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Are you Secure? and Latest Gold Investing News

04 Wednesday Feb 2009

Posted by jschulmansr in Bailout News, banking crisis, banks, Comex, commodities, computer security, Computers and Computing, Credit Default, Currencies, currency, Currency and Currencies, dollar denominated, dollar denominated investments, economic, Economic Recovery, economic trends, economy, Federal Deficit, federal reserve, Finance, financial, Forex, gold, Gold Bullion, Gold Investments, gold miners, How To Invest, How To Make Money, hyper-inflation, inflation, Investing, investments, Jay Taylor, Junior Gold Miners, Latest News, Make Money Investing, market crash, Markets, mining companies, mining stocks, palladium, Peter Grandich, physical gold, platinum, platinum miners, precious, precious metals, prices, producers, production, security, Security Suites, SEO, silver, silver miners, small caps, spot, spot price, stagflation, Stocks, Technical Analysis, U.S. Dollar

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Are you secure? If not, you need to be!  It’s a dangerous world out there! An unprotected computer is like leaving your keys in the ignition and walking away! Today’s articles include the latest reviews of Security Suites for your computer and latest Gold news.  Gold yesterday tested the lower end of support at the $885 oz to $895 oz levels. Today Gold has come roaring back up $16 oz to $908.50. I think we are about to retest the $930 level and if we break that then $950. If we clear those hurdles then the next stop will be $1000 + oz. I am buying on any dips and you should be too! – Good Investing! – jschulmansr

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The Best Security Suites for 2009 – PC Magazine

by Neil J. Rubenking of PC Magazine

Which suite will be best for keeping you safe and not slowing you down this year? We’ve tested them all, and the answer might surprise you!

The list of available 2009-model security suites is now essentially complete. A running theme in this year’s suites is the promise that these new versions will do more for your security while tying up fewer system resources. It’s about time: Users have had it with suites that offer security but bog down the computer. Several vendors have introduced new “in the cloud” technologies to keep up with the accelerating growth of new malware. And many have redesigned their user interfaces to be more attractive and look lighter and faster. Some are new, innovative, and speedy. Others haven’t kept pace. Which are which? I put them all through grueling tests to find out.

Performance Testing

Starting with the 2009 crop of suites, I added an entire day of performance testing per suite to my already lengthy set of evaluations. I wrote and gathered a collection of batch files, scripts, and freeware components to measure how long a number of common activities take on the computer. I ran the scripts many times on a system with no suite installed and then on that same system with each suite installed. Averaging the results let me see just how much each suite affected system performance.

I get a lot of complaints about how long PCs take to boot up in the morning, and many users blame their security suites for lengthening the process. The first part of my test script, therefore, calculates the time it takes from the start of the boot process (as reported internally by Windows) to the time when the system is completely ready to use. “Ready” is a fluid concept—I defined it as meaning that 10 seconds have passed with CPU usage under 5 percent. I ran this test 50 to 100 times and averaged the results; the test system with no suite installed takes almost exactly 60 seconds to boot. Norton Internet Security 2009 and Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 added only about 15 seconds to the boot time. That’s not bad!

Some of the other suites added significantly to boot time. F-Secure Internet Security 2009 and McAfee Total Protection 2009 nearly doubled it, and BitDefender Total Security 2009 more than doubled it. The timings for Webroot Internet Security Essentials (WISE) averaged even higher—almost 2.5 times the baseline. However, the data set included a number of unexplained instances when booting up took 5 or even 10 minutes. Eliminating those quirky outliers brought the average boot time for WISE (the smallest suite) a bit below that of McAfee (the largest suite)—still not impressive.

Real-time malware scanners can kick in on any kind of file access and can slow ordinary file operations, especially if they redundantly scan the same file more than once during the operation. I set up a series of file move and copy actions using a variety of file types and timed how long it took with and without a security suite. Kaspersky added just 2 percent to the time required for this test, and Trend Micro Internet Security Pro added 6 percent. Norton and Panda Global Protection 2009 came in between those two. On the slow side, the system running ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 2009 took half again as long to perform the test.

Another of my new tests zips and unzips large groups of files, and my testing showed that this activity takes more of a performance hit from most security suites than moving and copying do. Panda had the lightest touch here, adding just 8 percent to the baseline time. Norton, Kaspersky, Trend Pro, and Webroot all added in the neighborhood of 25 percent to the time. Under ZoneAlarm the zip test took twice as long, and under BitDefender it took 2.5 times as long. That’s dreadful!

Your suite has to keep careful track of software installations so it can prevent malware from installing. I measured the time required for repeated automatic installation and uninstallation of several large Windows Installer packages. Most of the suites added from 20 to 30 percent to this test’s time. Panda excelled again, adding just 6 percent. ZoneAlarm and WISE caused the most drag, adding 63 percent and 71 percent, respectively.

Acting on some reports of problems with media files, I included a test that times some elaborate media file format conversions. None of the suites slowed this test significantly. Their effects ranged from a negligible 1 percent increase by WISE, Panda, and Norton to a still minor 8 percent hit from ZoneAlarm.

Modern suites look at your browsing activity in a number of different ways. They block drive-by downloads, check for fraud, and perhaps block inappropriate content for your kids. To see whether this analysis slows down the browsing experience, I used an ActiveX control that measures when a page has completely loaded, along with a script that launches dozens of URLs with lots of content.

Norton had the least impact on surfing speed, adding 13 percent to the time required for this test. WISE doesn’t do any page analysis beyond checking a blacklist, but it still added 25 percent. Kaspersky and Panda, which did well on most of my other performance tests, slowed browsing by 64 percent and 92 percent, respectively. But McAfee had the worst impact, more than doubling the time required for the surfing test. Given the amount of time the average person spends surfing the Web, this is a bad test to fail.

Check our security suite performance test chart to get full details on each product’s individual scores. Note, though, that in addition to these tests, I considered various other factors. Does the product make a good impression with a speedy and undemanding install process? Is the scan for malware especially fast or slow? Does the spam filter appreciably slow down the process of downloading mail? Are there special features that demonstrably work to minimize performance impact? All these factors go into the final score. In next year’s round of testing I hope to add even more performance tests. In the meanwhile, I’m very interested in getting your feedback on this year’s tests. —next: Security in the Cloud >

Featured in this Roundup:

BitDefender Internet Security 2009 BitDefender Internet Security 2009

$69.95 direct; 3-pack, $79.95
BitDefender has added a ton of new features—online backup and remote configuration, for example. It includes all the expected security elements, with decent performance from most of them. It’s a reasonable choice if you’re excited by those extra features.

F-Secure Internet Security 2009 F-Secure Internet Security 2009

$75.90 direct; 3-pack, $79.90
F-Secure Internet Security 2009 is easy to use, without complicated settings and extras. But installing it was a nightmare, and it took too long deleting inactive malware. The firewall is old-fashioned, and the antispam and parental-control apps are ineffective. The suite hasn’t kept up with the times.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 Kaspersky Internet Security 2009

3-pack, $79.95 direct
Kaspersky Internet Security’s new user interface hides messy security details but leaves them accessible to power users. The new application-filtering feature renders the suite smart enough to make its own decisions without hassling the user. As long as you don’t plan to rely on it for spam filtering or parental control, Kasperksy’s suite is a good choice.

McAfee Total Protection 2009 McAfee Total Protection 2009

3-pack, $79.99 direct
McAfee’s latest suite has improved malware detection, and its spam filter is also much better. But its overabundance of features hasn’t changed at all; its UI is sluggish; and it saps system performance.

Norton Internet Security 2009 Norton Internet Security 2009

3-pack, $69.99 direct
This is definitely the slimmest, most unobtrusive Norton ever. Its protection is top-notch where it counts, though antispam and parental controls are still weak. As the best all-around security suite to date (I’ll be installing it myself), it’s our new Editors’ Choice.

Panda Global Protection 2009 Panda Global Protection 2009

$69.95 direct; 3-pack, $89.95
Except for the new main screen, Panda’s 2009 suite doesn’t look much different. Its collective intelligence promises better protection, but its action is spotty: Spam filtering got much better; spyware protection got worse. And it’s expensive! Wait for next year’s version if you’re thinking of switching to Panda.

Trend Micro Internet Security Pro 2009 Trend Micro Internet Security Pro 2009

3-pack, $69.95 direct
Trend Micro Internet Security Pro v2 is a big improvement over last year’s edition. It’s an effective anti-malware tool, and it’s loaded with Pro features that are truly useful. If you’ve sworn a lifelong grudge against Norton (our Editors’ Choice suite), give Trend Pro a try.

Webroot Internet Security Essentials (2009) Webroot Internet Security Essentials

3-pack, $59.95 direct
WISE omits features that other suites include yet still slows down system performance. Its malware protection is excellent, and it delivers 2GB of online backup, but its firewall component doesn’t do the job. Spend $10 more and get Norton or Trend Pro!

Scheduled Scanning ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 2009

$49.95 direct; 3-pack, $69.95
ZoneAlarm is strong on defense. It has a tough firewall and keeps malware totally out of a clean system, but it’s less effective in cleaning up entrenched malware, and some of its features are antiquated. ZoneAlarm is still a fine choice, but I had hoped for a makeover that would be more than skin deep.

CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2009CA logo

5-pack, $79.99 direct
There’s little to love in this Frankenstein’s monster of a suite. Patched together from many separate mediocre tools, it put the biggest drag on system performance of any suite tested. Save ten bucks and get Norton’s suite (or Trend Micro’s) instead.

Comodo Internet Security 3.5Comodo

Free
For free security Comodo’s firewall is still a sound choice, but the antivirus and antispyware parts of this suite just don’t do the job. If you need free security, get the firewall alone and add avast! or AVG for free virus/spyware protection.

Security In The Cloud

The number of different malware threats and variants released every day is increasing exponentially, and with it the size of the signature files needed by security software to detect these threats. Security vendors have handled this problem in part by using heuristic techniques that allow one signature to match multiple threats. This year several vendors have introduced new technology that moves the signature database at least partially off your local computer and into the cloud. All of these technologies require an Internet connection to function, of course.

Panda calls its new cloud security technology collective intelligence. The suite retains a local malware database of the most common threats and threats that can propagate without an Internet connection. For files not identified by the local list, Panda Global Protection 2009 sends a tiny checksum to the online database to see if it matches the checksum for a known bad program. It’s a good idea and may work eventually, but I didn’t see evidence of improved malware detection when testing Panda.

The Artemis technology in McAfee Total Protection 2009 aims to eliminate the gap between detection of a new threat and protection against that threat. When the local McAfee installation detects slightly suspicious behavior in a file that’s not in its local database of threats, it shoots a checksum off to the Artemis database of known good and known bad files. It’s similar to Panda’s system, but, unlike Panda, McAfee showed a marked improvement in its malware detection.

Symantec’s Norton Insight takes a rather different approach. It leverages data collected from over 25 million Norton users to create a database of known programs and uses proprietary statistical analysis to assign a trust level to each. Skipping known trusted programs markedly speeds up scanning. Symantec researchers believe that statistical methods may in time completely replace familiar signature-based malware detection. It’s certainly effective in combination with regular signature-based detection: Norton scored better than any other suite or standalone antispyware utility on the current round of tests. —

next: Makeovers, Shallow and Deep >

Security suite vendors have finally caught on to the fact that most of their users aren’t security geeks. Users want the product to work; they want it to show that it’s working; but they don’t want any interruptions or confusing queries. Judging from what the vendors have done this year, they also want it to look nice. Many of the suites discussed here have significantly changed their main windows since last year. Click on our security suites interface slideshow to see how the suites have changed.

F-Secure and McAfee bucked the makeover trend. Other than a minor change in color palette, F-Secure looks exactly the same, and only the sharpest eye could detect any difference in McAfee’s 2009 edition. The biggest change for Trend Pro is a new My Home Network tab on the main screen; other changes are relatively minor.

Kaspersky moved things around and smoothed out the overall visual effect, but it’s not too different. BitDefender—the quick-change artist of the group—has undergone some big changes. The 2008 edition swapped 2007’s blocky, utilitarian look and red and silver color scheme for a super-simplified big-button view reminiscent of Microsoft’s OneCare, and the 2009 edition of BitDefender is another complete makeover.

ZoneAlarm has changed the most of all. For years, it has used an awkward dual-tab system, which left some users confused about where to find features, and a hodgepodge of bright-colored icons. ZoneAlarm 2009’s interface is much more coherent, both in function and appearance. Norton has made some big changes, too, getting rid of the confusing separate “Norton Protection” tab. Check the slideshow for before and after pictures.

So, do these radical changes in appearance represent big improvements in functionality? In most cases, no. The biggest exception is Norton: In addition to merely cosmetic changes, it has also streamlined its protection and added visuals for performance-related features such as Norton Insight and the handling of security tasks in idle time.

In the past I’ve given each security suite separate ratings for Firewall, Antivirus, Antispyware, Antispam, and Privacy/Parental Control. With this round of suite reviews I’ve added a Performance category and separated Privacy and Parental Control. Of course, some components are more important than others. I give much more weight to the firewall, antivirus, and antispyware components, as well as to the new Performance index. The attached chart pulls together the individual component ratings for the 2009 suites, so you can focus on choosing one that’s strong in the areas you need most.

Norton Internet Security 2009 excelled in the most important areas—firewall, antivirus, and antispyware—and it did so with little affect on performance. Its antispam and parental-control elements are dismal, but many users don’t need those. Norton remains our Editors’ Choice for 2009. Those who’ve sworn off Norton’s suite for life (there are some who can’t get beyond its past performance problems) should consider Trend Micro Internet Security Pro 2009. Its scores are impressive, if not quite as high as Norton’s, and it does well in all areas, including those where Norton falls down. Click the links below for full reviews.

Suites Keep Coming

The number of players in many industries keeps shrinking as small vendors fail or get eaten by bigger ones, especially in the current financial climate. Not so with the makers of consumer-side security suites! Some vendors take a single-focus product, such as an antivirus or a software firewall, and parlay it up into a suite. Others modify their Enterprise-level products hoping to generate a separate revenue stream on the consumer side. These new suites haven’t necessarily settled into the “fall model year” schedule adopted by their existing competitors. In fact several have popped up since my roundup of 2009 suites. The current top suites don’t have to worry about the competition yet-all three of these newcomers need work-but the category as a whole is clearly healthy.

TrustPort is well-known for its Enterprise and gateway products but hasn’t been a force in the consumer market. Recently the company quietly released a consumer version of its TrustPort PC Security 2009. The product has some features not usually found in consumer products-one, an antivirus/antispyware solution runs multiple detection engines, another provides a feature for managing Public Key Infrastructure encryption. But the PKI features really need Enterprise-level support, the virus/spyware protection isn’t top-notch, and the firewall manages to be both obtrusive and ineffective. Not only that, the suite seriously slows system boot time and Web browsing. Consumers want a suite that does the job quietly and without generating problems-this isn’t it.

Comodo added virus and spyware protection to its existing Comodo Firewall Pro-thus was born Comodo Internet Security 3.5, a minimalist suite that doesn’t include antispam, privacy protection or parental control components. It does have the virtue of being free, though. But while the firewall module is admirable, the added virus/spyware protection just doesn’t do the job. The product scored dismally in my malware-removal test, did a poor job of keeping malware out of a clean system, and popped up multiple alerts for many perfectly valid programs. And it had more impact on system performance than I expected for such a lightweight suite. If you need free security, use the Comodo firewall and get your virus and spyware protection elsewhere.

CA (formerly Computer Associates) isn’t new to the security-suite market, but its latest version is significantly changed. Unfortunately, the changes in CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2009 went in the wrong direction. The software is weak in almost every area. Its completely separate virus and spyware scanners scored poorly both at malware removal and at keeping rogue software out of a clean system-only Comodo scored lower. The firewall resists malware attacks but bothers the user with many queries; with its Safeguard features enabled it seriously interferes with many valid programs. This pieced-together collection of security elements offers so-so protection while putting more of a drag on system performance than any other suite I’ve tested

Click here to compare the security suites featured in this roundup

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My Note: Well there you have it. This year at least I don’t have to run out and buy new Security Software, I use Trend Micro which is ranked second. -jschulmansr

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Gold and Oil Top Peter Grandich’s Shopping List – Seeking Alpha

Source: The Gold Report

Peter Grandich, creator and producer of The Grandich Letter for a quarter century, allied himself with AGORACOM in October, bringing his well-known and oft-quoted commentaries to a far wider audience than his subscriber base and financial media such as The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, CNN, GlobeInvestor, Financial Post and BNN. Breaking away briefly from his recent blogging, the veteran Wall Street watcher and investment advisor tells The Gold Report readers what he likes looking forward—gold (up to $1,000) and oil (between $35 and $40). Also high on his list: uranium (for the nuclear renaissance), junior miners (a select few), and Canadian banks (pretty much all of them). 

The Gold Report: Judging from opinions you’ve expressed in recent newsletters and blogs, you clearly believe we will be testing the November lows during the first quarter this year. What is some of the logic behind why you think that will happen?

Peter Grandich: My belief has been that if and when the U.S. stock market bottoms, along with the economy, it will be an L-shaped bottom, not the V that so many on Wall Street keep talking about. The problems that brought us here persist. In fact, they’ve gotten worse over time, which gives me even more reason to believe that we’re going to bottom eventually but not go far off that bottom once we do. The logical viewpoint for us to take at this point is to look for a market to make at least a double bottom, if you don’t believe it’s a V bottom. Obviously, if it’s a V, you only have one time you’re at that low.

The November lows are, I suspect—as I’ve said recently—are not a question of “if” but “when.” A strong bounce is likely to come off that because the remaining bulls who aren’t totally bloodied would look and hope for that to be an opportunity to get more long if they’re not already 100% long.

The view we’ll have to take after that is watch the bounce, see what type of volume and breadth it has. The problem with rallies we’ve had all through this decline is that neither their volume nor breadth has been half as strong as in the declines; that is always an earmark that the bear market is continuing and that rally is a countertrend. So that’s another thing to look for when and if we catch those lows.

TGR: You mentioned that maybe we should be looking for a double bottom. If we go back and re-test the November lows, is that our double bottom? Or would you expect to go through the November low?

PG: I still suspect we’re going to go through it, but we have to be able to change our views as the markets change. The only way bouncing off that bottom and then turning up past 9000 on the Dow—that would be the only technical factor that would suggest to me that the bear market was over. My feeling is that even if we do hold that November low, we are going to have a very long trading range on the Dow of somewhere between 7500 and the 9000 that we rallied to twice the last year but have failed to go through.

Rather than trying to catch a falling sword and usually getting their hands sliced by it, quite frankly I think what’s best for investors would be to be certain or fairly certain that a bottom is put in and miss the first 10% or 20% to the upside. I think if and when we do break out above those numbers, we’ll also be hearing things on the economic side getting better.

Now, that’s not my bet right now, but I think you always have to have a plan to possibly change your view and be set for it if certain things happen. My most likely scenario continues to be that this economy will be very weak throughout 2009, and not just the first half that the bulls keep talking about. And we don’t have any real hope of a sustained equity bull market at least until 2010 at the earliest.

TGR: Your writing is bullish on oil, though.

PG: Yes. We suggest that people contain any oil purchases between $35 and $40—not above $40 at this point. Oil longer term is far more likely to be higher than that level than equities looking out the same timeframe. If people are still willing to look out three to five years versus three to five days, I think oil is a better risk-reward at this point than the U.S. equity market.

TGR: Are you talking about buying oil as a commodity or purchasing oil equities?

PG: Both. What I do like especially about Exchange Traded Funds now is the ability to have a bunch of oil stocks within them. No-load funds are still a good way to go with equities for those who are very long-term oriented. But ETFs are a better vehicle for investors because you can buy and sell as many times as you want during the day, not just get the end-of-the-day price when you sell your mutual fund. Both are useful. But either way, I think you need to track the actual commodity as well as oil stocks.

TGR: Your blogging suggests that you think precious metals sector also will do well, even in 2009?

PG: Yes, I continue to believe that; in fact, I believe the best investment right now is gold. Not because I think the world’s coming to an end; quite frankly it won’t matter if you have gold if there’s truly an end-of-the-world scenario. And I am not a gold bug; I’ve been bearish on it at times.

Nevertheless, thanks to the credit crisis, which is taking place in all four corners of the world, I do believe people around the globe are realizing that paper money may not be the best safe-haven investment. And although gold did not go up in 2008, it did serve its purpose by being an insurance hedge. Whether they’re professionals or just individual investors, no one I know would mind having been even for 2008 versus the heavy losses they took. So, gold did its job; those who put money in gold didn’t see the losses that everybody else suffered.

But I believe now that we’re going to see capital gains opportunities in gold for 2009 and into the foreseeable future. The market has all the fundamentals that one would want right now. There’s a declining supply, which will decline even further because those who normally look for gold, the junior resource stocks, have been so hammered that we’re not going to see a lot of new exploration for some time.

The few companies that will be going into production will be a premium. The excess supply that used to come into the market, particularly from central banks, has dried up. We’re also seeing tremendous physical demand; in fact, throughout 2008, it was very difficult for people to acquire physical gold. Coins and bars that used to be readily available were in such demand that there became a shortage. In fact, if you wanted to purchase physical bullion, you were paying 10% or more above the spot price.

People say that should have caused a dramatic rise in the gold price. The paper market is still driven by the COMEX, where the futures trade. Unfortunately, some people claim, that market has been manipulated. I can simply say that the paper market has not mirrored the physical market. I believe the physical demand eventually will overrun what is not happening in the paper market. Once that occurs and once we’re above a $1,000 and stay there for more than a week or a month, I think we’re going to see a lot more money pour into gold. I don’t know about $2,000 an ounce for gold, but once that money starts to pour in I still think $1,200 gold and $1,400 gold— even $1,500—is a very variable, useful and likely target.

TGR: For 2009?

PG: More likely in 2010. The only way I see it happening in 2009 is if we really see worse economic conditions and financial Armageddon. Right now thanks to this historical presidential election in the U.S., there is a mild—if misplaced—hopefulness that somehow the new administration can magically do something in a week or a month or a couple of months that the group before couldn’t do in several months, if not years. Once this hopefulness wears off and people realize they face the same difficulties in fixing a horrendous problem, we could see even more pressure in the credit market and in the equity market. If that’s the case, money has to go somewhere.

What’s been most interesting, a couple of weeks back, the Treasury market—where most people ran to in the last downturn—actually started selling off, especially on the longer end. I think part of that money is going to find the gold market.

TGR: Are you looking at gold as a precious metals purchase as in physical gold or ETFs? Or in this case do you see plays to be made in equity shares?

PG: There are equity plays to be made. I think first you want to have some physical bullion. One of the things I learned as a hard lesson—and as many other people did in 2008—sometimes mining shares, particularly the juniors, don’t track gold. During a large-scale liquidity crisis, people sell everything they own, including juniors. Even so, I think we’ve seen the industry destroyed as much as it possibly can be. The companies that have managed to stay around, particularly those that are going into production soon or are already in production, will have a big bounce back. Unfortunately, many of the pure exploration companies that haven’t come close to identifying a mine may not survive—but those failures actually enhance the prospects of the survivors. Money will flow into them long before it flows into the small exploration companies.

TGR: Do you have any favorites as you’re looking at these near-producing or producing companies?

PG: Sure. In fact, we’ve just been engaged by Hawthorne Gold Corp. [TSX.V:HGC] to help with corporate development services. I have to point out that I have a prejudice there simply because I’ve been aware of the management team for years. When I was a fund manager and a hedge fund manager, I purchased and did very well with the companies they were involved with. I am speaking of El Dorado Gold Corporation (EGO) and Bema Gold. Both principals at Hawthorne Gold were founders of those previous companies and helped develop mines. Hawthorne Gold has made a series of acquisitions and is going into production, apparently in 2009. As I said earlier, those are the types of companies that I think are going to be attractive first and are likely to see a big rebound, even though they have suffered in seeing their share price decline.

And Hawthorne has the management team, has the finances, and is mining in an area of the world where they don’t have to worry about political problems. British Columbia, most of Canada, and even the U.S. are probably the safest places to explore and mine right now. And, of course, that’s where they’re concentrated on. So they seem to have all the ducks in order and have the ability to prosper at the expense of some others who are not in the position that they are.

TGR: A big focus now for people who are investing now in equities are the balance sheets, specifically cash in the bank and how long a company can survive without going to the capital markets. Can you speak a bit about that regarding these companies?

PG: There’s no question that financing has all dried up in every sector, and the junior market is no different. The good news is that El Dorado has been able to raise enough capital to see themselves through production. Once production starts, obviously cash flow becomes important. I believe we’ll see a lessening of that tightness in those companies that are looking particularly for gold or precious metals as their main focus because of the expectation that the gold price is going to rise and attract people’s eyes while everything else is seemingly not moving in the world.

So, I think if we look into the second half of 2009 and 2010 when companies like Hawthorne may need to come back to the market, I think the market will be more conducive to raising money than it has been or is now.

TGR: How was El Dorado able to raise money to go through production?

PG: Both Mike Beley and Richard Barclay were senior managers and directors at El Dorado in its early days. (Both Beley and Barclay are Hawthorne Directors; Beley is also Chairman, while Barclay is also President and CEO.) They helped raise a lot of money and bring mines into production. They also were able to do the same thing with Bema, which Kinross Gold Corporation (KGC) eventually bought for something like $3 billion.

When financiers look at companies, they’ve learned that the real important thing in juniors is management. Metals mining has a few different ways to go at it and all, but it’s not very exotic. So the likelihood of seeing their monies do well is really going to fall on the management team’s shoulders. It stands out when you have a management team that has demonstrated at least once—and these gentlemen have done it twice—the ability to develop a company and bring it into production. And let’s not forget that for every little junior that looks for metals and goes into production, 95 or so don’t go the whole nine yards. That stands out. That is always what impressed me about these gentlemen, why I used to be involved, and put money in El Dorado and Bema, and why I would want to associate with their company now. They are clearly standouts as managers in an industry where failure is the norm.

TGR: What do you think about Bravo Venture Group [TSX.V:BVG]?

PG: There is another company that’s made just outstanding discoveries and demonstrated an understanding of the deposits. They continue to put out great drill results—excellent results of deposits that are developing very nicely. And also, it’s a company with the ability to demonstrate that they have enough support out there despite terrible financing conditions. They’ve been able to complete a financing recently that is going to move them forward. And they’re in a very good area of the world; as I said earlier, Canada and America are the safest places to look right now. So Bravo Ventures, too, I believe is one of the companies that will move forward to production. I suspect that they may not want to run the production, though, so there may be a sale or some type of a joint venture.

TGR: How about Bravo’s management team?

PG: Really what got me interested is somebody I worked with in the past and offered me an opportunity to do so again. As I said, I make my bets on management, and even some great management teams still don’t go all nine yards. But just like the quarterback is the most important position on a football team, management is in juniors. I go a long way back with Robert Swenarchuk, who’s head of Bravo’s Corporate Development and a member of Board of Directors. He is the one who made me interested in this and showed me why this deposit could develop. He was right. I’m a people better, and especially in the junior markets, and there again is another reason—because I have such faith in somebody who has an active role in the company.

TGR: You also follow ATW Gold Corp. [TSX.V:ATW].

PG: Just like you find out who your real friends are during tough times, you learn which people really know what they’re doing during tough times. It was easy when everything was flying; even the pigs were flying. ATW was able to secure a very advanced-stage mine that its previous owners had to liquidate because they had financial problems, and then brought in a very top-line management team that had experience in that area. On top of that, several months ago they switched their currency from Australian dollars to Canadian dollars. So they used the currency situation to make a gain of almost $1.5 million and at the same time avoid having to go the market and advance their project.

Here, too, is management. I’ve known Graham Harris, one of ATW’s Directors, for almost 20 years. He’s always been a straight shooter, particularly when he was in the financial arena, and finding a straight shooter in the financial arena is like finding a needle in a haystack. So I’ve always had confidence in his honesty. He was very excited about this project. He brought me in about a year ago; it just keeps being advanced. We should be in production there in short order. If you notice, I’m trying to concentrate on companies that are either close to going into production or are in production now.

And there again, in my opinion, they are going to be a survivor of the juniors’ dismay and then be there when the market eventually rebounds and comes into a bull market again. They will be among the leaders in the juniors segment.

TGR: Do you have any other companies under that umbrella?

PG: My favorite, favorite company—and it is my largest personal holding so I speak from a biased standpoint—is Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (NAK). It has the largest undeveloped copper-gold deposit in the world. It’s in Alaska. The numbers are crazy—94 million ounces of gold, 72 billion pounds of copper. It is currently in a venture with Anglo Gold (AU) where Anglo can purchase 50% of the project by spending up to $1.4 billion. They’ve already spent a couple hundred million in further developing the project and advancing it to a pre-feasibility study.

It also has a 19.9% ownership by Rio Tinto (RTP). It had a 10% ownership by Mitsubishi, but Mitsubishi has been buying shares continuously in the open market lately. I suspect they’re heading to 19.9% ownership too.

If and when the market returns to people interested in precious metals or even base metals, there’s no question that at least one of those companies will want to own at least half, if not the whole deposit. Northern Dynasty’s stock came down a lot because all stocks came down. It is ridiculously priced at few dollars a share, but I believe when this eventually is done it will sell for multiples of where it is now.

TGR: Why wouldn’t Anglo buy it now while the price is depressed?

PG: Like everybody else, they don’t think time is against them. They realize this is a bear market. They also realize that they’re going to need current management’s support. Current management has about 20% of the stock; and as I said, their opposition—which are competitors—Rio has almost 20%. So unless they made a very favorably valued price, they’re not going to be able to buy it at current prices or anything close to that.

Hunter Dickinson, which manages this Northern Dynasty, is one of the biggest players in the junior- to-mid-size producers and exploration companies. They know they have to work with all these potential bidders; so they have not really played one against another—but sooner or later it will be one against another. So no one is rushing to drive the price up, but if Mitsubishi is able to acquire 20%, and Rio and management have 20% each, if and when a bidding war starts, there’s only about a 40% float out there. That will be when we really prosper as a shareholder. You need to sit back and accumulate a stock like this now and go on that expectation of what I said turns out be true.

TGR: So, how close is Northern Dynasty to production?

PG: It’s approaching pre-feasibility. We won’t see production for a few more years at least, but it’s so large. It’s 25% of the copper needs for the United States, and it’s on the top of every major producer’s list. We could still see someone else come out from left field that currently doesn’t have a position, but the ones I’ve mentioned certainly have the lead in potentially acquiring the additional stake. The problem for all three of them is that they know they can’t make a low-ball bid, but when they do make a bid for it, they want a bid that’s not going to cause a battle. Since nothing is moving now, they’re just waiting until someone else makes the first move. That’s the difficult part, but you have to speculate that eventually someone will. And when they do you’re going to get a multiple return on what you’re paying for it now.

TGR: In a worldwide recession, given the price of copper, wouldn’t the copper component discount the gold?

PG: The beauty of having so many million ounces of gold is that you can sell the copper for whatever you get, and you get the gold for almost nothing. It’s such a huge deposit; it’s been described that they still will not find the whole deposit by the time our grandchildren are adults. That’s how huge it is. We’re all living on the expectation that someday things will get better than they are now. If and when they do, the demand for the metal will come back again.

There’s an interesting thing about the base metals and even copper. Despite a tremendous slowdown in the world, copper has managed to still be about twice the price it was at the lows of the last big recessions in the ’80s and ’90s. One of the reasons I think that has happened is that most of the major, highly valued deposits had been discovered and drilled off. So one of the reasons copper is not dropping so much is because the operational costs to develop copper is higher than it was several years ago. We’re probably within 10% or 15% of that absolute bottom. It doesn’t mean you start buying now, because it may be a while before it can raise its head. But we’re closer to the end of the decline in copper than we are in the U.S. stock market.

And I must make the point that even if and when I become bullish on equities again, someone is going to have to be over-weighted in foreign stocks. One of the first things I’m looking to do once I believe markets have bottomed is to buy Canadian banks.

TGR: What is it you like about the Canadian banks?

PG: Of all the banking systems around the world, the Canadian banks (outside of Toronto Dominion (TD)) is the only group of banks that didn’t get heavily involved in all the CDS markets and all these derivatives. So the Canadian banking system is one of the places I think will be fairly safe to enter once the equity market has bottomed. They’re on my shopping list right now to eventually look at, but I think they will continue to decline somewhat until the markets themselves bottom.

TGR: One of your blogs suggests that uranium has bottomed out and we’re going to see it up in triple digits in 24 to 36 months. What about this year?

PG: I don’t know so much about the price in 2009. Uranium has seen its worst days in my view. I do believe we’ve seen the bottom and I believe it can tick up. The real factor will be how much the new U.S. administration is truly going to look at alternative energy. It’s one thing to say it during a campaign, but how much will Obama turn to alternative energy? When oil was hitting $140 and $150 and Congress was hauling in the principals of oil companies at $150, they can’t haul them in any more at $40. So I don’t know if they’re going to do what so many other administrations have done—and that is to kick the can down the road and let somebody else worry about energy concerns.

That said, it seems to be a serious concern of the current administration, and I think people will realize when all is said and done that the most efficient and effective and perhaps fastest way to increase abilities of getting energy outside of fossil fuels is nuclear energy. And it’s certainly happening around the world. Therefore, I think the uranium price will work its way higher, and I also think it’s only a question of when we’re going to see more nuclear plants built in the United States. Not so long ago, people thought we’d never see that.

A Bronx native, Peter Grandich hit Wall Street 25 years ago after starting an investors’ club while working as a warehouse manager and launching his now-famous publication, The Grandich Letter, which grew to become a leading newsletter analyzing the metals and mining sectors within global stock and bond markets. After only three years on Wall Street, Peter was Vice President of Investment Strategy for Philips, Appel and Walden, a top New York Stock Exchange member firm. He was dubbed “the Wall Street Whiz Kid” after he forecast the 1987 stock market crash weeks before it happened. He then predicted that the market would reach a new all-time high within two years. It did. He said that 2000 would see the end of great mega bull market of the ’80s and ’90s. It was. As long ago as 2001, he thought U.S. banks had gone “overboard in making loans that required near-perfect economic conditions in order to avoid substantial bankruptcies” and expressed concern that some of them “seem to have hidden their problems from the average investor.” In October 2007, he warned investors to “man your battle stations” and prepare for the “unprecedented economic tsunami” that would hit America beginning in 2008. Jay Taylor (Gold, Energy & Technology Stocks newsletter publisher) considers Peter “most remarkable for a successful Wall Street pro…unashamedly independent and outspoken about his views, which frequently are anything but politically correct.”

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Catch the New Bull! – Buy Gold Online – Safely, quickly, and at low prices, guaranteed! Bullion Vault.com

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Nothing in today’s post should be considered as an offer to buy or sell or as a recommendation for  any securities or other investments, it is presented for informational purposes only. As a good investor, consult your Investment Advisor, Do Your Due Diligence, Read All Prospectus/s and related information carefully before you make any investments. –  jschulmansr

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Are You Ready For This? – It’s Back and Ready To Rally!

29 Thursday Jan 2009

Posted by jschulmansr in Bailout News, banking crisis, banks, bear market, bull market, capitalism, central banks, China, Comex, commodities, Copper, Currencies, currency, Currency and Currencies, deflation, dollar denominated, dollar denominated investments, economic, Economic Recovery, economic trends, economy, Federal Deficit, Finance, financial, Forex, Fundamental Analysis, futures, futures markets, gold, Gold Bullion, Gold Investments, gold miners, How To Invest, How To Make Money, India, inflation, Investing, investments, Jim Rogers, Jim Sinclair, Latest News, Make Money Investing, Marc Faber, Mark Hulbert, market crash, Markets, mining companies, mining stocks, palladium, Peter Brimelow, physical gold, platinum, platinum miners, precious, precious metals, price, price manipulation, prices, producers, production, protection, run on banks, safety, Saudi Arabia, security, silver, silver miners, spot, spot price, stagflation, Stimulus, Stocks, TARP, Technical Analysis, Today, U.S. Dollar

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Are You Ready For This! You are asking yourself “am I ready for what?””What’s ready to Rally?” Gold my friend is the answer! As I write Gold is consolidating right around the $900 level. If you had listened to me you would be sitting on profits of $50- $100 oz. already! Well don’t worry Gold still has plenty of room to move as you will see in today’s post. – Good Investing! – jschulmansr

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Catch the New Bull! – Buy Gold Online – Safely, quickly, and at low prices, guaranteed! Bullion Vault.com

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Gold Price Could Double – World Gold Council

Source: World Gold Council

The value of gold could soar due to increased demand following the global financial crisis, it has been suggested.

According to Citigroup, the price of gold could double by the summer, the Daily Mail reports.

“We continue to remain unequivocally bullish on the medium to long-term view on gold and still believe that we can ultimately see levels in excess of $2,000 (?1,398),” the firm told the paper.

Such levels would mean the price of gold would more than double its current value.

The paper notes that since September, the value of the precious metal has already risen by $122.

Citigroup added that price rises will either come via inflation following liquidity injections by governments around the world, or by continuing investment from those who view gold as a safe haven.

In related news, a recent poll conducted by Bloomberg showed that 28 of 31 traders, investors and analysts questioned said now is a good time to purchase gold.
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Catch the New Bull! – Buy Gold Online – Safely, quickly, and at low prices, guaranteed! Bullion Vault.com

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$850B Stimulus Plan Signals Gold Take-Off – Seking Alpha

By: Peter Cooper of Arabian Money.net

Last night the US passed its much anticipated $850 billion Obama stimulus package, representing another huge monetary expansion. Countries all around the world have been at it, and the volume of money in circulation is increasing at a record level.

Meantime, gold prices have been perky and past $900 earlier this week. Now gold has fallen back a little. The gold chart has completed an almost perfect inverse head-and-shoulders pattern which should mark the reversal of the falling trend that started at $1,050 an ounce last March.

Gold technicals

Aside from the technicals of the gold chart, let us also get back to fundamentals: the supply of gold and silver is pretty much fixed. Money supply is undergoing huge and unprecedented expansion.

At present, governments are printing money like fury and little is happening to their economies because banks, companies and individuals are hoarding cash. But eventually pulling on this string will work, and money will flood into the economy in an uncontrollable way.

It is at this point that gold prices will go ballistic. That should not be more than nine months to a year away based on past precedent.

However, before that golden age occurs there will be increasing speculation about the future of the gold (and silver) price. More and more investors will read articles like this one and be impressed by the argument – which is far sounder than trying to come up with a new bull market for equities, bonds or real estate.

Bond crash

Sometime soon the bond markets of the world are also going to weaken much further, and that will give precious metals another reason to rise in value as an alternative safe haven class.

For investors in precious metals then it is just a matter of holding on and taking advantage of price dips to stock up with bullion and shares, although it is surely arguable that the best buying opportunities are behind us now as the price trend is about to head back up.

Trying to time the market exactly or using borrowed money is not a clever approach in volatile markets, but a diversified precious metals portfolio is going to be a winner over the next two years.

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Catch the New Bull! – Buy Gold Online – Safely, quickly, and at low prices, guaranteed! Bullion Vault.com

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Gold $2200: What’s in a number? – Seeking Alpha

By: Adrian Ash of Bullion Vault

Gold must hit $2,200 an ounce to match its real peak of Jan. 1980. Or so everyone thinks…

WHAT’S IN A NUMBER…? Ignoring the day-to-day noise, more than a handful of gold dealers and analysts reckon gold will hit $2,200 an ounce before this bull market is done.

Why? Because that’s the peak of 1980 revisited and re-priced in today’s US dollars.

Which sounds simple enough. Too simple by half.

First, betwixt spreadsheet and napkin, there’s often a slip. Several targets you’ll find out here on the net put the old 1980 top nearer $2,000 in today’s money. Another Gold Coin dealer puts the figure way up at $2,400 an ounce.

Maybe they got the jump on this month’s Consumer Price data. Maybe $200 to $400 an ounce just won’t matter when the next big gold top arrives. But maybe, we guess here at BullionVault, an extra 20% gain (or 20% of missed profits) will always feel crucial when you’re looking to buy, sell or hold. Perhaps that’s the problem.

Either way, having crunched (and re-crunched) the numbers just now, even we can’t help but knock out a target…

To match its inflation-adjusted peak of $850 an ounce – as recorded by the London PM Gold Fix of 21st Jan. 1980 – the price of gold should now stand nearer $2,615.

Second, therefore, the lag between current Gold Prices and that old nominal high scarcely looks a good reason to start piling into gold today. “Ask the investor who rushed out to Buy Gold precisely 29 years ago, at $845 an ounce, about gold as an inflation hedge,” as Jon Nadler – senior analyst at Kitco Inc. of Montreal, the Canadian dealers and smelters – said on the 29th anniversary of gold’s infamous peak last week.

“They could sell it for about $845 today…[but] they would need to sell it for something near $2,200 just to break even, when adjusted for inflation.”

This lag, of course, can be turned any-which-way you like. For several big-name Gold Investment gurus, including Jim Rogers and Marc Faber, it mean gold has got plenty of room left to soar, compared at least with the last time investors began swapping paper for metal in a bid to defend their savings and wealth.

But for the much bigger anti-gold-buggery camp – that consensual mob of mainstream analysts, op-ed columnists, news-wire hacks and financial advisors – gold’s inflation-adjusted “big top” just as easily stands as a great reason not to Buy Gold. Ever.

“An investor in gold [buying at the end of 1980] experienced a reduction in purchasing power of 2.4% per annum,” notes Larry Swedroe, a financial services director at BAM Services in Missouri, writing at IndexUniverse.com and recommending Treasury inflation-protected TIPs instead.

“[That was] a cumulative loss of purchasing power of about 55%…Even worse, that does not consider the costs of investing in gold…[and] while gold has provided a slightly positive real return over the very long term, the price movement is far too volatile for gold to act as an effective hedge against inflation.”

Volatility in Gold can’t be denied. Indeed, it’s the only thing we ever promise to users of BullionVault. (They can judge our security, cost-efficiency and convenience for themselves.) Traditionally twice as volatile as the US stock market, the price of gold has become five times as wild since the financial crisis kicked off. But price volatility has also leapt everywhere else, not least in the S&P 500 index – now 8 times wilder from the start of 2008. The Euro/Dollar exchange rate is more than four times as volatile as it was back in Aug. ’07, when the banking meltdown began. Even Treasury bonds have gone crazy, making daily moves in their yield more vicious still than even the Gold Price or forex!

So putting sleepless nights to one side (you may need to ask your pharmacist), the key point at issue remains “long term” inflation.

This chart shows the value of Gold Bullion – measured in terms of purchasing power, as dictated by the official US consumer price index – since the data series begins, back in 1913. (Hat-tip to Fred at the St.Louis Fed; the current CPI calculations and headline rate might bear little resemblance to personal experience of retail inflation, but for long-run data where else can we go?)

Starting at 100, our little index of gold’s real long-term value has then averaged 97.8 over the following 96 years…pretty much right where it began. As you can see, however, that long-term stability includes wild swings and spikes. And whether gold is tied to official government currency (as it was pre-1971) or allowed to float freely on the world’s bullion market, volatility looks the only sure thing.

The starting-point, 1913, just happens to be when the Federal Reserve was first founded. It was given the easy-as-pie challenge of furnishing the United States with an “elastic currency”.

Okay, so it ain’t quite made of rubber just yet. But the Dollar’s own value in gold – by which it used to be backed, pre-1971 – just keeps brickling and bouncing around like it’s being used to play squash.

What the chart above offers, however, is a picture of gold’s real long-run value outside of Dollar-price fluctuations.

“With the right confluence of economic and geopolitical developments we should see gold break through $1,500 and then $2,000 and then possibly still higher round numbers in the next few years,” said Jeffrey Nichols, M.D. of American Precious Metals Advisors, at the 3rd Annual China Gold & Precious Metals Summit in Shanghai last month – “particularly if we get the type of buying frenzy or mania that often occurs late in the price cycles of financial and commodity markets.”

“This is hardly an audacious forecast when looked at relative to the upward march in consumer prices over the past 28 years. After all, the previous high of $875 an ounce in January 1980, when adjusted for inflation since then, is today equivalent to more than $2,200.”

Audacious or not, as Nichols points out, the thing to watch for would be a “buying frenzy” – a true “mania” amongst people now Ready to Buy Gold that sent not only its price but also its purchasing power shooting very much higher.

Because for gold to reach $2,200 an ounce in today’s money (if not $2,615…) would mean something truly remarkable in terms of its real long-run value.

  • Inflation-adjusted, that peak gold price of 21 Jan. 1980 saw the metal worth more than 5 times its purchasing power of 1913;
  • In March 2008, just as Bear Stearns collapsed and gold touched a new all-time peak of $1,032 in the spot market, the metal stood at its best level – in terms of US consumer purchasing power – since December 1982;
  • Touching $2,200 an ounce (without sharply higher inflation undermining that peak), gold would be worth almost 6 times as much as it was before the Federal Reserve was established in real terms of domestic US purchasing power.

“I own some gold,” said Jim Rogers, for instance, in an interview recently, “and if gold goes down I’ll buy some more…and if gold goes up I’ll buy some more.

“Gold during the course of the bull market, which has several more years to go, will go much higher.”

But “much higher” in nominal Dollar terms is not the same as “much higher” in terms of real purchasing power, however. More to the point, that previous peak of $850 an ounce – as recorded at the London PM Gold Fix on 21 Jan. 1980 – lasted hardly two hours.

Defending yourself with gold is one thing, in short. Assuming gold is the perfect inflation hedge is quite another. And taking peak profits in gold – as with any investable asset – is surely impossible for everyone but the single seller to mark that very top price.

That doesn’t diminish gold’s real long-term value to private investors however, as we’ll see in Part II – to follow.

Catch the New Bull! – Buy Gold Online – Safely, quickly, and at low prices, guaranteed! Bullion Vault.com

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Is Gold Really Pausing? – MarketWatch

By: Peter Brimelow of MarketWatch.com

 Will Mark Hulbert’s recent column, pointing out that the Hulbert Gold Newsletter Sentiment Index (HGNSI) was over-extended, signal an important top? Or just a ripple? See Hulbert’s Jan. 27 column.

Either way, there will be a group of angry readers. Of the 220 comments about the column, as I write, the furious bulls outnumber the fanatical bears about 3 to 1.
But both sides are pretty riled up. This is only money, people!
Early Monday in New York, gold cleared $915. But Wednesday evening, it was down $30-plus from its high. And the US$ 5×3 point and figure chart kindly supplied by Australia’s The Privateer service has turned down. See chart.
There is a possibility that the action around the weekend was a false breakout.
If it turns out to be a bull trap, GoldMoney’s James Turk will turn out to have been wise in his latest Freemarket Gold & Money Report. Turk accepts the radical thesis that the price of gold is manipulated by an alliance of private and public sector actors.
He writes: “Gold must still contend with the gold cartel and its ongoing efforts to cap the gold price. It may try to ‘circle the wagons’ above $900, which would seem a logical point for them to make another stand now that $850 has been exceeded. If the gold cartel is successful in stopping gold for any length of time, new longs may get discouraged by the lack of progress and take profits. That selling, along with new shorts by the gold cartel, could begin a cycle of selling that gains momentum and drives gold back to its last level of support, which is $850.” See GoldMoney Web site.
Will gold stumble? In favor of the bears, oddly enough, is the section of Bill Murphy’s radical goldbug LeMetropoleCafe Web site that follows India. The Indians are definitely out of the world gold market, it appears. On downswings, their support is usually crucial. See LeMetropoleCafe Web site.
But the radical gold bugs think strange things are happening. Murphy’s site noted Tuesday that the extraordinary premiums being paid in the West for gold items did not go away on this month’s rise. And the Comex gyrations, closely examined, continue to suggest the presence of large, determined buyers.
For perspective on Mark Hulbert’s HGNSI, look at MarketVane’s Bullish Consensus for gold. This surveys futures traders. It peaked at 74% on Monday, and came in tonight at 72%.
Sometimes gold peaks do occur with this reading in the 70s. That happened at the turn of the year, and again last September.
But the normal behavior, especially before a big sell-off, is for the upper 80s at least to be reached. Last February/March, as gold attempted $1,000, the Bullish Consensus spent no less than four weeks in the 90s. See MarketVane Web site.
So the radical gold bugs conclude that gold may pause. But it’s not seen a major blow-off yet. End of Story
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Catch the New Bull! – Buy Gold Online – Safely, quickly, and at low prices, guaranteed! Bullion Vault.com

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Gold headed south for the short term?- MarketWatch

By: Mark Hulbert of MarketWatch.com

ANNANDALE, Va. (MarketWatch) — Gold certainly deserved a rest Wednesday.
After all, it had mounted an impressive rally over the previous two weeks, gaining some $100 per ounce. So we can definitely excuse gold bullion  for forfeiting $9 in Wednesday trading.
The more crucial question, however, is whether the decline was merely the pause that refreshes, or the beginning of a more serious drop.
Unfortunately for those hoping gold’s recent rally to continue, the conclusion of contrarian analysis is that the metal’s short-term trend is more likely to be down.
Consider the latest readings of the Hulbert Gold Newsletter Sentiment Index (HGNSI), which reflects the average recommended gold-market exposure among a subset of short-term gold-timing newsletters tracked by the Hulbert Financial Digest. As of Tuesday night, the HGNSI stood at 60.9%.
This is identical to where the HGNSI stood at the end of December, when I last devoted a column to gold sentiment. ( Read my Dec. 29 column.)
Over the two weeks following that column, of course, bullion dropped by around $70 an ounce.
Contrarian concern about gold’s short-term trend isn’t just based on this one data point, however. I have more than 25 years of daily data for the HGNSI, and rigorous econometric tests show that the inverse correlation between HGNSI levels and the gold market’s subsequent short-term direction is statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.
This is why the HGNSI’s current level is so ominous.
To put it in context, consider that this sentiment gauge’s average reading over the last five years has been 32.6%, only slightly more than half where it stands now. Over the last five years, furthermore, the HGNSI has been higher than where it is now just 13% of the time.
This does not mean gold can’t go higher from here. But it does suggest that the odds are against it doing so.
Lest I incur undeserved gold-bug wrath by writing that, let me hasten to add that this bearish conclusion applies to just the next several weeks. Sentiment affects the short-term trend of the market, not the long term.
So my conclusion is entirely consistent with gold being in a major, long-term bull market.
But even if it is, the implication of my contrarian analysis is that gold is not ready, at this very moment, to commence on that march upward. End of Story
Mark Hulbert is the founder of Hulbert Financial Digest in Annandale, Va. He has been tracking the advice of more than 160 financial newsletters since 1980.
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My Note- While feeling that Gold price make take a breather here consolidate and maybe even drop a little, both Mark Hulbert and Peter Brimlow agree; Gold is in a long term Bull Market! Any dips in price should be taken as an opportunity to buy more gold!…

Catch the New Bull! – Buy Gold Online – Safely, quickly, and at low prices, guaranteed! Bullion Vault.com

That’s all for now, hit the subscribe button to keep up with all the latest Gold, Market News and more…Enjoy! – jschulmansr
Nothing in today’s post should be considered as an offer to buy or sell any securities or other investments, it is presented for informational purposes only. As a good investor, consult your Investment Advisor, Do Your Due Diligence, Read All Prospectus/s and related information carefully before you make any investments. –  jschulmansr

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Gold Miners: Amazingly Cheap – Seeking Alpha

27 Monday Oct 2008

Posted by jschulmansr in commodities, Copper, deflation, Finance, gold, inflation, Investing, investments, Latest News, Markets, mining stocks, precious metals, security, silver, U.S. Dollar

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Gold Miners: Amazingly Cheap – Seeking Alpha

By: Graham Summers, GPS CAPITAL RESEARCH

Do you own bullion yet?

During the last market rout, the price of gold plunged from $900 an ounce to $690 an ounce. The talking heads, seeing this, announced that gold is no longer a safe haven or a storehouse of value.

They’re wrong.

The idea that gold has somehow lost its safe haven qualities due to a temporary drop in price is beyond idiotic. To claim this is to ignore the role gold has played for well over five millennia. What are the odds that this has suddenly changed?

No, this recent drop in gold has come almost entirely from downward pressure in the “paper” gold markets — the COMEX and Gold ETF (GLD). And this downward pressure has come from two trends:

  • Institutional liquidations
  • The dollar’s rally

Hedge funds, pension funds, and even mutual funds have been slammed with redemptions in the last year — mutual funds alone have experienced $967 billion in redemptions since the beginning of 2008.

In order to meet these redemptions, funds have resorted to liquidating portions of their portfolios. Gold — which the stock-centric crowd never really believed in anyway — was one of the first items to go. And since the “paper” gold market is relatively small — the total value of gold on the Commodity Exchange in New York (COMEX) is roughly $5 billion — it doesn’t take much capital to crush gold in the “paper” markets.

As for the dollar’s rally, the Feds’ interventions and hyperinflationary money printing will put an end to this sometime in the not so distant future. You can’t add $6 odd trillion in liabilities to the US balance sheet, start trading in unsecured commercial paper markets — as the Fed did with its TARP facility — and increase the monetary supply at an annualized rate of more than 300% — the pace of money printing maintained by the Feds during the last month — and NOT kick the dollar in the face.

No, the dollar rally will end sooner rather than later. When it does, the last obstacle standing between a raging Bull market in gold and gold mining shares will have been removed.

Speaking of miners…

While gold has been hammered, gold mining stocks, particularly juniors, have been truly creamed. The explanation here is much the same as for gold: liquidations. However, while the gold paper market may be roughly $5 billion, gold juniors as individual plays are even smaller. So it takes even less money to beat these stocks down.

Because of this, today, gold mining stocks are currently trading at levels you only see at the end of BEAR markets. Taken as a whole, the sector is at its second cheapest level relative to the price of gold since 1984.

It’s an absurd situation. Gold is undergoing a correction during a bull market… while gold miners — basically real estate companies sitting atop gold — are trading as if they just ended a bear market in gold. This won’t last forever. At some point both the institutional liquidations and the dollar’s rally will end. When they do, gold miners will explode upwards.

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The Favorable Outlook for Gold – Seeking Alpha

24 Friday Oct 2008

Posted by jschulmansr in Copper, deflation, Finance, gold, hard assets, inflation, Investing, investments, Latest News, Markets, oil, precious metals, security, silver, U.S. Dollar, Uncategorized

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The Favorable Outlook for Gold – Seeking Alpha

By: J. Christoph Amberger

Spot gold prices bounced off a $700 low yesterday morning. “Gold’s recent slump bewilders investors,” headlines MarketWatch.

“An ugly, unmitigated disaster, this,” writes Jon Nadler of Golbug Central Kitco.com.

Despite of valuation drops that seem to rival those of certain emerging markets, some die-hards still see the glass as half full.

Adrian Ash actually found a ratio that makes gold look good:

You might like to know, if you put store by such things, that the US stock market just sank to a 14-year low against gold. (…) So the Dow/Gold Ratio – which simply divides the one by the other, thus pricing the Dow Jones Industrial Average in ounces of gold – fell to a little above ten, making the 30 stocks of the DJIA cheaper in Gold Bullion terms than at any time since January 1995.

Jim Turk celebrates new gold price records — “against the Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Indian rupee, South African rand and British pound.” Not against the U.S. dollar, mind you, the currency gold is supposed to hedge against. But against the currencies that hard money internationalists considered the Dr. Jekyll to the greenback’s Hyde just eight weeks ago!

O quae mutatio rerum… how things have changed, as the German student song bitter-sweetly complains.

The Daily Reckoning‘s Bill Bonner wrote yesterday morning:

Money is pouring into the gold coin market. Apparently, dealers can’t keep up with the demand. Of course, financial analysts tend to view the gold coin market as a place for nuts and kooks. ‘If the world really does fall apart, you’d be better off buying ammunition,’ said one analyst. But it depends on how apart the world falls. If commerce were still done peaceably, gold coins would be a good thing to have in your pocket. But, he’s right; when things really fall apart, you’d be better off packing heat than Krugerrands. But we’re not worried about that kind of world — it is too wild and too unpredictable.

Big Gold‘s Jeff Clack goes futuristic in his outlook, writing an article from the vantage point of “a news release I brought back with me from the future that reveals the price of gold”: “It’s with nothing but unabashed excitement that I republish an article that I saw cross the AP wires on January 21, 2012….Gold rockets past $5,000 in heavy trading.”

Those of us stuck in the here and now, however, breathed a sigh of relief as gold clawed back to $720.

What is going on?

As far as Doomsday predictions go, it’s hard to imagine anything that could beat a 30% drop in the Dow to fuel panicked gold buying.

And let’s make no mistake about it: People are buying gold like there’s no tomorrow. Shout “Fire!” at a gold bug convention, and people will ooze toward the exits like garlic butter from escargot as their pockets are weighed down with pounds of precious metals. One expert wrote, “At the London Gold Bullion Traders Conference in Kyoto, I was amazed to find the magnitude of the shortage of gold and silver coins. In Germany, they aren’t having the crisis we’re having here, but Germans were lining up to buy gold. They have gold in the kilo bars. Everything is sold as soon as they get it.”

With dollars, pounds, euros and yen already pouring into physical gold at humongous premiums… what could possibly be the catalyst for that long-overdue break-out that heaves gold past $1,000?

During the gold bull market, gold investors liked to point at China as the looming demand catalyst. To them, ancient concepts of wealth would turn China into a virtual hotbed of aurophilia. (Apparently, 50 years of Communisms, the Cultural Revolution, and the VW Jetta (the #1 selling car in China in January 2008!) had no effect on Chinese perceptions at all.)

But how much can we really expect from Beijing?

“Due to a lack of gold reserves, it will be very difficult for China to respond to any proposal put forward for reconstructing the Bretton Woods system,” wrote Xu Yisheng of ChinaStakes.com just yesterday morning. And the Chinese consumer? Chinaview.cn says that per-capita disposable income was recorded at 4,140 yuan (605.6 U.S. dollars) in rural areas. According to Forbes.com, per-capita disposable income of urban residents was 13,786 yuan. Less than $2,000. Per year. Per capita.

Even at $700 an ounce, the nouveau riche Chinese may have other ideas to spend that money than converting it on rapidly depreciating gold coins. Maybe on a down payment for a Jetta, a Buick Excelle (#4 best-selling car), or the Ford Focus (#9)… a solar electricity unity for hot shower water… or rice and pork in case he happens to be one of the tens of thousands Chinese who’ve been laid off by shuttered factories.

How about those gung-ho gold buyers in India? Those who “traditionally” see gold as a store of value? Here’s a sound-byte straight out of India. “The global crisis has definitely affected the sale of gold and silver. Though I do not have the exact figure, but the business has been 50 per cent of what it was last year,” the president of the Ahmedabad Jewelers’ Association, Shanti Patel, said on OutlookMoney.com yesterday morning.

What I find most concerning at this point is that Indians aren’t buying right now. Think about it. Gold is selling at a 30% “discount” from its 2008 high. Hard money advisories are urging readers to use this “last opportunity to buy below $1,000”. Gold should be a back-up-the-truck bargain right now.

But the deferral of buying in India means only one thing:

Prospective buyers expect prices to fall even further!

One reason for this is the epic trend reversal in the U.S. dollar. The euro is now trading below $1.30 for the first time since February 2007. The British pound fell to the weakest level against the dollar in five years. The U.S. economy make be in no great shakes right now… but neither is anyone else’s. Worse, the liquidation of foreign assets and portfolios has sparked a veritable rush into greenbacks.

“The fact that gold did not head higher during the current leg of the crisis seems to reflect a combination of the rise in the dollar, deleveraging of commodity positions, sales to meet margin calls, and the unwinding of the long gold, short dollar trade,” wrote Natalie Dempster, an analyst at the WGC, in a research report released yesterday.

In my humble opinion, we cannot look to Asian or American buying to create a strong, sustained bullish catalyst for bullion. To make things even worse, crude oil prices keep falling — increasing the downside pressure on gold. Even the prospect of an output cut in by OPEC cartel, was only good to raise light sweet crude for December delivery to $69.05 dollars per barrel, after oil had traded as low as 65.90 dollars — a level last seen on June 13, 2007.

Brent North Sea crude for December had hit a low of $63.96 Wednesday, a price level last seen in March 2007. Amateur speculators have abandoned oil at this point. With the bubble pressure gone, nothing is standing in the way of another 50% drop in crude oil prices!

Here’s my Holiday Season prediction: Oil will go up to $65 thanks to Turkey Day automotive traffic by late November. Gold will be trading below $700 by Halloween. The dollar will be trading at $1.20 per euro by the time they’re turning on the Christmas lights on the Washington Monument in Downtown Baltimore.

If you hold any gold in your portfolio — especially if you bought even an ounce of gold since 2004 — it is high time to buy some insurance against this rout! My colleagues and I have put together a simple investment strategy that translates gold’s current downside into cold, hard profits for you… without you having to sell as much as a single Krügerrand!

 

My Note: My opinion/recomednation is keep slowly adding to your precious metals positions both mining stocks and physical gold. Protect yourself by purchasing some cheap put options in case market goes down even further. This way if we do get a blow up in the middle east or elswhere you’ll be positioned at or close to the bottom. I think we’ll have stiff resistance or a floor at $650-$675 for gold. -jschulmansr

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When Inflation Erupts, Gold Will Take Off!

22 Wednesday Oct 2008

Posted by jschulmansr in commodities, deflation, Finance, gold, inflation, Investing, investments, Latest News, Markets, oil, precious metals, security, silver, Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on When Inflation Erupts, Gold Will Take Off!

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Austrian school, banking crisis, banks, bear market, bear stearns, bull market, capitalism, central banks, commodities, communism, deflation, depression, diamonds, dollar denominated, dollar denominated investments, economic, economic trends, economy, financial, futures, futures markets, gold, gold miners, hard assets, heating oil, inflation, investments, market crash, Markets, mining companies, natural gas, oil, palladium, physical gold, platinum, platinum miners, precious metals, price, price manipulation, prices, producers, production, protection, recession, risk, run on banks, safety, silver, silver miners, socialism, sovereign, spot, spot price, stagflation, U.S. Dollar, volatility

Frank Holmes: “When Inflation Erupts, Gold Will

Take Off!”

 

 

Source: The Gold Report  10/21/2008

 

Expect short-term hesitancy in the upward movement of the gold price until liquidity returns to the markets, says Frank Holmes, CEO and chief investment officer at U. S. Global Investors and co-author of the new book “The Goldwatcher:Demystifying Gold Investing” (John Wiley & Sons). In this exclusive interview with the Gold Report, he predicts gold will go to $1,000, even $2,000, over the next two years. A growing money supply due to a change in government policies will help lift some juniors out of their misery, too. Holmes advises selective nibbling until conditions improve and names a few companies to consider.

TGR: Can you start off by telling us what’s going on?

FH: Based solely on global economic indicators, commodities should be in a cyclical bear market with no bottom in sight. But there’s intense pressure on policymakers to fill the deflationary vacuum that’s been created by both Main Street and Wall Street. Main Street’s plummeting housing prices stretched the limits of the financial system, but lawmakers in an election year will find it easier to blame Wall Street than Main Street.

TGR: Both sides are at fault.

FH: The abuse of leveraging is the biggest culprit. Mike Milken spoke at a conference I attended last week in Hong Kong. He said that at the height of his career he was leveraged 4-to-1. Goldman Sachs now is leveraged 20 times, so a 5% mistake would wipe them out. The combined impact of Sarbanes-Oxley, FAS 157 (mark-to-market regulations) and leverage abuse has cost New York its position as the world’s financial capital. No one expected this escalation of write-downs.

When Warren Buffett bought General Re Insurance in 2002 he warned about notional valuations because he tried to sell some of the derivatives, and lost billions of dollars. He called derivatives “weapons of mass financial destruction.” Everyone ignored him, and the derivative market increased 500% in five years.

TGR: Wow.

FH: If you make a 2% mistake in the $500 trillion derivative market, that’s $10 trillion. What’s $10 trillion? Well, the world’s total GDP is $50 trillion. The total amount of U. S. dollars in circulation is roughly $15 trillion. A 2% mistake wipes out 20% of the world’s GDP.

We’re actually experiencing huge deflation—in housing and on Wall Street. It’s not inflationary yet. The Paulson package is a stopgap measure that could lead to inflation. This meltdown is just like 1974 or the Depression of the 1930s, not the 1987 quick crash. It continues to destroy confidence. Another thing that propelled this meltdown to more disastrous proportions was the rule that removed the uptick rule for short-selling.

TGR: What will fix this situation?

FH: That’s a good question. Adding untested regulations is dangerous, and the law of unexpected consequences is often negative. The combination of Sarbanes-Oxley, FAS 157 and the no uptick rule for shorting basically became toxic and led to the destruction of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. Also, “ideas” like printing more money and the debasement of currency do not solve the credit crisis and are not good long-term solutions.

The dollar’s not going to collapse due to loss of Asian support. All countries will support the dollar. The reason is that they can’t afford for it to fall too far because then suddenly the U. S. would be exporting products and not importing. All the currencies will slowly debase themselves against gold and keep the dollar as the currency for global trade.

It appears we are now going through that inflection point moving from deflationary forces to an inflationary cycle. We had a little bit of run-up in inflation when oil ran to $150 a barrel, which was very excessive. What didn’t make sense was the fact that gold didn’t rise along with oil. On the historic 10-to-1 ratio, gold should have gone to $1400 to $1500. That leads to suspicions that a few people were manipulating the price of oil because gold failed at $1,000 per ounce. On another note, it is important to remember policymakers will do everything in their power to create liquidity and, historically, liquidity is bullish for commodities. However, our research suggests it’ll take several quarters before this will affect commodity prices.

TGR: Will the market stagnate until this liquidity flows through and moves the commodities up?

FH: You’ll have to be a very selective buyer for another couple of quarters. The price correction should lose downward momentum and create a “U” shaped bottom as the capital markets begin to reflect the policies being implemented.

TGR: When you say the price correction will lose its downward momentum, do you mean this wholesale sell-off of everything?

FH: Right.

TGR: We saw yesterday that Goldcorp (TSX:G) (NYSE:GG) was down 16%.

FH: That downward momentum will start to slow.

TGR: When you say commodities, do you mean gold?

FH: Asian economic activity has a big influence on the purchase of gold. At the London Gold Bullion Traders Conference in Kyoto, I was amazed to find the magnitude of the shortage of gold and silver coins. In Germany, they aren’t having the crisis we’re having here, but Germans were lining up to buy gold.

TGR: Do they have supplies?

FH: No, but they have gold in the kilo bars. Everything is sold as soon as they get it.

TGR: I tried to buy some Swiss 20 Francs today and couldn’t find any.

FH: People are paying a large premium for small coins, and the purchase of safety deposit boxes is on the rise. People have been actually stuffing dollars in them, along with gold. It’s not really a 1980-style mainstream panic. People are continuing to buy. The growth of gold ETFs attests to that. Now let me try to explain some of these huge price swings in commodities, equities and emerging markets.

Your readers might be interested to know that banks all have this software called VAR, or Value At Risk. It triggers an alarm indicating a need for more capital due to escalating debt defaults. You’d think that banks would go to their prime brokerage arm and rein in hedge funds trading mortgages and de-leverage them because that’s where the risk is. Your business model says, “I have defaulting mortgages, so I need to be sure our hedge fund and prime brokers aren’t having similar problems.”

TGR: Right.

FH: Well, the banks reacted by calling every hedge fund and de-leveraging all asset classes, equities, banks and commodities. So, starting August 12, 2007, some of the S&P stocks moved 15% in a day internally. This same margin call has now taken place about four times this past year. U.S. banks in Japan yanked loans to small cap companies, so those guys were scrambling to replace those loans. Situations like that are happening everywhere and they illustrate the long reach of this credit crisis.

A lot of emerging marketing investors got their noses bloodied when the U.S. called for its loans to be repaid. They will not be so quick to repeat that mistake. This ripple effect is hurting businesses. That is a concern that I heard over and over. Fortunately, the governments of emerging markets have huge surpluses and are better equipped to handle this crisis than they were in the 1990s.

All of this is good for commodities and gold rises in step with commodities. When inflation erupts everywhere, then gold will take off on its own with a bigger move.

TGR: When will that happen exactly?

FH: Over the next two years gold will be well over a $1,000, maybe running up to $2,000. The number-one Asian analyst, Chris Wood, is advocating a 30% gold exposure to institutions. Now, this is the number-one brokerage firm in Asia and their research is excellent.

TGR: What’s the name of the firm?

FH: CLSA-Asia Pacific Markets. It recommends a portfolio allocation of 30% gold:15% gold bullion and 15% unhedged gold stocks. When an analyst of his stature advises putting 30% of your portfolio into gold, you have to take note. We tell our clients to put a maximum of 5% into bullion and no more than 5% toward gold equities.

TGR: Doug Casey’s latest missive rounded it up to 30% too.

FH: The significance here is that the institutional side is getting on board with gold. That’s a big deal.

TGR: Because the gold market is so small compared to the market caps these institutions deal with, even a small change in percentage would make a huge difference.

FH: All the brokers are getting their marching orders simultaneously. What happens is that non-correlated assets begin to correlate as people seek liquidity. So everyone’s saying, “I have to get cash.” It’s important to remember that brokers were leveraged 20 times and low-income house buyers were leveraged 99 times. This creates a chain reaction and knocks down the commodities. Several of these hedge funds have blown up, and if our holdings are similar to theirs, they’ve hurt us.

We went into this correction with a big cash position back in June, and we never expected such a huge correction, but our models were showing that it should be 20% to 25% cash. Then we start to nibble as things get clobbered, but they continue to get clobbered.

TGR: Yes.

FH: Last week the markets hammered every stock with liquidity. Many funds have been hit by this problem. Margin calls are driving this. It has nothing to do with the demand for gold or the supply and discoveries.

TGR: But that should work itself out fairly quickly by the end of the year.

FH: It was estimated that by the end of the year there would be $22 billion of resource stocks coming out.

TGR: Do you mean coming out of the hedge funds?

FH: Yes. Hedge funds have been forced to shut down. It’s really interesting to look at the TSE Venture Index. When the asset-backed paper problems happened last summer, retail sponsorship dropped dramatically. The U. S. went through something similar in February when suddenly the small caps and mid-caps started losing liquidity. What we noticed was that the auction rate paper is exactly ten times the size of Canada’s asset build paper crisis—$330 billion versus $33 billion. It was just before tax season, so a lot of American investors had to scramble for cash by redeeming their equity funds to pay their taxes.

TGR: Do you follow Richard Russell’s Dow Theory Letters?

FH: You mean regarding the relationship between the Transports and the Dow Industrials?

TGR: Yesterday both were down so Dow Theory now confirms that we are in a bear market.

FH: Yes.

TGR: What happens to gold stocks in a bear market?

FH: Whether you have big deflation or big inflation driving the bear market, gold does well. If it’s just a normal cyclical inventory recession or whenever interest rates are above the CPI rate, gold doesn’t do well. Today, the Fed’s funds are below the CPI rate and the printing presses are busy.

TGR: So, what are we in now?

FH: I think we’re at the tipping point moving from deflation to inflation.

TGR: So, we’ve been on the negative side of that.

FH: We saw gold run to $1,000 twice because of deflation, not inflation. Massive liquidations are deflationary. Collapsing housing prices are deflationary. The price of oil running up was inflationary but it was triggered by the dollar deflation and gold moved with it. In the ’30s, when you had a big deflationary cycle, gold was the best asset class. In the ’70s, when you had a big inflationary cycle, gold was the best asset class.

TGR: Right.

FH: In the ’90s when there was no big inflation or deflation, gold just meandered along.

TGR: So when do you think we will reach that tipping point from deflation to inflation?

FH: The money supply has basically been flat for the past three months. The correlation of commodity price action and emerging market money supply has an R-squared value over 80—highly correlative. We track the G-7 countries versus the E-7 (the seven most populated emerging countries in the world with available data) and track their money supply. The money supply has not been growing rapidly. We need to get the money supply up and this will happen with the $700 billion bailout. So, we’re going through a transition over the next couple of months.

TGR: When will gold respond?

FH: There’s been a six-week lag with the money supply, the same with NASDAQ. If the money supply spikes, there’s a 70% probability that within six weeks the NASDAQ will start to rise.

TGR: Why would an increase in the money supply impact NASDAQ?

FH: People have more cash to spend.

TGR: So they’re moving into the NASDAQ?

FH: Yes. The money supply has one of the highest correlations to the gold commodity as a whole. When you look at stocks individually, the number-one driver is the production per share growth. After that, it’s cash flow, and then reserves. You can eliminate 80% to 90% of all the noise by calculating production and the cash flow.

TGR: What would you tell someone who has just inherited a million dollars?

FH: I’d put 5% into gold bullion and 5% into unhedged gold stocks.

TGR: Unhedged producers?

FH: Yes, and if you want to go down to the smaller caps like Jaguar (JAG. TO), that’s where you get your biggest potential returns.

TGR: Can you share a few names on your list of unhedged gold producers?

FH: We like companies that have a royalty business, such as Royal Gold (RGLD). We also look at those with the strongest per-share-growth rates coming over the next 12 – 18 months. That list includes Agnico-Eagle Mines (TSX:AEM), Kinross Gold (KGC-NYSE; K-TSX), and Goldcorp—all of which have very healthy growth profiles relative to the Newmonts of the world. Goldcorp isn’t a pure gold play, because it also produces a high percentage of base metals. But we expect that within two years those base metals will really start taking off.

TGR: Is that prediction based on anticipated growth in China?

FH: Yes. China has structurally gone through a quiet phase, but the government has policies in place that are designed to invigorate growth. As that growth starts to pick up steam over the next six months, you’re going to see increased demand for the basic commodities. Of course, the economy is spending a lot of money for infrastructure right now, and that might put a temporary lag on commodities.

TGR: But you believe China’s growth will drive the commodities market higher?

FH: Yes. The credit crunch created by the collapse of U. S. financial institutions will slow things down for a while, but ultimately, China will grow.

TGR: What other companies do you like?

FH: Unless they have two grams of gold (per ton) or a million ounces, junior explorers have been drifting lower and lower. Historically in situ reserves have traded at one-tenth of an ounce of gold. So, if gold is $600, then your reserves are worth $60 per ounce. When gold was $300, they were worth $30. That was the model for determining a fair market cap for junior explorers. With gold at $850, these companies should be worth $85 per ounce of reserves, but they’re not. This amazes us. And when one of these companies is bought out, it’s usually paid more than the ten times ratio. But valuations are now drifting down to $40 and $35 per ounce. So the market is basically valuing a company that has 8 million ounces as if it had only 4 million ounces.

TGR: This is a short-term phenomenon, right?

FH: Yes.

TGR: So, when this situation changes, how quickly will producers and majors start buying up the juniors?

FH: That’s a different point. The seniors are going to buy only those juniors that have two grams of gold per ton or a million ounces. The other juniors will just work their way out of the system or go bankrupt.

TGR: What other criteria do you use to evaluate juniors?

FH: We ask some simple questions:Is the CEO technically competent? That is, is he a geologist? If not, that may be okay, but does he have a broad network to make up for that lack of technical knowledge? Does he know the newsletter writers, like Doug Casey, for instance? Does he know the investment bankers?

We’ve found that if the CEO does not know the Street, and doesn’t know the newsletter writers, it doesn’t matter if he’s a geologist or an engineer. There’s going to be no liquidity in the company’s stock, unless there is a multimillion ounce discovery with a grade of greater than 2 grams per ton. But if you have a company whose CEO knows lots of newsletter writers, gets lots of coverage, knows the value in the Street and gets research for it, that company is going to have a higher price-to-book valuation, which makes it a much more attractive investment.

TGR: Anything else you look for?

FH: Financing is crucial. Companies that are rapidly spending money are going to run out of cash in about six months. The market undervalues them until they have financing in place.

TGR: Can you give us a few companies on your list that meet your criteria?

FH: Moto Goldmines (TSX:MGL), which is in the Congo, is in that category, though they face geopolitical risks. The company has more than 10 million ounces and more than five grams per ton. Another one is Gabriel Resources (GBU:TO), which has a large asset in Romania.

TGR: Both of these companies have some geopolitical risks associated with them.

FH: They do. But if they satisfy the criteria, these are the ones that the big mining companies will be acquiring.

 

To learn more about investing in natural resources, you might want to take a look at industry veteran Frank Holmes’ new book, The Goldwatcher: Demystifying Gold Investing. Holmes is CEO and Chief Investment Officer of U.S. Global Investors, Inc., a registered investment adviser that managed more than $5 billion in 13 no-load mutual funds and for other advisory clients as of June 30, 2008. U.S. Global specializes in the natural resources, emerging markets and global infrastructure sectors. Its funds have received numerous awards and honors during Holmes’ tenure, including more than two dozen Lipper Fund Awards and certificates. Holmes is a much-sought-after keynote speaker at national and international investment conferences. He is also a regular commentator on the financial television networks CNBC and Bloomberg, and has been profiled by Fortune, Barron’s, The Financial Times and other publications. In addition, Holmes was selected as the 2006 mining fund manager of the year by Mining Journal, a leading publication for the global natural resources industry.

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Virus Bulletin : News – AV-Test release latest results

04 Thursday Sep 2008

Posted by jschulmansr in computer security, Computers and Computing, hacking, id theft, security

≈ 2 Comments

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anti-virus, av-test, comparative, computer security, firewalls, hacking, phishing, results, security, testing

Virus Bulletin : News – AV-Test release latest results

 

 

<!– –>Test Results: 2009 Anti-Malware Suites Better at Sniffing Out Threats

 

AV-Test’s latest lab results show improvements in malware detection, without jeopardizing performance

 

 

 

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008 | Finally, some good news about antivirus products: The new 2009 releases of popular antivirus and Internet security suites overall are catching more malware than their previous versions and without major performance hits, according to newly released test results. Independent testing lab AV-Test looked at 33 different anti-malware products that had been updated through Aug. 18 — including 2008 and 2009 versions of F-Secure, Symantec, and Panda’s anti-malware suites as well as Windows Live OneCare 2.5.2900.03, Kaspersky Internet Security 2009, and McAfee Internet Security 2008 — measuring how well they did in detecting malware and spyware, proactively detecting new and unknown malware, responding to new widespread malware, scanning quickly, and generating false positives.

“In most cases, the test results of the different products didn’t change dramatically… [Most] got better when compared with our March 2008 testing and all 2009 editions we’ve reviewed performed better than the current releases,” says Andreas Marx, CEO of AV-Test. “I especially liked that the protection got better while the system performance wasn’t hit that much — the 2009 editions [including beta versions] were faster than the 2008 releases. So it looks like that most vendors have done their homework and instead of adding only new features, they also took care about the system performance.”

Marx noted that many of the ’09 products can or will eventually use “cloud” type services for more comprehensive scans. “If an unknown file has been found on a system and this file appears to be suspicious, the scanner (and guard) will check if it’s a known good or bad application by contacting a server from the AV company,” he says. “This might further increase the detection rates. However, you’d need to be online and accept such connections in order to get this additional protection.”

In the AV-Test research, Symantec’s Norton 2009 beta came out with some of the best ratings in the lab tests, catching over 98 percent of malware, over 95 percent of spyware, and no false positives. The software also found new malware over 95 percent of the time. Marx notes that Symantec is now pushing virus definition updates, known as “pulse updates,” every five to 10 minutes in some cases.

Among the products with the lowest scores were CA Internet Security Suite Plus 2008, ClamWin 0.93.1, Dr.Web for Windows 4.44, Rising Internet Security 2008, and VirusBuster Professional 10.86.1. AV-Test did not test rootkit detection — which has been a weak spot for most anti-malware tools — in this round of testing to give vendors time to improve this detection, which was poor in AV-Test’s April results. (See New Tests Show Rootkits Still Evade AV.)

AV-Test says it used the best available editions of the products, and ran the tests on Windows XP platforms, using over 1.1 million malware samples. “The 2009 [products] seem to be a lot better optimized for the real needs of the customers, and they will not slow down the systems in such a dramatic way like the 2008 editions did,” Marx says.

—      Kelly Jackson Higgins, Senior Editor, Dark Reading

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=162788

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AV-Test release latest results

Major test of suite products completed

Independent testing body AV-Test.org has released the results of a major comparative of suite products, with many vendors’ 2009 editions included in the results. The test covers a range of metrics, including detection rates over various types of malware including adware and spyware, false positive rates, scanning speed, proactive detection, and response times to outbreaks.

In terms of pure detection rates in on-demand scanning, a beta version of GDATA‘s AVK 2009 topped the charts for both ‘malware’ (measured against 1,164,662 samples) and ‘ad- and spyware’ (94,291 samples), with Avira‘s Premium Security Suite 2008 a close runner-up in the former category and F-Secure 2009 placing second in the latter. Secure Computing‘s Webwasher gateway product, based on the Avira engine with some in-house heuristics, came third in both categories.

Other areas analysed were scored on a five-point scale from very good to very poor. ‘Proactive’ protection included scanning of files discovered after the freezing of products, and executing unrecognised malware to test behavioural protection. Products rating ‘good’ or better in every category include Avira‘s premium suite (the popular free version has less complete spyware detection), AVK 2009, F-Secure‘s 2009 suite, Symantec‘s Norton I.S. 2009 (still in beta) and Sophos‘s Security Suite 2.5. All products taking part in the test managed to achieve a ‘good’ or better in at least one category.

The test also included keeping a record of the number of updates released over a four-week period. Of course, these numbers on their own cannot be used to measure the quality of the products involved, but were recorded out of interest. The most interesting data to emerge from this measurement was that the 2009 version of Norton topped the table with an impressive 6,202 incremental micro-updates, issued several times per hour, while Kaspersky came a distant second with a mere 696. Half of the 34 products tested had fewer than 100, including those from McAfee (21) and Trend Micro (30).

A summary of the major areas tested is printed below; hover over the product names to see full version information.

Product

malware on demand

adware / spyware on demand

false positives

scan speed

proactive detection

response times

malware on demand

adware / spyware on demand

AntiVir (Avira)

++

++ (4)

+

++

+

++

99.8%

99.0%

Avast! (Alwil)

++

++

+

+

o

o

99.3%

98.3%

AVG

+

– (4)

+

+

o

o

95.8%

87.0%

AVK 2008 (G Data) (1)

++

++

o

–

+

++

99.2%

99.1%

AVK 2009 (G Data) (2)

++

++

+

+

++

++

99.8%

99.8%

BitDefender 2008

+

–

+

–

++

+

97.7%

87.8%

BitDefender 2009

+

–

+

o

++

+

97.6%

88.0%

CA-AV (VET)

—

—

++

o

–

—

65.5%

68.0%

ClamAV

–

o

–

—

–

++

88.5%

92.8%

Dr Web

—

–

o

o

+

o

84.9%

89.6%

eScan

+

+

o

–

+

++

97.8%

97.4%

Fortinet-GW

o

—

o

+

++

+

92.6%

81.9%

F-Prot (Frisk)

o

o

+

+

o

o

94.8%

92.6%

F-Secure 2008

++

++

+

o

++

+

98.2%

98.4%

F-Secure 2009

++

++

+

+

++

++

99.2%

99.6%

Ikarus

++

++

o

+

+

+

99.5%

98.6%

K7 Computing

o

o

o

++

–

o

92.1%

94.0%

Kaspersky

++

++

o

o

+

++

98.4%

98.3%

McAfee

o

o

++

o

+

–

93.6%

94.5%

Microsoft

+

+

++

o

–

–

97.7%

97.1%

Nod32 (Eset)

o

o

++

++

++

+

94.4%

94.7%

Norman

+

+

+

o

+

o

96.3%

95.8%

Norton 2008 (Symantec)

+

o

++

+

+

o

97.8%

94.6%

Norton 2009 (Symantec)

++

+

++

++

+

++

98.7%

95.4%

Panda 2008

–

o

+

+

++

o

86.4%

93.4%

Panda 2009

o

+

+

+

++

+

91.8%

95.6%

Rising

—

—

+

o

o

o

83.4%

77.5%

Sophos

+

+

+

+

++

+

97.5%

95.0%

Trend Micro

o

–

+

+

o

+

91.3%

88.5%

TrustPort

++

++

–

—

++

++

99.5%

98.4%

VBA32

o

–

o

o

+

o

90.5%

85.2%

VirusBuster

–

–

+

+

o

o

89.0%

85.8%

WebWasher-GW (3)

++

++

o

++

++

++

99.7%

99.2%

ZoneAlarm

+

+

o

o

+

++

97.8%

97.7%

Index

malware on demand

adware / spyware on demand

false positives

scan speed

proactive detection

response times

malware on demand

adware / spyware on demand

++

>98%

>98%

no FP

 

 

< 2 h

 

 

+

>95%

>95%

1-2 FP

 

 

2 – 4 h

 

 

o

>90%

>90%

3-4 FP

 

 

4 – 6 h

 

 

–

>85%

>85%

5-6 FP

 

 

6 – 8 h

 

 

—

<85%

<85%

> 6 FP

 

 

> 8 h

 

 

Notes
(1) AVK 2008 uses the Avast and Kaspersky scan engines
(2) AVK 2009 uses the Avast and BitDefender scan engines
(3) WebWasher uses the Avira engine and a self-developed heuristic engine
(4) the free (personal) edition does not include ad- and spyware detection, so the results would be —

02 September 2008

Tags: av-test, comparative, results, testing.     del.icio.us    digg this

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