us travelling independently. None of us have been. Before going there, my perception of the place was it is old, rustic, rural, dusty and far less developed then other parts of the country.  But when we landed and saw the number of planes on the tarmac, a large modern airport and high rise buildings in the distance, it changed my mind and I was eager to explore.

After 7 days, I got a good idea of the area. Taxi drivers are the best people to get information - whether it be the cost of living, price of houses, people's wages, places to visit etc. 

Everything was so affordable, from food, hotel, transport. Our hotels (international 3 star equivalent) ranged from 200-230RMB (approx. £23-26) per room. The journey (22km) by taxi from airport to hotel was 47RMB (£5.10). Local buses were 1 or 2 RMB (11p or 22p) depending on route. Petrol was 8.8RMB (97p) a litre, LPG about half the price. 

A very nice meal with lamb skewers, other meat dishes and veg for four of us rarely exceed 200RMB, so 50RMB per person. Cheap meals like a noodle or rice dish range from 12-17RMB.  Most locals tend to eat out and restaurants are everywhere in the city. 

So with the relatively low cost of living, an unskilled manual worker earning around 4000 RMB (£440) per month aren't so poor because everything is so affordable.

With this in mind, using GDP as measurement of a country's wealth is non-sense. What matters is the standard of living and the cost of living for the general public. If someone in the UK earn 5 times as much as an average chinese worker but his salary is eaten by the high cost of fuel, food, taxes, accommodation then what the **** does it mean ?  Who is poorer ?

Now a bit on gold.  What surprised me the most was the number of gold jewellery stores in Hohhot. They sell a variety of .999 jewellery just like those stores found in the south of the country. I thought the people there would be less well-off.  Later I found out that some people have land that sits on mineral and coal.  So they are very well off. Which explains the number of high end German SUVs I saw on the road.

China has a five thousand years continous history. A written history of 3,500 years. Gold plays a big part in weddings as gifts. To say that China has 1g of gold per capita is laughable and I don't know if I should take you seriouly. But I don't anyway.  Especially when you made a remark that all religions are banned in China. 

As I say, I would encourage you to get off your comfortable armchair, stop being an armchair expert, spent a bit of money and travel around China if it certains you so much.

Most likely it will close between $2302 - 2330 (£1841 - 1864). My pick at the start of the week was £1864 as the top end. I used technical analysis and logic though so probably wrong

Use your feelz and enter random digits with zero reasoning here:

2 minutes ago, Petra said:

Not too long ago their biggest property company was threatening to go under and all sorts was happening…🤔

8 minutes ago, Gruff said:

I'm not so sure you know. China has been done over like all of us by the US before and so they are playing a careful political game of chess. I think they'll show their hand at some point in the future to drive a knife into the heart of the US banking system. 

The East plays the long game. The West is purely concerned with 4 or 5 year cycles and what they can do to line their pockets to the max within that short time frame.   

You might be right mate, a lot of people say the same thing - the communists are working on decades and centuries-long masterplans. I don't believe that's true. I think they're only human and have to face the inevitable consequences of attempting to create perfect policies that apply over an entire economy and over 1.4 billion people. I think they're lurching from crisis to crisis and the future of the CCP itself is at risk due to how poorly (inevitably so) they have managed their economy - like spending $trillions on high speed rail lines to nowhere that will never be profitable, or building ghost cities. The Chinese economy is collapsing as we speak and many credible analysts (economists, geopolitical, intelligence agencies, military strategists) believe the only way out for Xi and the CCP is to go to war with Taiwan to distract the population from their failures. That doesn't sound like a masterplan to me

There is one group who operates over decades and centuries - the Jesuits - who control the Masons and the Illuminati. Yep I'm slightly crazy, I know. I believe in secret societies and interdimensional aliens. So does Elon Musk FWIW

I think that given the economic and environmental backdrop, the CCP would be quick to point at their huge gold stack to quell the population, which is on the verge of revolution. I also don't believe the Chinese would pay a premium to the west for physical gold if they had an enormous central stack they could use to prop up their regional and local banks. 

4 minutes ago, Gruff said:

China is one of the largest gold producers on the planet and all gold mined in China, stays in China. A lot of those that study these markets Alasdair Macleod and others all suggest that China has a lot more gold than published via the World Gold Council. 
Even if they only mine 300 tonnes annually in China, multiply that by 20 years, that's 6,000 tonnes, plus all they've bought over the last several years on the OTC markets etc..  

I'd hazard a guess that they have 8,000 tonnes or more. 

China have been selling US T-bonds and buying gold, they've reduced their Treasury holdings massively over the last few years. All that currency has to go somewhere, it's not all gone into propping up their own markets. That would then have spiked inflation by flooding their own markets with liquidity. 

Yep one imagines the Chinese have a healthy hoard of gold but economics is not absolute, it's relative. For the sake of argument let's say the USA and China have equal stacks - that would still make the USA four times richer per capita in terms of gold. I don't believe that's how things are though.

It begs the question why would China hide this gold when it wants the gold as a hedge against currency risk, property market, etc, and to flaunt this wealth/strength to the globe? Saving face and looking good is a big thing to the Chinese. It's not the most robust analysis ever but I'm pretty sure if they had it, they would be flaunting it.

We can calculate how much gold is above and below ground. I've looked at the figures from the guy you quoted before and the numbers do not add up, unless, of course, you subscribe to the theory that the USA transferred those 8,000 tons to China

Central Banks Gold Reserves by Country | World Gold Council

On the historic and contemporary value of gold ....

Gold, World War II And Operation Fish (forbes.com)

In 1933, the Reich’s official holdings stood at only $109 million—not nearly enough to finance the kind of force Hitler envisioned.

The Greatest Gold Heist in History

So began the Reich’s looting of Europe’s gold reserves, beginning with Austria’s in 1938. At the time, Germany’s coffers were nearly empty. The infusion of Austria’s 90 to 100 metric tons of hard currency gave Hitler the boost he needed to continue his plundering.

Today we remember the Nazi’s gold heist as “one of the greatest thefts by a government in history,” in the words of Ambassador and Undersecretary of Commerce Stuart E. Eizenstat, spoken during his 1997 hearing on the status of Holocaust assets. Although estimates vary, and although the gold price fluctuates over time, it’s believed that as much as $600 million—now valued in the billions—were seized from the central banks and vaults of neighboring, occupied countries, including Austria, Poland, Belgium, Holland and the Netherlands. Millions more in silver, platinum, diamonds, artwork and other assets were stolen as well.

Operation Fish

Not every country’s hoard was pilfered, however. Once it was clear what the Nazis were up to, many outlying European countries had the prudence and foresight to secure their own reserves and keep them falling into Hitler’s hands.

And this is where we catch up with the timeline in Darkest Hour. In July 1940, as fears of a Nazi invasion intensified by the day, the U.K. shipped as much as 1,500 metric tons in gold—worth a mind-boggling $160 billion in 2017 dollars—across the Atlantic to be stored in Canada’s central bank in Ottawa.

Codenamed “Operation Fish,” the evacuation was one of the greatest gambles ever. Writes Ottawa-based historian James Powell:

The only way to transport the tons of gold and securities was by ship across the U-boat infested North Atlantic, where 100 Allied and neutral merchant ships had been sunk in May 1940 alone. History was also not reassuring. During World War I, the SS Laurentic, carrying 43 tons of gold from Liverpool to Halifax, had been sunk in 1917 by a German U-boat off of Ireland. The loss of even one treasure ship would have major negative consequences. To buy weapons and other war materiel that it sorely needed from neutral United States, Britain had to pay in gold or U.S. dollars; no credit was permitted under the strict Neutrality Act in effect in the United States at that time.

Britain’s gamble paid off. Every last ingot made it safely across the Atlantic and was prevented from being used by the Nazis to extend their reign of terror a single day longer.

Germany Today a Gold Powerhouse

Although Hitler’s goals were despicable, his absolute need for gold reflects the precious metal’s centuries-long role as a widely accepted and trusted currency.

It’s a lesson Germany hasn’t forgotten, even today.

The country’s official gold holdings stand at 3,372 metric tons, more than any other except the U.S. Gold represents a whopping 70 percent of its foreign reserves—again, second only to the U.S. This has helped Germany become one of the most powerful and stable economies in the world.

More recently, Germany has emerged as the world’s largest gold investor. Although China and India still outpace the European country in total amount of gold consumed, Germans are ploughing more money into gold coins, bars and exchange-traded commodities (ETCs).

8 hours ago, HerefordBullyun said:

Regardless I dont believe theres 8000 tonnes of gold in the US as it's never been shown or made public...

I call bollox

If Biden can issue $4 trillion+ in spending plans and the USA can be $35 trillion in debt, then the Treasury can have $600 billion in gold, it's basically a rounding error. There are black budget agencies with bigger budgets than that. Put yourself in the position of a global puppet master able to print your own money with zero oversight. Would you leave yourself poor or would you own a monster stack of gold and every other asset on the planet? 

7 hours ago, HerefordBullyun said:

If USA has more gold than china then I am pope Gregory the ninth skiing naked on the river near the Vatican...

China is a poor country. The GDP per capita is $12,500 (IMF, 2023) and the lion's share of that is concentrated on the East Coast, where the GDP per capita is similar to Japan or South Korea ($30-35K). The west of China is one of the poorest regions anywhere on earth. China has only been an economic powerhouse for about 30-40 years. The European dynasties were powerhouses for centuries.

The USA essentially took most of the gold from the two most powerful Empires - Britain and France (also Germany) - during WWI & WWII. That's why the USA was given global reserve currency status at Bretton Woods - they took most of our gold and their manufacturing base existed in splendid isolation from war damages while Europe, China and Japan were reduced to rubble. Both Britain (Canada) and France (USA) transferred the majority of their gold, several thousand tons, to North America circa 1940 before the fall of France.

Under the USA's terms of neutrality, which lasted until after December 1941 (Pearl Harbor) no credit could be used to fund the war efforts of the UK or France - gold and USD (convertible to gold) were the only acceptable forms of payment. Thus all the gold the French and British transferred to North America ended up in the pockets of the Americans, along with the USD reserves. By the conclusion of WWI and WWII the USA had control over global finance and held a substantial chunk of the hard currency accrued by the Europeans over centuries, including the gold the Europeans took from China and India

China is on a desperate gold buying spree not because China has the biggest stack in the world but because their stack is basically non-existent relative to the size of their population - about 1g per capita compared with India's approx 17g per capita.

China needs the gold to hedge against their property market (the largest physical market in the world), their manufacturing sector and currency risk, while also signalling to the world that no matter what happens, China has the means to stabilise its economy. When the size of China's property market is roughly $50 trillion compared to the USA's $30ish trillion, China has a lot more gold to buy before it can effectively hedge anything. 

On 07/05/2024 at 12:39, HonestMoneyGoldSilver said:

My prediction for gold close today is £1857, let's see how stupid I look in 11 hours' time ...

OK I was a day late but I got the price right. As they said in ThunderCats, "1 out of 2 ain't bad"