Rick Ackerman Interviewed on Financial Lifeline Radio
The world is experiencing a debt deflation, yet gold is hanging tough above $800. In an interview with Financial Lifeline Radio, Rick says gold hoarders shouldn’t sweat the details concerning what comes next, since they are well protected.
Click here for the full audio of Rick Ackerman’s interview.
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Will You Qualify as a ‘Troubled’ Homeowner?
The short-squeeze that goosed the Dow back to unchanged yesterday was pretty tame compared to the violent spasms of last autumn. The Dow recouped 244 points in the final 50 minutes of the session, but that hardly compares with the wild action last October, when the Industrial Average registered two 1000-point swings back- to-back, and then a 700-pointer on day three. (For good measure, a couple of days later, the blue chip average had fallen by 1,600 points, only to recover half the loss the next day. Ah, for the good old days!)
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Once Above $952, Gold Could Soar
With Comex Gold trading around $850, we projected a $100 rally to at least $952 in a commentary a while back. Having also promised at that time to don a grass skirt and dance the hula in Times Square in the middle of winter if the forecast didn’t pan out, we breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when the April contract apexed at $949 on a powerful surge of more than $50. (Just a few more points and we’ll have only one more “hula number” to worry about – a $29 target for the shares of Goldman Sachs, currently trading for around $95.)
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Feather Merchants Have Obama’s Ear
The market fell hard yesterday, supposedly because details from Treasury Secretary Geithner about the next bank rescue plan were sketchy. In a more rational world, the market would plunge because of the details rather than the lack of them. After all, what could be scarier or more depressing to investors than word that The Government is about to blow another trillion or two in yet another futile attempt to jump-start the banking system? We don’t envy them the task of convincing investors in the U.S. and abroad that the green-and-white confetti held in the vaults of U.S. banks and the Federal Reserve is actually worth something,
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Press Conference Was a Breeze
Traders have given President Obama’s first press conference a tepid response, although the selling Monday night looked more like a shakedown by clever buyers than an attempt to discount bad news. The E-Mini Dow futures were off as much as 100 points as the President spoke – although not, we would surmise, because he surprised or disappointed anyone. In fact, most of the questions, even the one asked by the AP’s battle axe, Helen Thomas, were pretty tame. Amidst the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Obama found time to address Alex Rodriquez’s apparent use of steroids. While there is no question that this continues to be a serious issue for Major League Baseball, in the context of the catastrophic economic news that has dominated the headlines, A-Rod’s confession could probably qualify as comic relief — or just plain relief, if you’re Barry Bonds.
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California Dream Fading Fast
I’m in San Francisco for the weekend, visiting family and friends. Everywhere you go, people want to talk about the economy. The San Francisco Chronicle led yesterday with a story about how all of the city departments apparently are eager to swoop down on the city transit system to glom some cash. The Muni is evidently the only public facility that’s making money – or at least, taking in relatively large sums of it each day – and it is therefore perceived as a possible lifeline by other departments starved for cash, including the police and fire departments. A friend of mine who works as a librarian in the main facility says that funds earmarked for her department are similarly in jeopardy of expropriation because the library, while not in budgetary surplus, enjoys sufficient private funding to have at least stayed solvent until now.