China has confirmed the intention to purchase 191.3 tons of gold from the International Monetary Fund at an open auction, Finmarket news agency said.
World central banks started to increase their gold reserves after prices on gold began to climb in 2001. The IMF sells gold within the scope of a program to diversify sources of [...]
Market Perspective: Peter Schiff, Marc Faber, Jim Rogers | read this item
Bespoke Investment Group
“Although the S&P 500 is down less than 7.5% from its January high, bulls are heading for the hills. According to Investors Intelligence, bullish sentiment among newsletter writers is currently at 34.1%, which is the lowest level since March 2009. At the same time, bearish sentiment (26.1%) is the highest since November, while [...]
Continuation of my colleagues analysis, Vishal Damor (Editor InvestingContrarian.com) dated 6 Feb 2010:
EU bonds are the safest bet. STILL!
The EURO has had its stuffing taken out of it over the last 2 months and it needs a lot of analysis and courage to back the EURO at this point of time. We do believe fundamentally [...]
Soverign Risk: Portugal jumps the highest | read this item
CDS which is proxy for soverign default risk, is shown below. As shown, Portugal has seen the biggest spike in default risk this year with a gain of 145.5%. France ranks second at 87.7%, followed by Iceland, Germany, and Australia. Surprisingly, CDS for US debt has spiked 49.4%, which is more than both [...]
China's economy may surpass Japan-Goldman | read this item
“I believe it can happen already earlier (than 2011). Maybe already in the middle of this year,” O’Neill told German Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag, who forecast that China’s economy would triple by 2020 due to 8.3 percent annual growth. “The big story in the post-crisis global economy is: China imports!”
This nevertheless means that the [...]
Yen set to replace dollar as investors' top choice | read this item
The recent spike in U.S. bond yields, coinciding with a rally in the dollar against the yen, is flagging a return to the yen to fund carry trades — the risky strategy of using a low-yielding currency to purchase assets in higher-yielding currencies in the search for better returns.
The rise in U.S. bond yields is [...]
FACTBOX-Venezuela's bolivar currency devaluation | read this item
Chavez’s government devalued Venezuela’s bolivar currency on Friday, setting two rates of 2.6 and 4.3 against the dollar.
Following are some facts about the bolivar.
* Chavez introduced currency controls in 2003 in a bid to prevent capital flight during a period of political turmoil in the South American oil-exporter. He fixed the bolivar at [...]
Currency movement key to markets ahead: Andrew Holland | read this item
After a phenomenal rally seen in equities in 2009, the consensus view is many large-cap stocks have become overvalued. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Holland said most international funds were now neutral to underweight on India.
“We may see some downturn in markets globally,” he said, adding that currency movements remained a key trigger for market [...]
If there are two events which has defined the counters of the Gold market in 2009, then they were:
1. India GOLD purchase at $1,045
2. China rising retail demand for physical gold.
The yellow metal’s allure as a solid, tangible, intrinsically valuable store of wealth seems to be growing further in China with the nation soon set [...]
Over the last one month, the performance of the base metals pack has surprised many as they managed to end on a strong note despite a stronger dollar and rising concerns over the state of a few European economies. Global inventory levels, too, gradually inched up in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Spot iron ore prices [...]
EURO march to reserve status | 
Yen set to replace dollar as investors' top choice | 
China Gold appetite | 
Dollar agianst various entities | 
