Hard Money Newsletter Review

Ed Steer’s Gold And Silver Daily is a must-read – especially for the new silver coin investor.

http://www.caseyresearch.com/the-casey-difference/our-staff/21/ed-steer/

Ed Steer, correspondent-at-large for Casey Research is a keen observer of the financial scene and a director of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA).

And if that were not enough – he’s a good friend of the esteemed silver guru, Ted Butler.

So yes, The Gold and Silver Daily may be written for the serious (and passionate) silver and gold investor. However, it is a good place to hit the ground running for the relatively new on the silver and gold new scene.

This is an excellent, short and friendly read that can start you off with just about all you need to know for the basics in short term trading.

Now that doesn’t mean than the newly initiated will not to think and do some homework. There is a technical language spoken here.

And you’ll need some knowledge of how options work – especially trading on the short-side.

A few terms you will need to become familiar with include:

• Open interest

• Swaps

• Spreads

• Concentrated Short position

• Bullion banks

• Commercials

And you’ll need to get an overall sense of who these futures traders are. And what is a bullion bank?

Maybe we’ll put together a primer on gold and silver futures trading in the future, but for now, we think that if you’ve made it this far – you can handle jumping right in the what Steer has to offer.

Bookmark the site and from it. Soon your knowledge and passion for this sector will grow.

The Details:

Yes, these daily reports are useful for the more advanced trader, but again, if you are like us, and lets say that from time to time, the opportunity arises where you can add to your investment – this is a place where you can check-in and see about a few ‘extra’ signs that prices are gearing for a dip into negative territory. (Buying a few silver coins on dips).

Also, this the quintessential contrarion or non-mainstream view. In other words, what you need to expose yourself to. The view you GATA have.

The background is this:  Basically there is an ongoing battle to keep gold and silver prices low or in control, stealing money from honest investors in the process.

The gold and silver furtures market (COMEX) basically functions like a mini printing press, papering over physical gold and silver – thereby smothering the value of the physical metal.
t is all to easy to feel helpless and lose hope that there will be a fortunate ending

It is difficult to avoid channeling that helplessness into anger and then walk around with that feeling – which is ultimately unproductive.

Indeed, I cannot count the number of times I’ve begun a civil conversation about the silver markets with the un-initated that didn’t lead to some sort of emotional plea for understanding the outright crime of it all.

Even if you are skeptical that there could exist such a coordinated effort to distort prices, I would highly advise that you educate yourself about this anyway. And the Gold and Silver Daily is as good a (free) place as any.

Go there and live in this for a while and you will come to know the evidence – and probably begin to question a lot of assumptions that society makes about the motives behind those in power.

And of course, you’ll probably want to go out add a few coins to your collection.

Each Gold and Silver Daily contains:

Play by play summary of each trading day’s technicals, including price, open interest, and volume data from the futures market, as well as the mainstream view about the day’s trading.

You also get high-quality, working links to precious metals and financial news from around the world.

You get a concise overview of the latest developments in these markets – with brief comments about those articles.

Plus, from time to time, an update from the trenches of the GATA and Silver (Ted Butler) army.

Here’s an excerpt and a link to give you a flavor:

And lastly is another piece that I highlighted during the transition phase to this new column. It, too, is commentary that is not to be missed. It’s contained in a GATA dispatch with a preamble by GATA’s secretary treasurer, Chris Powell. As I said in my previous comments about this report… it’s certainly above my pay grade in places, but it’s not the parts that I don’t understand that scare me. I urge you to spend some time on this 9-page offering entitled “A Grand Unified Theory of Market Manipulation”… and the link.

There are a few ads, but we didn’t mind. They are easy to scroll through and many of them have Ed’s voice intertwined -so it doesn’t interupt the flow.

In summary:

It’s a good place to go to get a real taste of the nitty-gritty dynamics of the COMEX trade.

There is good flow and easy options to get out and follow a useful link to with the content – if you choose.

This is for more for the serious gold or  silver bug, but I think a good place for the newly initiate who want to make this more than a simple hedge you put away and forget about.

But you’ll need some of that intestinal fortitude as you go deep into the bizarre realm of the short-term, manipulated world, temporarily leaving behind the most important reasons for being here to begin with – the long term factors. I can’t stress this enough.

Those of us with a passion for silver coin investing as not only a way to protect wealth, but also for the opportunity to own something of real (and potentially great) value have a difficult time going down the road of the short-term.

Just as we are reminded of the manipulation and tight control over these (and all) markets.

As we wade into the evidence as commentary at Steer’s Daily, we can add one of the most compelling arguments for holding physical metal.

Bottom line, our world needs more people like Ed and the folks from GATA.

Here’s a list of the posts reviewed for this review. Go ahead a check them out:
What Golden Secret is the Federal Reserve Hiding?
August 22, 2009

The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!
August 21, 2009

“GFMS Cooks the Books to Make Gold Look Bad”
August 20, 2009

European Central Banks Sell No Gold…Again!
August 19, 2009

“Da Boyz” are Back in Town!
August 18, 2009

China Tell Its Citizens: “Buy Silver Now!”
August 15, 2009

ETF’s Backed By Bullion
August 14, 2009

It’s free and you really have nothing to lose in being exposed to this aspect of precious metals world.

The Monex Email Alerts are a great way for the average silver coin investor to keep up with weekly precious metals movements, and get a healthy dose of key quotes from around the PM world.

First a little bit  about Monex.

The Monex companies have been around for a long while and they are indeed, an established leader in America’s gold and precious metals investment space. They’ve done over $25 billion in precious metals transactions and have an excellent reputation for customer service.

For the silver bug who doesn’t mind placing a phone order, they offer government-minted coins, 90% and 40%, and bullion bars.

As far as silver rounds…They don’t go there.

As a small investor who can only really afford 10-20 ounces at a time,  silver rounds are nice way to hold the pure (.999)  metal at a lower premium.

We don’t really care too much about the numismatic value and we like that rounds look enough like coins that they could be traded in a worse-case scenario. If that time comes, I have faith that people will be able to figure out what the weight is worth.

We reviewed 6 weeks of Monex updates and alerts and they’ve grown on us.

Heck, we have even come to depend on them for a nice weekly wrap-up, and the great collection of quotes from some of our favorite market commentators.

For example, here’s one from Richard Russell  that stood out from the August 14, 2009 wrap-up.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK:

“From Richard Russell…What is the US government’s attitude toward allowing its citizens to own gold? . . . I believe the US government WANTS Americans to own gold. Thus, if the purchasing power of the dollar declines, there will be less public outrage if the public is protected by owning gold! How are you going to keep the public quiet if an administration devalues the dollar? Encourage them to own gold, which appears to be the Fed’s and Washington’s policy. Will the US call in gold again as they did in 1934? Forget it! It’s not going to happen.”

You get the picture. And not all of them are this long.

And they also choose from the likes of Ron Paul, Steve Forbes, Warren Buffet, Bill Bonner, and Jim Sinclair.

And, of course, we were more than pleased to see twice-mentioned (in 6 weeks), two quotes by silver guru, David Morgan.

Bravo Monex, for keeping silver on the agenda – as the silver bug can’t get testy about being left out and treated like a second fiddle.

So in each Monex weekly overview you get:

• Price Range For Gold, Silver, Platinum, Palladium

• Support And Resistance price levels

Support and resistance levels are interesting – even though a long-term investor doesn’t have much to gain by beng a ‘chartist’.

• And News Developments + Quotes

We love clear and concise economic overviews as they pertain to precious metals.

And you also get infrequent Monex Alerts from time to time when significant news develops in the markets – such as the recent Monday take-down in gold and silver. Monex is happy to remind us about buying on the dips – as if we needed reminding.

If you’re like me, that kind of reminder just feels like salt in an open wound.

We know that every long-term investor (especially in the PM’s) needs to have some healthy respect for the daily price and yes, the blatant and coordinated take-downs are tough to ignore.

And okay, a price dip for a regular guy without a while lot of cash serves as perhaps the last opportunity to accumulate the metal…but no one is perfect and Monex is, after all,  a business.

But we still highly recommend this FREE MONEX newsletter and appreciate its weekly arrival.

We reviewed three months of blog posts from Gold And Silver Blog.

We like them and its a relief for us silver bugs to have some place to go and ‘talk’ about the safety of coins. I put ‘talk’ in parenthesis, because even thought is not a whole out of commenting, it still ‘feels’ like talk.

Okay.

I think you’ll like them because this is a fresh, clean-looking, well-written (user-friendly) place that covers a broad range of issues that bullion investors need to know.

In fact, you should go over and check out the US Mint Silver Bullion Coin Sales History Chart page right now and get quick look for yourself. There go your brothers and sisters in arms out there buying coins along side of you (or putting them in an IRA). You are not alone.

Here’s what the nice folks over at Gold and Silver Blog provide:

• Timely news and commentary on gold, silver, and other precious metals.

We agree that this is a good place to get a quick fix – a catch-up and review on some of the bigger stories (with links) that you were meaning to get back to.

• Follow world mints that produce and sell bullion products.

US Mint Gold and Silver Bullion Sales July 2009 (http://goldandsilverblog.com/us-mint-gold-and-silver-bullion-sales-july-2009/) does just this.

I am a fan of the local coin man. He is my friend, but he’s a little fish in a big sea of dealers.
Heck, most times I feel like I know the issues better than he does.

The Gold and Silver Blog guys cover the macro-coin dealers – the ‘Whale’-Mints of the world – and while you can’t always trust the information coming out, you do get a worthy ‘retrospective’ on the big movements, especially for silver. Worthy in light of three little things:

1. The growing shortage of physical silver – held under by a mountain of ‘paper’ (short futures) pressure.
2. The small size of the silver market given the inflationary signals and the emerging (mainstream) perception and need for more hedging options.
3. The continued likelihood of more buying opportunities (price dips) as the world currency cycle turns on its head.

• Provide tips and observations on purchasing precious metals.

Okay, we didn’t see a lot of this and but they certainly point out the limitations of paper silver ownership, which is a bigger deal. Personally, I tend to focus not so much on the money I’ll make, but the purchasing power I’m gaining.

See Silver ETF Anomalies, National Gold Exchange, Regan Gold and Silver Coins. (http://goldandsilverblog.com/silver-etf-anomalies-national-gold-exchange-regan-gold-and-silver-coins/)

Again, I like to keep things simple. I’m that little guy buying silver rounds, silver bars, and junk silver from the guy down the street. I like the lower premiums, the ease of storage, and the absence of anyone else’s liability. And besides, something as volatile as silver, you want to keep close.

• Critique precious metals coverage from the mainstream press.

You got to like this one.

This is where you get your ammo for the ‘friend’ who thinks you’re nuts for buying silver coins and likes to point out any gold and silver bearish, propoganda non-sense that makes you fume to the point where you can’t articulate how wrong and ridiculously biased the messages are.

Okay, not everything from the mainstream is tainted. Eventually, they’ll come around in the price spike.

Again, these guys help you come back down to earth by calmly pointing out the flaws in the mainstream’s thinking.

• Round up some of the best gold and silver commentary from around the internet.

A good example of how they follow through is this post, Gold Confiscation, Missing Royal Canadian Mint Gold, Bernard von Nothaus Indictment.

And last but not least…

• Provide historical information and analysis on the price of gold and silver, and the pace of bullion sales.

So maybe this is the driest part for me. I find that a lot of really bright people are drawn to gold and silver for the ‘rationality’ of it all. And being rational can also mean preferring the technical side of life or at least finding comfort and/or escape there. I’m with you on this.

Nevertheless, I find the dollar to be a nagging reality and I prefer not to get too far caught up in the price realm, so I gloss over charts and data about the short-term price movements, ratios, etc.

These two posts, Gold Investment Report – 2009 Second Quarter and Gold and Silver Eagle Bullion Sales June 2009 will illustrate the point.

One of these days I’m going to do a negative Hard Money Newsletter Review. I promise.

This another good one. Gold and Silver Blog are bullish enough about coin silver, but well-rounded and fair enough to include platinum and palladium – which I found quite interesting.

Hey, us silver bullion investors can learn important lessons from these metals. Especially considering price, scarcity, and industrial consumption.

So there you go. For the intermediate physical silver investor, Gold and Silver Blog is well-worthy of a book mark or subscription.

Updated 9-21-09

Before I began investing in silver coins, I made sure that I had a modest handle on the market lingo. And there is a lot of lingo.

Sometimes the best way to approach any new thing is to jump in and take it about as far as you can go.

Some information is friendlier than others when it comes to the ‘lingo’.

When you jump right in, you can find out fast what you don’t know. Then you can study it, live with it a little, and then come back around to it look at from a different (usually larger) perspective.

That’s the beauty of most these free newsletters. Especially when you have to think a little.

Which is part of why I review them for you!

Look, a lot of the people who write about the hard money world live and breath these markets everyday – and they write as a natural extension of their day to day thought process.

If they can also manage to set up a system whereby they deliver this to you efficiently, then everyone benefits. Even the newly initiated.

Jim Sinclair and the JSMineset is a case in point.

Nothing flashy here, he covers gold broadly. This means that you’ll find a lot of technical stuff.

But it is just the right amount of technical to keep the learning curve high.

He’s been around this block and is one of these players who can’t help but produce useful (if more advanced) content and perspective about this sector. So he doesn’t really need a lot of words.

There are other contributors and an archive section that works.

Dan Norcini is one of these contributors. You can also find him over at the Daily Reckoning.

Of course, like us, Mr. Sinclair is a bull. And he while he doesn’t cover Silver quite as directly a silver bug would like – we are appreciative and ever-ready to interpret our world through the plight of the yellow metal.

This is one of those places to jump in and get some perspective. Sign-up for his updates. They are well-worth the follow.

Just remember, if you are like me (and Mr. Sinclair), you realize that is more important to consider physical gold and/or silver free of outside liability before anything else. Buy it. Hold it. And, keep it out of the hands of others.