Graceland Updates By Stewart Thomson 1. It's very important for gold, bond, and stock market investors to stay focused on the main fundamental price drivers and ignore what may feel exciting but is largely irrelevant to price discovery. Citizen demand from China/India and US central bank policy are the main price drivers for gold.2. From 1960 to 1980, US recessions were generally i...Read More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said he expected to finalize a giant federal government spending bill later on Tuesday that would providing funding through the end of September.Separately, U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he hoped a deal can be reached this week on the funding measure, which Congress must pass by midnight Friday to prevent government shutdown.Re...Read More

Sentiment is now completely disconnected from reality.Currently, sentiment suggests that stocks are in a raging bull market and will never fall. This sentiment is based on the fact that much of last year (2017) the US stock markets rose virtually non-stop.However, that era is now OVER. And globally the markets are moving into "risk-off" mode.Don't believe me?Consider that most global markets are i...Read More

(Bloomberg) - Miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo won't secure substantial concessions in talks with the government about changes to the industry code, the head of the state mining company said.The operators, including Glencore Plc and Randgold Resources Ltd., are pressing the government to row back on some of the reforms President Joseph Kabila signed into law this month. The modification...Read More

- $8.8B Sprott Inc. sees higher gold on massive consumer debt, defaults & bankruptcies - Rising and record U.S. debt load may cause financial stress, weaken dollar and see gold go higher- Massive government and consumer debt eroding benefits of wage growth (see chart)by BloombergRising U.S. interest rates, usually bad news for gold, are instead feeding signs of financial stress among debt-lade...Read More

The FOMC members will gather today for a two-day meeting. It will be the most important event this week, since Powell will chair the meeting for the first time. Gold investors want to get to know him better as the uncertainty makes them a bit nervous. What should we expect from the new Fed Chair? First FOMC meeting under Powell as ChairDo you remember your first bike ride? Or the first date - a...Read More

FB shares tend to suffer after steep one-day dropsThe shares of social media stock Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) plummeted on Monday, suffering their worst one-day loss since March 2014. The ripple effects of the company's data-mining scandal could be felt across the tech sector, dragging FAANG stocks and the Nasdaq into the red, and sending Wall Street's "fear gauge" soaring. What's more, if past is p...Read More

Wall Street is a scam. I've said it probably a thousand times. It's something I know from experience. Over the past 15-plus years, I've tried just about every investing strategy in existence.Continue...Read More

European steel association Eurofer has called on the region's political leaders "to stand united in backing a broad, firm and decisive response [to import tariffs in the United States] to safeguard the viability of the EU steel industry."Eurofer made the announcement on Tuesday March 20, hoping to influence Europe's response to the imposition by the US of a 25% import duty on steel products after...Read More

By Jeff ClarkRising inflation has hit the headlines, sparking some attention from journalists. What most mainstream investors don't realize, though, is that history shows inflation can quickly get out of control, and not just in some mismanaged third-world country. Surprise spikes in inflation have occurred right here in the US and given the massive amount of currency dilution around the world o...Read More

(Kitco News) - Gold prices aremoderately lower in early U.S. trading Tuesday, pressured by a firmer U.S.dollar index and some technical selling. As has been the case for quite sometime, the daily machinations of the USDX are impacting the daily pricemovements in gold and silver. April Comex gold futures were last down $6.60 anounce at $1,311.20. May Comex silver was last down $0.075 at $16.25 an o...Read More

Australia's Newcrest Mining (ASX: NCM) said that its Wafi-Golpu joint venture with Harmony Gold in Papua New Guinea will need a further $200 million cash injection to get built under improved plans.The updated feasibility study, released Monday, foresees a larger, $2.8-billion gold and copper project with mine wastes being piped into the ocean. Building the proposed mine had been previously expec...Read More

It's very important for gold, bond, and stock market investors to stay focused on the main fundamental price drivers and ignore what may feel exciting but is largely irrelevant to price discovery. Citizen demand from China/India and US central bank policy are the main price drivers for gold.From 1960 to 1980, US recessions were generally inflationary, and the Fed raised rates during that period. S...Read More

Big gold and silver miners have a problem: They're evaporating. Each year they take more metal out of the ground than they discover, which brings them ever-closer to the end of the road. They know it and their shareholders know it, which means their stock prices tend to languish in the shadow of falling production and depressed future earnings. The solution? Buy out junior miners sitting on reso...Read More

But Oracle's bottom-line number was better than expectedOracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL) is pacing for its third straight quarter of post-earnings losses, with the shares falling 9.3% this morning to trade at $47.15. While the tech giant's sales from its cloud business rose almost 32% during its fiscal third quarter to $1.57 billion, this number fell just shy of estimates. Meanwhile, Oracle's earnin...Read More

Prices for imported billet in the United Arab Emirates increased this week on higher offers, but demand for rebar imports remained limited, sources told Metal Bulletin on Tuesday March 20. Demand for locally produced rebar in the UAE still remained strong, however. Domestic rebar The major rebar producers in the UAE rolled over prices for March and April production late in February. New prices are...Read More

Continue...Axel Merk is the Founder, President, Portfolio Manager, and CIO at Merk Investments LLC. He is an expert on qualitative research and macroeconomic trends. Mr. Merk is also an expert on macro trends, hard money, international investing, and on building sustainable wealth, and he is a pioneer in the use of strategic currency investing to seek diversification. He is a speaker and author on...Read More

By Axel MerkWhen it comes to your investment portfolio, do you ignore the noise coming out of the White House? Do tariffs matter? Or would it be more prudent to chill and focus on other potential drivers of the markets? I have (somewhat cynically) noted that the less investors have been thinking, the better their investment performance must have been over the past decade. Could it be that our in...Read More

Rising inflation has hit the headlines, sparking some attention from journalists. What most mainstream investors don't realize, though, is that history shows inflation can quickly get out of control, and not just in some mismanaged third-world country. Surprise spikes in inflation have occurred right here in the US-and given the massive amount of currency dilution around the world over the past de...Read More

Zimbabwe's new government has changed its empowerment ownership laws for the diamond and platinum sectors, in an effort to re-engage international lenders, curb spending and attract investors to revive the country's battered economy.The new rules, Reuters reports, limit majority ownership by state entities to only diamond and platinum operations and not the entire mining sector as in previous...Read More