Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Japanese Pension Fund Switches To Gold

The IMF (announced $2.3 billion gold purchase), Soros, Pimco, Texas Teachers Retirement fund - anyone see a definitive trend starting here?

From the Financial Times (Mark at Strategic Energy Research gave me the heads up):

Okayama Metal & Machinery has become the first Japanese pension fund to make public purchases of gold, in a sign of dwindling faith in paper currencies...With institutions warming to gold, too, demand could grow further.

Not much I can add to this article.  Here's the LINK.  You'll need to register for a free password.  The FT is worth the effort.

What I will add to this is that we are seeing Central Banks, large institutions and wealthy global investors openly converting paper money into gold.  Please contrast this with bubbleheads and financial idiots in this country (like CNBC, Bloomberg and Dennis Gartman) who continually pump and promote a fiat, paper currency system in collapse.

17 comments:

  1. The question is: Are they buying physical or paper gold? The article on Soros seems to indicate his big position now is in the gold ETF. Though I haven't checked the others I'd suspect the Texas boys went physical, like that University in Texas did, to the surprise of many.
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/93775585/Paper-Gold-and-Silver

    It will be fun to watch the "big players" choking on paper, a big surprise awaits. True wealth giants never show their hand, they always acquire slowly, off the radar, at better prices. Never to disturb the flow, never to breakdown the flow by starting the inevitable hyper run. ;0)
    -W

    -Wil

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    1. Texas Teachers bought physical. Not sure about Pimpco. Soros' fund bought GLD, but as I surmised yesterday, I would be Soros personally owns a shitload of phys. IMF is physical buyer. Japan fund is GLD. THey'll choke on that eventually unless they convert it into phys.

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  2. Boy this gold and silver selling is getting surreal! In the long run we all dead. In the here and now my portfolio is taking a thrashing!

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    1. Sit tight and be right. We started removing hedges today.

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    2. My physical ounces have not gone down one fraction. When valued in FRNs they have but that is looking at it the wrong way. Wealth preservation, baby!

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  3. Dave;

    I wrote a blog with you in mind today...after reading Taibbi's article on the criminals who call themselves bankers. http://thecivillibertarian.blogspot.com/#!/2012/05/of-course-markets-are-manipulated-only.html

    Anonymous...let me ask you this...

    Have the fundamentals changed? Has the world solved its debt problem? Has the US found a way to replace the 30 million tax paying jobs it has lost overseas? Of course not.

    Sit back and feel the ice water in your veins. Think of the possibilities. Ask yourself this. Is Obama good or bad for the future of precious metals? In an odd, sick and twisted way, I kinda hope that idiot wins.

    And know this. QE3 is coming. There is no way out. We are all gonna be fine.

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  4. I could never understand the SNB decision to print unlimited CHF at 1.20 to the euro, but I think I'm gaining clarity. That decision effectively expanded the Swiss money stock to the same size as the euro. It would seem to be an irresponsible action. But whether honest or corrupt, people, even those in high places of national responsibility, will act to protect the interests of themselves, their families, friends, cronies and associates when they see things collapsing.

    It seems to me now that they opened a door for their buddies and everyone else with a clue to move their euro-based assets into CHF-based assets without suffering losses due to their action causing the CHF to increase in value. Once safely in CHF they can then further diffuse their assets into gold, dollars, yen, whatever, as well as purchasing businesses and investments that throw off cash. But the key was to first get out of the euro.

    The forex markets can absorb huge cash flows easily, so the money went there first while a decline in gold and silver was engineered. Now they can buy those at bargain prices.

    I bet a lot of small aircraft have been landing in small Swiss airports and remote landing strips packed with euros. No doubt the wealthy can bypass the normal border controls.

    And when all their friends have been taken care of, that'll be when they dump the peg.

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    1. Not so sure about that. The Swiss Frank, at its high last year traded at 1.05 where historically over the most time of the Euro's existence, 1 Euro was about 1.5 CHF. Now the Swiss economy has 3 main pillars, the criminal banking syndicate, tourism, and export of high quality products. The economy did suffer from the strong CHF, and still now you have people some people screaming for a 1.3 peg rather than 1.2. So the SNB did what they did to "short-term sooth" the situation... but as for the US, all those Euros that the SNB bought to maintain the peg, were newly created our of thin air, and that (I imagine ever growing Euro position on the SNB balance sheet) may proof hard to unwind, and may well have unindented consequences down the road... well see soon enough how this will all pan out.

      More on the actual topic, thanks Dave, always appreciate your work and articles. Seems some of the large players are starting to get it, and get into gold... Game's about to change ?

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    2. The one thing the fall of Libya and Quadaffi has shown the world is that you are better off lending to the Tuaregs or the Somali pirates than stashing your money or assets in Switzerland. Libya will never get a cent out of Switzerland or London and I am sure the bad guys have noticed. This coupled with the new easy inspection laws for the US Revenue and the double quick inspections for terrorist and drug agencies will mean the only light planes taking off will be loaded not empty.

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  5. Dave:

    The IMF is NOT buying any gold!

    See Bron's investigative reporting:

    http://www.perthmintbullion.com/au/Blog/Blog.aspx

    Slow Loris Larry

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  6. About four years ago Swiss RE announced the biggest loss ever recorded in the insurance industry. It ran into many billions and warranted a four line entry in the back pages of the re-insurance journals. The loss took place in the disaster contingency re-insurance unit in year without any discernible hurricanes or earthquakes. The rumour was at the time that Swiss RE a Rothschild insurer was bailing out Union Bank of Switzerland for it's sub prime derivative losses. Since then the losses at UBS have piled up and piled up. UBS is many times the Swiss national economy and Switzerland has to deal with these problems or get cut out of the banking system it has profited from for centuries. The Swissy is not he currency it was and Switzerland is not the credit it was either.

    Have you noticed how all the derivative losses are pilling up at the Rothschild banks UBS, Deutche Bank, Barclays, JP Morgan, Citibank, Soc Gen, HSBC these are just the larger ones. Rothschild went into derivatives in a big, big way. Derivatives have a winner and a loser we see the losers but can't see the winners. Who has made all this money. One by one the gold cartel banks are being driven out Deutche has just gone it appears, JPM is rumoured to be next.

    Robert FitzWilson (KWN) asks who is crashing the system. Is it the Rothschilds shifting the assets into offshore hedge funds leaving us all with the debts or has another group of players entered the market and is the whole power base shifting? Fitzwilson probably knows the answer but only leaves us with the question.

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  7. Dave,
    Do you think buying a call option on a blue chip gold stock through Schwab is safe
    from the stand point of non performance being the banking system is in such trouble?
    Thanks,
    Ted

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    1. Ya it's fine for now. The issue is whether or not any given brokerage firm has the possibility of blowing up. In that regard I think Schwab and Fidelity will the last ones to go down. Ultimately you don't want to have ANY of your money in ANY brokerage firms. You want it in physical metal OUTSIDE the banking system.

      THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE FOR IRA'S

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  8. The price action in AUMN is very frustrating today. All most every single miner is bouncing big except for AUMN. What gives? Any insight?

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    1. we think a large hedge fund that owned the stock from the merger has been unloading its position. probably unloading a "tag" end today. I think this fund had converted a loan to the old ECU into stock and is not necessarily a mining dedicated investment fund.

      i added some to our fund position today at $4

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  9. The short interest in AUMN is insane. If this stock pops and forces shorts to cover it is going to be the most ridiculous squeeze ever. At current volume levels it would take over 19 days for the shorts to cover!

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