Now that the economy is slowly but surely recovering – Bernanke said so! – many investors are beginning to wonder if gold may have passed its all time high too. With Bernanke’s dulcet assurances still echoing in our ears, investors went back to their errors. They bought more stocks – pushing the Dow up 93 points. They bought more gold too. The yellow metal rose $13. One thing they didn’t buy was the dollar. The greenback is at an all-time low against the Swiss franc. Against the euro, it seems to be returning to its all-time low and against gold, of course, it passed its all time low many months ago, says Bill Bonner Read More→

Yesterday, Obama showed that he had nothing to hide about his origin. (Birth Cert., Trump has been ridding.) But there’s something else he doesn’t want you to realize, and that’s how mediocre the economic recovery is. What happens in the next 3 to 6 months in this “hinky” market is the million-dollar question (literally) – the debt crisis is big… but did you know how big? $290 billion fleeing munis… $700 billion coming in EU bailouts…and $3.4 TRILLION exiting U.S. treasuries. These are huge “capital waves” cresting in the markets. And now, the latest projection from the Federal Reserve suggests a tightening cycle in the U.S., that should kick off by the start of 2012, according to Societe Generale economist Aneta Markowska. The Fed cut its GDP projections slightly, raised its inflation expectations, and suggested the unemployment situation was improving. But the bottom line is the economic recovery is not going well. Rather it’s going badly. And the recent signs suggest that it may be about to get worse–just as the Fed’s latest emergency stimulus measure (QE2) begins to run out. From a bookkeeping point of view, Standard & Poor’s is absolutely right. U.S. spending policies are out of control; they’re not showing any sign of being fixed in the near future. With that said, the U.S. is a special case because it is a country that can manipulate the currency policy of the entire global system for its own benefit, and as we’ve seen in the past, the Federal Reserve really doesn’t have a problem doing that. Read More→

After a wild first quarter that included unrest in Egypt, Libya and Saudi Arabia, a spike in oil and gasoline prices. There is an apparent acceleration of inflation and continued global debt fears, investors need to embrace investment strategies and investment choices that will provide returns even as they manage risk, says Chief Investment Strategist Keith Fitz-Gerald. “In many ways, we are truly entering uncharted territory,” Fitz-Gerald said. Read More→