More thoughts from Bill Murphy ....From Lemetropolecafe.com:
Throw the fundamentals out the window. Lola (The Gold Cartel) continues to get what she wants and that is to trash gold back into oblivion. Gold has now retreated below the levels it was trading a year ago. Since that time, the fundamentals have improved every which way imaginable, not the least is that gold producers have covered forward sales by lifting many hundreds of tonnes of hedges. When gold fell in recent years past, much of it was blamed on the producers. The reporting press can’t blame it on them now. Unfortunately, as MIDAS has stated for more than four years, nothing matters in a rigged market, as long as the riggers have the desire/intent and ammo to do their dirty deeds.
All we can do is to monitor the market action to determine what might be in store for us in the weeks to come. Thus far, there is no sign of let-up. The cabal is pounding away as ferociously as US forces are attacking Baghdad. What is disturbing is there isn’t any kind of reversal action even though gold is very oversold. The goons trash gold, as they did in the Access market last evening, and then just sit on it, day after day. We are almost back down to the levels when Treasury Secretary O’Neill quit. Right after that, gold shot almost straight up to $388. Enter Treasury Secretary Snow, who shortly thereafter met with the JP Morgan traders in London and before you know it, gold is trashed all the way back down again.
The good news is that silver and the gold shares continue to hold their lows. They are offering an indication that the cessation of the gold bombing should not be far off. As it stands now, The Gold Cartel’s and PPT’s arrogance knows no bounds. They are firing at will and seem not to care who notices.
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"There was an agreement between Japan and the US to take action co-operatively in foreign exchange, stocks and other markets if the markets face a crisis."
"With that official statement, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yasuo Fukuda, let the biggest global financial cat out of the bag of modern times. Mr Fukuda has officially stated that the world’s two largest financial and economic powers have agreed to "manipulate" the currency markets, their stock markets and all "other" markets - IF any of these markets face "a crisis". This statement by Mr Fukuda makes it bluntly and abundantly clear that there IS a global "crisis".
In other words, the United States and Japan agreed to conspire to rig the markets if there was a crisis. Certainly, war is a crisis if there ever was one when it comes to confidence issues, which is what markets are all about. Certainly the PPT has been all over the stock market at certain times over the past few weeks. Anyone watching the simultaneous lifting of the stock market and bashing of gold will attest to that. It happened too many times for any distinterested market observer not to take notice.
Neither GATA nor anyone else claims that an inordinate amount of individuals are intimately aware of PPT operations. When it comes to gold and the bullion banks, for example, it is probably only known to very few people. Most likely, the rigging originates from their funding operations, with the orders coming down to the gold traders from up high. Those traders fill the orders and send the fills upstairs for a numbered account. The floor people have no idea of who they are transacting for. Yes, the most senior management would be aware, but the people who are at that level in a money center bank have "played ball" all their lives. That is how they got where they are now. Those are the people making $3 million to $10 million, or more, per year. Most have families with kids whom they would like to go the same route. Do you think a mainstream, conservative, corporate lifer is going to speak out on the subject and jeopardize a career’s worth of work? Don’t be silly!
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One thing else. A colleague of mine has a money manager friend who has a trader that does business for the PPT. The firm he works for is one of the biggies. I have been getting feedback on these Working Group on Financial Market trades for a long time. It is not fiction. It is real. I don’t know whether he signed a confidentiality agreement (I am quite sure that most everyone directly involved in PPT operations has signed one), but the trader is surely not going to divulge his lucrative business for a lousy hundred grand.
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A couple of times the past week I thought the worst was over for the gold bashing. Not so. Nonetheless, the end of the gold trashing must be close at hand. The gold fundamentals are all flashing BUY signals. They could not be much better. The risk/reward for buying gold is extremely favorable.
The shares continue to scream, "BUY ME!!!" They rallied late again and are just not going down with bullion. The XAU closed 63.82, down .82. The HUI finished the day at 119.51, up 1.03.
The gold shares remain an historic investment opportunity. The past two months have been grueling, but you know what they say, "no pain, no gain." This pain I could have done without, but the reward is going to be so significant, it will prove out to be worth it many times over.