Silver Was Our Best Bet
Precious Metal Investment
Our editorial team was unanimous in expecting the precious metal markets to start this week in a seriously upbeat mood. Silver was our bet for outperforming gold, platinum and other PGMs after the expected profit taking at the end of last week turned out not to be as severe as we thought. We felt that both the technical and fundamental criteria were in place for the next leg up particularly as the precious metals have shown good underlying strength for the last several weeks.
[ Read Full Article]

China’s Forex Chief Not Too Keen on Gold as Investment
Market Watch
China’s appetite for gold as a way to diversify its foreign-exchange reserves is limited because of the metal’s poor returns over the past 30 years, the nation’s foreign-exchange regulator was cited as saying in a report Tuesday. Yi Gang, director of China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said China’s gold reserves, at 1,054 metric tons, were the fifth-largest in the world, Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing comments by Yi at a press conference at the National People’s Congress. But Yi downplayed any desire to add the holdings as a strategy to diversity the nation’s $2.4 trillion foreign exchange stockpile. “Gold is not a bad asset, but currently a few factors limit our ability to increase foreign-exchange investment in gold,” Yi was quoted as saying.
[ Read Full Article]

Odyssey Marine Exploration Announces 2009 Financial Results
Odyssey Marine
Odyssey Marine Exploration (NasdaqCM: OMEX), pioneers in the field of deep-ocean shipwreck exploration, today reported full year 2009 financial results. For the full year 2009, Odyssey reported revenues of $4.3 million, compared to $4.1 million in 2008 while operating expenses decreased $6.4 million from $29.1 million in 2008 to $22.7 million in 2009. The Company reported a net loss of $18.6 million for the full year 2009, compared to a net loss of $24.8 million in 2008. The net loss per share for the full year 2009 was $0.33, compared to a net loss per share of $0.50 in 2008. “We are pleased with the results of our 2009 operations, which despite some interesting challenges, saw some key strategic opportunities realized that I believe will have a profound effect on our business going forward.
[ Read Full Article]

Buy Gold While Supplies Last
Yahoo Finance
Lost in the headlines over the dollar’s resurgence in 2010 is the fact gold is still rising in most worldwide currencies. It is also still faring well in dollar terms. Gold is trading at around $1,120 per ounce, up about $60 in the last month. Frank Holmes, CEO and CIO of U.S. Global Investors, a long time gold bull sees no reason for this trend to end. He tells Aaron in the accompanying clip, “there are many compelling factors both from a supply side and then from the demand side that looks like gold will trade higher.”
[ Read Full Article]

Gold Is Decade’s Best Performing Investment
Telegraph
The price of the precious metal rose 277 per cent during the past decade, with investors particularly attracted to gold during the recession as they sought a safe haven for their money. Overall, gold, silver and platinum increased in value by 242 per cent between December 1999 and December 2009, the equivalent of an average annual return of 13.1 per cent. It means precious metals outpaced inflation which has increased by 30 per cent during the decade or by an average 2.7 per cent a year. Gold saw the biggest rise over the decade at 277 per cent, followed by platinum at 230 per cent and silver at 227 per cent.
[ Read Full Article]

General Stock Market’s Influence on the Price of Gold
GoldSeek
In one of our previous essays we mentioned that the situation in the USD Index appears bearish, but it has not been the main driver of the PM prices lately. It’s been the general stock market that used to drive gold and silver prices lately, which means that the situation is now less than perfectly bullish, especially in the short term. Therefore, this week we would like to let you know what we think about the main stock indices and how it may influence the gold market. … The general stock market appears to be topping here, or at least the risk of a temporary downturn is high. Given the high short-term correlation between the general stock market and precious metals this means that the risk of a move lower in the metals (and corresponding equities) is also high.
[ Read Full Article]