Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
<< <i>It got as low as $1180. This is just the beginning of the slide IMO. We'll see 3 digits on this before long. I've never heard gold described as a "pet rock" as the WSJ did recently, but I thought it was an apt description. >>
$1,080.
"Bongo drive 1984 Lincoln that looks like old coin dug from ground."
Down $45 in 32 seconds on the type of volume volume only seen during peak NY trading hours (ie 9 am and 10 am). Was there a new time zone shift I missed?
Of those 32 seconds....there were no buys for a 20 second period. I guess that was the "hands off" order to give naked shorts some time to put on some clothing.
Interesting that that the currencies had no such huge swings, silver didn't either. Silver is still at its Nov 2014 low of $14.65.....when gold was at $1130.
Gold was $20.67 per ounce once. I guess that's where it could be headed.
So what do the gods who are infallible after the fact say about why it took the $53 "dip?"
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
Gold whacked for $47 since Friday's close ($1134) and silver is now HIGHER at $14.90+ with a brief pop >$15.00 already ($14.80 Friday). More than a little bid "odd." Can't say I've ever seen this kind of divergence before.
Whoever was responsible for keeping their finger on the silver "sell" button must have called in sick today. Speaking of sick, Gold to Silver Ratio looks to be rolling over after peaking 2 weeks ago. We'll see.
Capitulation day? Friday had many similarities to April 16th-17th 2013. Today certainly iced the cake. Must be split about 95% gold bears vs. 5% gold bulls around here.
IIRC this was discussed in a few revivable threads last year that gold would dip below $1000 before it can bolt to new highs. We are almost there. Maybe "bolt" is too strong of a word.
<< <i>Gold whacked for $47 since Friday's close ($1134) and silver is now HIGHER at $14.90+ with a brief pop >$15.00 already ($14.80 Friday). More than a little bid "odd." Can't say I've ever seen this kind of divergence before.
Whoever was responsible for keeping their finger on the silver "sell" button must have called in sick today. Speaking of sick, Gold to Silver Ratio looks to be rolling over after peaking 2 weeks ago. We'll see.
Capitulation day? Friday had many similarities to April 16th-17th 2013. Today certainly iced the cake. Must be split about 95% gold bears vs. 5% gold bulls around here. >>
Looks like the "Chinese" are taking profits in gold and I thought they were buyers.
Don't despair...silver is once again in sink...$14.71 as I type.
"Bongo drive 1984 Lincoln that looks like old coin dug from ground."
Chinese sold 5 tons in 2 minutes on the Shanghai exchange just prior to 9:30 am local time. Average trading volume for the whole day on the exchange is 25 tons. A lot of people think the Chinese government is going to continue to sell as they still have 1,658 tons, and they are propping up their stock market.
I think the PBOC will continue to ad to their gold inventory. At 1658 tonnes ($60 BILL), that's a pittance compared to their >$3 TRILL in foreign reserves. Could be a smart move to sell 5 tonnes in seconds here or there, to pick up dozens of tonnes on the cheap. It's also possible that the 5 tonnes came from HSBC, JPM, or one of the other big banks that trade in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Sydney. Was it really 5 tonnes of physical gold or just 5 tonnes of naked paper shorts that were subsequently covered well under $1100/oz. We have no way of knowing. The Chinese added 454 tonnes of gold from 2003-2009. Then another 604 tonnes from 2009-2015. Considering their country has imported and mined 7,000 tonnes of gold in the past 6 years, adding to inventory makes more sense than anything else. When Russia, Brazil, India, Turkey, and others start selling (rather than buying) then maybe I'll believe that China is selling too.
<< <i>....Looks like the "Chinese" are taking profits in gold and I thought they were buyers.
Don't despair...silver is once again in sink...$14.71 as I type. >>
Lookee there. Silver right back to Friday's trading levels again, as if Sunday night/Monday didn't happen. $14.80's to $14.90's. GSR, USD, and all the currency pairs are back to Thursday/Friday pre-crash trading levels. Only gold and platinum have lagged. They threw the kitchen "sink" at it and it's back in sync. At least it's not going away quietly. There's no doubt that the 9:30 PM EST crash just after Shanghai opened Sunday night was manufactured to take advantage of the low volume period. They began it with a very large gap down test at $1134 at the Sydney open 3-1/2 hours earlier. Then they let price bounce back up just short of that initial gap down. Then it was lights out. Maybe China wanted their 5 tonnes of gold back today? That large gap at $1134 is now acting as a magnet and it will fill again, though it could anywhere from days to months.
How does this impact the mining process/profits? It's no easier to mine gold at $1000 per oz. v. $1600, still takes labor, machinery, fuel, etc. Bought my last AGE at $1221.99 on May 2nd, thought that was a steal Do mining firms cut production to drive prices up?
On the JMBullion web site, due to incredible demand, new orders are subject to a 2-3 day delay. We will remove this message once the backlog is cleared.
<< <i>How does this impact the mining process/profits? It's no easier to mine gold at $1000 per oz. v. $1600, still takes labor, machinery, fuel, etc. Bought my last AGE at $1221.99 on May 2nd, thought that was a steal Do mining firms cut production to drive prices up?
On the JMBullion web site, due to incredible demand, new orders are subject to a 2-3 day delay. We will remove this message once the backlog is cleared. >>
Mining firms can't affect prices , they can only respond to them.
Mining companies can effect prices if they desire to do so and work together. But for the most part they've been joined at the hip with the bankers since the mid-1990's gold carry trade. Barrick gold in the 1990's to 2001 was carrying a hefty hedge against production that made it quite a bit of money, approx $4 BILL as I recall. That was directly in line with the Rubin/Summers strong dollar policy/gold carry trade. But Barrick held those hedges during some of the years from 2001-2008 as gold was rising, and gave those profits all back. You could say Barrick and other hedging gold companies did indeed affect the gold price....in this case to help keep it lower.
It's harder to mine gold every year that goes by. Until a new process or source is discovered that's reality. Miners now have to process 2X the ore they did in 2000 for the same amount of ounces. This reflects having to find gold in more out of the way places, further underground, higher up in the mountains, and deeper into the wilderness/arctic, etc. It's probably harder to mine gold at $1100 than it was at $1900 because the mining sector has shrunk. Engineers, geologists, and skilled mining labor have less jobs now than they did in 2011. Once those guys walk away to other non-PM sectors they are harder to get back. Mining equipment that is either sold off put on care and maintenance due to lack of profitability is much costlier to start up again. Sometimes the resources you had in those areas can't be brought back quickly or easily without paying higher prices. Mining companies don't typically cut production unless they are shedding inefficient operations. Lots of the big miners closed poorly operating mines, stopped exploration, or sold off non-performing - high cost mining operations. During times of lower prices they might shift to areas of higher ore grades to keep their net production as close to normal as possible.
The amount of ore that miners process is more based on the price of gold/silver than it's based on any change in what is remaining in the ground. When gold was near 2K an ounce or silver was in the $40s they were willing to process a lot of ore to get each ounce because it was profitable. If gold goes to $500 and silver to $10, over some timeframe the numbers will shift to where they're only willing to process less ore per ounce so it looks like the mining costs drop but really the costs track the market price.
The market price sets what the mining cost will be as opposed to the mining cost setting the market price. They will always be willing to mine at any cost slightly below the market price. If gold was 5K per ounce they would run mines that cost 4.9K per ounce because they'd still be making $100 per ounce. If gold drops to $500 an ounce they'll run mines that cost $400 per ounce because they'll be making $100 per ounce.
The actual price of gold is only partially to do with the mining supplied to market. It's rather the repositioning of buyers and sellers which determines where price goes. Mining supply can react to that but it also has to adhere to economies, politics, environmental issues, weather, costs/taxes, emotions/greed/fear, and hosts of other issues. In reality the mining supply is only 1.5% of world gold inventories so this is almost a non-player in world gold prices. That supply demand may work in all the other metals, but not in gold. The 165,000 tonnes of "other gold" readily available determines market pricing....not the 3000 tonnes coming out of the ground each year. How strong owners of those 165,000 tonnes want to hold on their gold at current levels determine the future direction of price. The behavior of buyers and sellers (including those holding the 98.5% of previously mined gold) make the decisions. I'd say the behavior of the miners is more in line with their belief in the future behavior of buyers/sellers as well as those other factors listed above.
Miners last reached peak gold production rates in 2000, when gold and silver were essentially at 20 year bottoms ($260 and $4). Where was the rise in gold and silver prices that had them ramp up production from 1980-2000? That 2000 production peak stood for at least 10 years....as gold rallied from $252 to $1400. Gold production peaked in 1970 and then bottomed from 1975-1980. That doesn't fit at all with the "rising price" theory. A sharp drop off in production from 2000-2008 as gold rose to $1000 also doesn't fit the rising price theory. That's an 8 year lag before production started going the other way. There's certainly more than just raw gold prices in play. Part of the issue is that it takes 5-10 years to take a mine from planning to production.
Mining is inelastic to rising price. Miners can't turn the switch on and within weeks or months start producing a lot more ore. It takes years. They have to buy more equipment, increase the size of the mills and processing plants, etc....with money they don't currently have. There was no way they could take advantage of the high gold prices from 2010-early 2013. They were stuck with what they had. They can always turn the switch "off" if they desire and set production at zero. What they did do was go out and buy a lot of properties for big dollars trying to bank "resource ounces"....which in hindsight, may never come out of the ground. Share prices in miners rose from 2008-2011 more on the resource ounces they added, not their production rates. And most of it was smoke and mirrors. I guess you can say rising DEBT and estimated gold resources caused miner share prices to rise. That has a bigger effect on production than the gold price. Those effects were immediate to the balance sheet....even if production changes were years off. It all looked "good on paper" for....a while. "Paper" seems to run both sides of the gold market.
The amount of ore that miners process is almost entirely a reflection of depleting the easy gold in the earth's crust. Ore grades have plummeted from the common days of >10 grams per tonne to <1-2 grams today. Only a couple miners today have ore grades in the 11-30 gm/tonne range. Miners now dig as deep as 3 miles down and 2-1/2 miles high to find gold. That was unheard of in 1970. It costs a lot more money to dig out 2X and3X the ore they did only a decade or two ago....to get the same amount of gold.
I can remember many people having those exact thoughts when silver was $30 and gold was $1,500. >>
I was certainly buying some at those levels. Most of it was flipped so I guess I'm not a true stacker. These days we could coin a new term - the slacker stacker.
I can remember many people having those exact thoughts when silver was $30 and gold was $1,500. >>
Heck, they've been "pulling up the truck" for 3 years now. >>
Those that have been backing up the truck for 3 years are going to need a bigger truck as well as a new transmission
mark
Walker Proof Digital Album Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Truck was full in '08. Back yard was full of holes by '12. 1st boat sank in '13 boating accident on the lake. Every door now has a 100 oz painted doorstop now. 600 lb. gold buddha in the living room freaks out most houseguests. Working on separate Greek island for more storage.
Q: Are You Printing Money? Bernanke: Not Literally
<< <i>Truck was full in '08. Back yard was full of holes by '12. 1st boat sank in '13 boating accident on the lake. Every door now has a 100 oz painted doorstop now. 600 lb. gold buddha in the living room freaks out most houseguests. Working on separate Greek island for more storage. >>
Golly, your non-PM work, savings, and investments in your jmskiville must be doing really well, to be able to afford to buy all that physical PM
<< <i>Truck was full in '08. Back yard was full of holes by '12. 1st boat sank in '13 boating accident on the lake. Every door now has a 100 oz painted doorstop now. 600 lb. gold buddha in the living room freaks out most houseguests. Working on separate Greek island for more storage. >>
jdimmick
Posts: 9,595 ✭✭✭✭✭
Comments
Well it is a Sunday night it seems like it needed to briefly go below 1100.
<< <i>Well it is a Sunday night it seems like it needed to briefly go below 1100. >>
What does Sundsy night have to do with the price plunging and why do you think it will be brief?
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
further.
bob
I don't think we're going to do that this time. But, since I'm still sitting this one out, it will surely rebound, costing me an easy bounce play.
it would suck to be a paper trade that set a stop at 1100 is all I'm saying. Wake up monday morning and see it at 1140 but you dont own it anymore.
<< <i>It got as low as $1180. This is just the beginning of the slide IMO. We'll see 3 digits on this before long. I've never heard gold described as a "pet rock" as the WSJ did recently, but I thought it was an apt description. >>
$1,080.
I love that!
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Of those 32 seconds....there were no buys for a 20 second period. I guess that was the "hands off" order to give naked shorts some time to put on some clothing.
Interesting that that the currencies had no such huge swings, silver didn't either. Silver is still at its Nov 2014 low of $14.65.....when gold was at $1130.
Gold was $20.67 per ounce once. I guess that's where it could be headed.
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
some !!! :-(
I'm glad gasoline doesn't do this kind of thing. We would have more car crashes.
Whoever was responsible for keeping their finger on the silver "sell" button must have called in sick today. Speaking of sick, Gold to Silver Ratio looks to be rolling over after peaking 2 weeks ago. We'll see.
Capitulation day? Friday had many similarities to April 16th-17th 2013. Today certainly iced the cake. Must be split about 95% gold bears vs. 5% gold bulls around here.
Positive BST Transactions (buyers and sellers): wondercoin, blu62vette, BAJJERFAN, privatecoin, blu62vette, AlanLastufka, privatecoin
#1 1951 Bowman Los Angeles Rams Team Set
#2 1980 Topps Los Angeles Rams Team Set
#8 (and climbing) 1972 Topps Los Angeles Rams Team Set
<< <i>Gold whacked for $47 since Friday's close ($1134) and silver is now HIGHER at $14.90+ with a brief pop >$15.00 already ($14.80 Friday). More than a little bid "odd." Can't say I've ever seen this kind of divergence before.
Whoever was responsible for keeping their finger on the silver "sell" button must have called in sick today. Speaking of sick, Gold to Silver Ratio looks to be rolling over after peaking 2 weeks ago. We'll see.
Capitulation day? Friday had many similarities to April 16th-17th 2013. Today certainly iced the cake. Must be split about 95% gold bears vs. 5% gold bulls around here. >>
Looks like the "Chinese" are taking profits in gold and I thought they were buyers.
Don't despair...silver is once again in sink...$14.71 as I type.
U.S. Type Set
<< <i>....Looks like the "Chinese" are taking profits in gold and I thought they were buyers.
Don't despair...silver is once again in sink...$14.71 as I type. >>
Lookee there. Silver right back to Friday's trading levels again, as if Sunday night/Monday didn't happen. $14.80's to $14.90's. GSR, USD, and all the currency pairs are back to Thursday/Friday pre-crash trading levels. Only gold and platinum have lagged. They threw the kitchen "sink" at it and it's back in sync. At least it's not going away quietly. There's no doubt that the 9:30 PM EST crash just after Shanghai opened Sunday night was manufactured to take advantage of the low volume period. They began it with a very large gap down test at $1134 at the Sydney open 3-1/2 hours earlier. Then they let price bounce back up just short of that initial gap down. Then it was lights out. Maybe China wanted their 5 tonnes of gold back today? That large gap at $1134 is now acting as a magnet and it will fill again, though it could anywhere from days to months.
Bought my last AGE at $1221.99 on May 2nd, thought that was a steal
On the JMBullion web site, due to incredible demand, new orders are subject to a 2-3 day delay. We will remove this message once the backlog is cleared.
<< <i>How does this impact the mining process/profits? It's no easier to mine gold at $1000 per oz. v. $1600, still takes labor, machinery, fuel, etc.
Bought my last AGE at $1221.99 on May 2nd, thought that was a steal
On the JMBullion web site, due to incredible demand, new orders are subject to a 2-3 day delay. We will remove this message once the backlog is cleared. >>
Mining firms can't affect prices , they can only respond to them.
It's harder to mine gold every year that goes by. Until a new process or source is discovered that's reality. Miners now have to process 2X the ore they did in 2000 for the same amount of ounces. This reflects having to find gold in more out of the way places, further underground, higher up in the mountains, and deeper into the wilderness/arctic, etc. It's probably harder to mine gold at $1100 than it was at $1900 because the mining sector has shrunk. Engineers, geologists, and skilled mining labor have less jobs now than they did in 2011. Once those guys walk away to other non-PM sectors they are harder to get back. Mining equipment that is either sold off put on care and maintenance due to lack of profitability is much costlier to start up again. Sometimes the resources you had in those areas can't be brought back quickly or easily without paying higher prices. Mining companies don't typically cut production unless they are shedding inefficient operations. Lots of the big miners closed poorly operating mines, stopped exploration, or sold off non-performing - high cost mining operations. During times of lower prices they might shift to areas of higher ore grades to keep their net production as close to normal as possible.
The market price sets what the mining cost will be as opposed to the mining cost setting the market price.
They will always be willing to mine at any cost slightly below the market price.
If gold was 5K per ounce they would run mines that cost 4.9K per ounce because they'd still be making $100 per ounce.
If gold drops to $500 an ounce they'll run mines that cost $400 per ounce because they'll be making $100 per ounce.
Miners last reached peak gold production rates in 2000, when gold and silver were essentially at 20 year bottoms ($260 and $4). Where was the rise in gold and silver prices that had them ramp up production from 1980-2000? That 2000 production peak stood for at least 10 years....as gold rallied from $252 to $1400. Gold production peaked in 1970 and then bottomed from 1975-1980. That doesn't fit at all with the "rising price" theory. A sharp drop off in production from 2000-2008 as gold rose to $1000 also doesn't fit the rising price theory. That's an 8 year lag before production started going the other way. There's certainly more than just raw gold prices in play. Part of the issue is that it takes 5-10 years to take a mine from planning to production.
Mining is inelastic to rising price. Miners can't turn the switch on and within weeks or months start producing a lot more ore. It takes years. They have to buy more equipment, increase the size of the mills and processing plants, etc....with money they don't currently have. There was no way they could take advantage of the high gold prices from 2010-early 2013. They were stuck with what they had. They can always turn the switch "off" if they desire and set production at zero. What they did do was go out and buy a lot of properties for big dollars trying to bank "resource ounces"....which in hindsight, may never come out of the ground. Share prices in miners rose from 2008-2011 more on the resource ounces they added, not their production rates. And most of it was smoke and mirrors. I guess you can say rising DEBT and estimated gold resources caused miner share prices to rise. That has a bigger effect on production than the gold price. Those effects were immediate to the balance sheet....even if production changes were years off. It all looked "good on paper" for....a while. "Paper" seems to run both sides of the gold market.
The amount of ore that miners process is almost entirely a reflection of depleting the easy gold in the earth's crust. Ore grades have plummeted from the common days of >10 grams per tonne to <1-2 grams today. Only a couple miners today have ore grades in the 11-30 gm/tonne range. Miners now dig as deep as 3 miles down and 2-1/2 miles high to find gold. That was unheard of in 1970. It costs a lot more money to dig out 2X and3X the ore they did only a decade or two ago....to get the same amount of gold.
World gold mining production
World production
It is a wonderful time to buy...I love it.
<< <i>Keep stackin'.
It is a wonderful time to buy...I love it.
Indeed, we are closing in on the level I last did any significant buying. That was at $1,000.
<< <i>Keep stackin'.
It is a wonderful time to buy...I love it.
It's deja vu all over again.
I can remember many people having those exact thoughts when silver was $30 and gold was $1,500.
<< <i>
<< <i>Keep stackin'.
It is a wonderful time to buy...I love it.
It's deja vu all over again.
I can remember many people having those exact thoughts when silver was $30 and gold was $1,500. >>
Heck, they've been "pulling up the truck" for 3 years now.
<< <i>It's deja vu all over again.
I can remember many people having those exact thoughts when silver was $30 and gold was $1,500. >>
I was certainly buying some at those levels. Most of it was flipped so I guess I'm not a true stacker. These days we could coin a new term - the slacker stacker.
<< <i>
<< <i>Keep stackin'.
It is a wonderful time to buy...I love it.
It's deja vu all over again.
I can remember many people having those exact thoughts when silver was $30 and gold was $1,500. >>
On it's way up or on it's way down?
Keep an open mind, or get financially repressed -Zoltan Pozsar
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>Keep stackin'.
It is a wonderful time to buy...I love it.
It's deja vu all over again.
I can remember many people having those exact thoughts when silver was $30 and gold was $1,500. >>
On it's way up or on it's way down? >>
Yes.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>Keep stackin'.
It is a wonderful time to buy...I love it.
It's deja vu all over again.
I can remember many people having those exact thoughts when silver was $30 and gold was $1,500. >>
Heck, they've been "pulling up the truck" for 3 years now.
Those that have been backing up the truck for 3 years are going to need a bigger truck as well as a new transmission
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
I knew it would happen.
I give away money. I collect money.
I don’t love money . I do love the Lord God.
Keep an open mind, or get financially repressed -Zoltan Pozsar
<< <i>Gold is up 17% this year in euros. Barbaric relic? Depends on whose asking. >>
No it isnt...it's basically flat this year. But the German stock market is up almost 30% in euro terms.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
<< <i>Gold is up 17% this year in euros. Barbaric relic? Depends on whose asking. >>
Golly, if gold is up 17% this year in euros, how much is the Nasdaq up this year in euros? How much is XON up this year in euros??
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
<< <i>Truck was full in '08. Back yard was full of holes by '12. 1st boat sank in '13 boating accident on the lake. Every door now has a 100 oz painted doorstop now. 600 lb. gold buddha in the living room freaks out most houseguests. Working on separate Greek island for more storage.
Golly, your non-PM work, savings, and investments in your jmskiville must be doing really well, to be able to afford to buy all that physical PM
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
Gotta go. Boarding a plane...flight attendant is smokin'. Gotta concentrate and play cards right.
Nice reversal in gold today.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
I knew it would happen.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
<< <i>Struck out.
Nice try, but every one of them pretty much are taken by a pilot...married or not.
Positive BST Transactions (buyers and sellers): wondercoin, blu62vette, BAJJERFAN, privatecoin, blu62vette, AlanLastufka, privatecoin
#1 1951 Bowman Los Angeles Rams Team Set
#2 1980 Topps Los Angeles Rams Team Set
#8 (and climbing) 1972 Topps Los Angeles Rams Team Set
<< <i>Truck was full in '08. Back yard was full of holes by '12. 1st boat sank in '13 boating accident on the lake. Every door now has a 100 oz painted doorstop now. 600 lb. gold buddha in the living room freaks out most houseguests. Working on separate Greek island for more storage.
<< <i>Pics, or it didn't happen. >>
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
<< <i>
<< <i>Struck out.
Nice try, but every one of them pretty much are taken by a pilot...married or not.
Where's renski?
Knowledge is the enemy of fear