While millions of investors understand the importance of gold as the ultimate money, they also understand that governments everywhere make it difficult to use gold as money. Until restrictions are lifted gold will have difficulty in reclaiming its monetary role. But the future of gold as money will be digital, with consumers being able to use gold-backed digital currency...
The Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) meeting last week was nothing less than earth-shattering in terms of its ramifications for financial markets. While many analysts had thought that one rate hike this year might be within the realm of possibility, the Fed all but shut the door on that happening. More importantly, the Fed indicated that it not only...
Have you ever had a nagging feeling that you need to do something, but you keep putting it off? And then by the time you get around to doing it, you’re too late and missed the opportunity? That’s how many investors felt during the 2008 financial crisis. Even if they understood that the housing bubble was bursting and that...
Buy low and sell high is what most investors want to do. And right now may be the right time to buy gold before it starts to climb again. Last year provided a great opportunity for investors to add to their gold holdings, as the yellow metal dipped at one point below $1,200 per ounce. But a significant recovery...
Every week seems to bring more and more news that the economy, if it isn’t already in recession, is well on its way to recession. This time it’s bad news from the manufacturing sector, which like most other sectors of the economy underperformed versus economists’ expectations. Factory orders barely rose in January, up 0.1 percent versus the 0.3 percent...
Most Wall Street analysts are a pretty conservative bunch when it comes to predicting the price of gold. Since Wall Street firms can’t make the same money from trading gold that they can from trading stocks, bonds, currencies, and other commodities, they tend to downplay the importance of gold in investment portfolios and predict prices for gold that are...
This week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting will be one of the most highly-observed in recent years, as markets look to discern whether or not the Fed will continue to raise interest rates this year. The FOMC statement is probably going to be of less importance this time around than the press conference and the summary of economic projections...
Read any articles about the financial well-being of American households and it’s clear that they don’t paint a pretty picture. Nearly 80% of households live paycheck to paycheck, with limited ability to save money for retirement or even for an emergency. Even though the average household has just under $9,000 in the bank, over 60% of households would have...
When it comes to assessing the actions of central banks, it’s important to pay more attention to what they’re doing rather than what they’re saying. When the Fed says that it’s going to stop running down its balance sheet, look at the H.4.1 release each week to see if that’s actually the case. And when central banks say that...
There’s a crisis lurking in markets that many investors remain completely unaware of. While attention is focused on stock market levels, job hiring, and oil prices, one major market remains, as it often has been, overlooked by the majority of investors. And weakness in that market could set off a series of forced sales that could have a domino...