You are right Bill, that is not a fair question and you are not my advisor. I respectfully apologize if I offended you and I take my question back. Thanks for all the time and effort that you put to make this blog a very unique one to help all of us learn how to trade better.
Come on Les, every body knows that Bill is our main source for trading insight and resources on this blog and I respect him a lot. I just meant to ask you both about SLW in particular because you are, more than anyone else on this board, have written a lot about your previous moves trading this particular stock on the way up and down following purely TA and Bill has talked about it before from a fundamental point view. That was my reason really for asking you both at the same time, didn’t mean to offend anyone, and I would be glad if either of you or both of you replied. In addition, I know Bill is quite busy and he may not be able to respond to every body's question or comment here. Anyway, thanks for your reply, let’s see what the next week brings. Lots of actions in the Middle East and North Africa this weekend and this kind of unrest and search for democracy and change may last for many months or even yrs so I would say to every one here, get used to it.
Good Call Bill, I traded silver miners on the way up to these levels but not sure now if some steam needs to come out from current prices during the next 2 or 3 wks before it moves up again probably to $40 or more in the next leg up. Thx.
There were few downgrades of SLW yesterday due to High Valuations only at these levels, some thinking it's topping here and may pull back to 38 or 39 before zooming up again to 50 and over. However, others think the bullish trend in GOLD and Silver continues next 2 weeks and SLW will hit over 50 in just few more days mostly due to unrest in Libya and Arab Gulf States. Any idea what is your TA Crystal ball telling you at this point? Thanks
I read this somewhere on the internet about Bernanke under the title "Bernanke, You Stupid Bastard" and I think it answers the question about whether he should be considered a Saint or Not quiet well, read on...
"
Bernanke, You Stupid Bastard
Yes, you.
And Trichet, and the rest of the Central Bank fools.
But especially you, Bernanke.
There's dumb and then there's really dumb. Let's take a short walk back down history lane.
You were sure there was no housing bubble.
Then you were sure it wouldn't pop.
Then you were sure when the subprime problem hit, that it wouldn't cause a recession.
Then you were sure you had it under control with Bear Stearns' hedge funds.
Then you were sure you had it under control with Bear Stearns itself.
Then you were sure it was under control with Lehman, even though you had to know Citibank and others were refusing their collateral in the repo market.
You were sure QE would support higher bond prices - and lower yields. The exact opposite thing happened.
You were sure QE2 would suppress long end yields. The exact opposite thing happened.
Oh yeah, you made excuses both times, but in fact you publicly said that in both cases the exact opposite thing would happen that did.
Now let's look at what happened just today.
Oil went up almost $7 today for the WTI contract. For each dollar that crude oil rises, we transfer roughly $95 billion (estimates vary from $90-100) outside of the United States.
That's a direct hit to GDP.
In ONE DAY the entire impact of your so-called "QE2" was ERASED.
(As an aside, yes, I can do the math on the direct import numbers; the argument here is on the total economic impact, which is as noted above. Estimates there vary somewhat, but they're centered around $90-100 billion/year/dollar increase.)
Your entire gambit and what you sold to Congress and President Obama was that you could "restart" credit expansion with your policies. Implicit in your policy was a need to do so, because without it you cannot succeed. The World Economic Forum at Davos released a paper saying that we needed, collectively, to add one hundred trillion dollars of new debt to the system to support the paltry growth numbers you and your economists are putting up. Worse, the CBO stuck up numbers in the TBAC report that show another doubling of Federal Debt in the next nine years and a rough quadrupling of debt service costs to $800 billion, implying a paltry 3% blended rate.
We had the collapse starting in 2007 because people couldn't afford the debt they already had and yet your entire scheme, to succeed, requires doubling all systemic debt AGAIN.
So how are you going to do it Ben?
Who's going to take on that debt, and how are they going to service it?
You know damn well it can't work, and won't. You also know damn well you've goaded and prodded the Federal Government into taking on $4.5 trillion in debt we cannot afford, or nearly 30% of GDP.
How are you going to take that back off Bernanke? You keep being asked this, but all you say is that you're confident "you have the tools."
Uh huh.
You don't have jack and you know damn well you can't pull your pump-job back one iota without laying bare on the table the fact that the Federal Government is supporting 12% of GDP with borrowed money. If it disappears we have an instant Depression worse than the 1930s.
The bad news is that if you keep this crap up it will disappear by force of the market, there's not a damn thing you can do to prevent it, and that day is rapidly approaching.
EVERY prediction you've made about the economy over the last five years has been wrong.
All of them.
The market is rising only because you're "promising" infinite leverage.
But infinite leverage means certain financial ruin if you're wrong about external forces. And the economy is not a closed system under your control. You cannot control other nations, you cannot control commodity speculators and you cannot control other central banks and politicians. You think you can force China off their peg, but they can suppress riots longer than we can. You think you can keep printing but now Egypt has gone down, Libya is collapsing and if Saudi Arabia folds you're instantly ****ED and so are the rest of us.
Never mind that it's not just the Middle East. What if Venezuela folds? Mexico goes feral with their drug war? How about South Korea, which now has how many banks closed due to runs?
The longer you keep this crap up the worse the instability will become. Eventually something will break that's important, and then it's too late.
You can't win this game Bernanke. And the longer you keep trying to protect the banks that should have been shut down and taken into receivership in 2007 the more damage you're going to do. When the history books are written on this catastrophe your name is going to be featured in bright lights as the personal architect and chief jackass who pontificated that he knew it all because he studied The Great Depression.
Yeah, you studied it all right. And now you're duplicating the mistakes made then, writ even larger.
There are no statesmen left in this nation when it comes to Congress. Not one who will haul your ass in front of them by force of subpoena, put your clear and public record of "accuracy" in front of you and then demand that you justify your twisting of the clear English language to come up with "2% inflation" as your "interpretation" of STABLE PRICES.
You're going to fail Bernanke. You're failing right now. You've destroyed one nation's government and this evening, as I write this, a second is falling apart. The madman behind the second, Qaddafi, has apparently ordered his military to strafe civilians, murdering hundreds.
But behind it all, your policies and those of your cronies, believing in an indefinite Ponzi Scheme of exponential debt without bound, are responsible for every bit of what's happening today worldwide - and what is to come tomorrow.
The only way you can stop it is to admit you were wrong, pull liquidity and allow the insolvent institutions to collapse. And collapse they will - all of them. I'm convinced you know that too. And I'm also convinced that there's three words you will never utter so long as you infest Washington DC: I ****ed up.
So here we sit as Americans, with no solution. There is nobody in Congress or The Administration that has the balls to stop you, and you're too much of a douche to admit you blew it and do what should have been done three years ago.
As a result, all we have left is to be prepared for what's to come.
It's not going to be pretty, and I hope Americans are ready for it.
Congratulations Ben Bernnake. Your place in history is secure, and I'm sure Beelzebub thanks you daily for your cooperation.
Some day I'm quite sure you'll meet him face-to-face."
There are talks about Muammar Gaddafi already fled to Venezuela as per Foreign British Minister’s statement who said that Gaddafi left his son to continue the fight in Libya against peaceful protesters using all types of weapons including Mirage Jet fighters and hiring mercenaries to do the dirty work. Two Jets already landed in Malta with their colonels pilots asking for asylum.
"Security forces and protesters have clashed in Libya's capital for the second night, after the government announced a new crackdown.
Witnesses say warplanes have fired on protesters in Tripoli.
To the west of the city, sources say the army is fighting forces loyal to ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi, who appears to be struggling to hold on to power.
Libya's deputy envoy to the UN has called on Col Gaddafi to step down, and accused his government of genocide.
Ibrahim Dabbashi said that if Col Gaddafi did not relinquish power, "the Libyan people will get rid of him".
Smoke and flames
The BBC's Jon Leyne, in neighbouring Egypt, says Col Gaddafi has now lost the support of almost every section of society."
"CAIRO (AP) -- Stocks markets across the Gulf Arab states fell Sunday, with Dubai's largest exchange registering the steepest drop as unrest in the Mideast lapped at the shores of oil kingpin Saudi Arabia.
The Dubai Financial Market closed down 3.66 percent, to 1,536 points, with developer Emaar Properties' shares sliding 4.73 percent. The company was the force behind the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. In Kuwait, the benchmark index closed down 2.52 percent, to 6,394, and bringing its year-to-date losses to more than 8 percent.
other indexes are down too, will the US markets follow suit and sell off on Tuesday and ignore POMO injections? Will miners follow the market trend and sell off as well ignoring the jump in POG and POS which is now over $1403 and $33.5 respectively? Also OIL hitting over $105, the highest in 2 yrs. My guess people this time around will rotate money out of other types of equities and even bonds into miners instead. Historically miners do sell off when market does correct but perhaps this time is different with the unrest/killings going on in many parts of the world especially in OIL sensitive and strategic areas and the meeting of the G20 summit was fruitless with china refusing to listen to Geithner on currency? and ..and ..What do you think guys? Will every thing starts to sell off on Tuesday? Your thoughts..
A very good and interesting analysis for the roots of the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa and a bit of info on each country given by CNN news, however, I can add few other reasons as causes for the unrest as well but this article talks about the majority of them so take a look:
A SENIOR member of the Saudi royal family has warned that the oil-rich country could be harmed by the uprisings sweeping the Arab world unless it speeded up reforms.
Prince Talal bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud told BBC Arabic that "anything could happen" if King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz did not proceed with a program of political transformation.
"King Abdullah ... is the only person who can carry out these reforms," the prince told the broadcaster.
"On his departure, may that be in many years to come, latent trouble will surface and I have warned of this on many occasions. We need to resolve the problems in his lifetime," the prince added.
Talal added that if Saudi authorities "don't give more concern to the demands of the people, anything could happen in this country".
Very interesting comments, thanks for the transparency every one.. In my opinion, PMI is one of the candidates for a buy and hold for yrs as kaimu introduced it to us and I agree with him. When a strong believer in the company takes a risk buying over a million shares of the stock at 3 cents a share in Apr/2009 and hold the position until now where price hit 80 cents even higher few months ago, such a strategy obviously is very rewarding and there are many few stock candidates like this one. I can almost guarantee you that any one who traded over one million shares of PMI in and out since Apr/2009 would not have come to a similar gain or performance. Hence, I do believe that some winners are really made for BUY and HOLD strategy and not made for day or swing trading. Your chances of making higher gains holding those are far outweigh the chance of achieving similar gains trading them in and out for the same time period, of course with a bit of luck on your side that help you choose such winners in the first place and sit on them. Unless of course you are a high frequency trading computer that is fed complex trading formulas to trade the capital in and out in micro seconds and keep scalping those micro gains on the way up and the way down all year long.
However, we are human and we make our own decisions when to buy or sell always. Unfortunately we sometimes let our emotions take over or let others influence our decisions in a negative way and we end up holding the bag or suffering deep loses. I guess we all learn from our own mistakes and try to do better the next time although some may never learn and may repeat the same mistake over and over and over again. Just watch the events around you in the world and you will you come to the conclusion that the majority of people never learn from history and they tend to repeat the historic mistake over and over again.
GLTA
FD. I hold a large position as well bought last year when Kaimu mentioned it and after I saw some fund managers starting to get their hands on the shares and I am still holding with no intention to sell at this point. I wish I knew Kaimu back in Apr/2009 and bought the shares at 3 cents as well :). By the way Kaimu, I don't know what your entry price was anyway but I just wanted to make a point in my comments above. Thanks for the tip again.
"Pham-Duy Nguyen, On Thursday February 17, 2011, 7:01 pm
Gold may advance on speculation accelerating costs will boost demand for the precious metal as a hedge against inflation, a survey found.
Eleven of 15 traders, investors and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, or 73 percent, said the metal will rise next week. Three predicted lower prices and one was neutral. Gold for April delivery was up 1.5 percent for this week at $1,380.90 an ounce at 10 a.m. yesterday on the Comex in New York.
Consumer costs in the U.S. gained for a seventh straight month in January and the U.K. consumer price index rose to a 26- month high. Oil traded near the highest in two years, cotton topped $2 a pound for the first time ever and copper rose to a record this week.
“Rising commodity prices are the symptoms of a dollar debasement strategy and in no way can bring down the rate of inflation,” said Michael Pento, a senior economist at Euro Pacific Capital in New York."
Looks like more and more interesting days and weeks to come for GOLD and Silver especially with the ongoing unrest and overthrowing of dictators and bad regimes in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa and democratization of that region. It’s going to take a long, long time of unrest and fights over power and control until you truly see real democracy in that region, but at least they started and that’s good..
Got Gold, Silver, Oil, Natural Gas, .. you name it..
"Internet providers were shut down and Facebook accounts deleted across Algeria on Saturday as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested in violent street demonstrations.
Plastic bullets and tear gas were used to try and disperse large crowds in major cities and towns, with 30,000 riot police taking to the streets in Algiers alone.
There were also reports of journalists being targeted by state-sponsored thugs to stop reports of the disturbances being broadcast to the outside world.
But it was the government attack on the internet which was of particular significance to those calling for an end to President Abdelaziz Boutifleka's repressive regime.
Protesters mobilising through the internet were largely credited with bringing about revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
"The government doesn't want us forming crowds through the internet," said Rachid Salem, of Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria.
"Internet providers were shut down and Facebook accounts deleted across Algeria on Saturday as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested in violent street demonstrations.
Plastic bullets and tear gas were used to try and disperse large crowds in major cities and towns, with 30,000 riot police taking to the streets in Algiers alone.
There were also reports of journalists being targeted by state-sponsored thugs to stop reports of the disturbances being broadcast to the outside world.
But it was the government attack on the internet which was of particular significance to those calling for an end to President Abdelaziz Boutifleka's repressive regime.
Protesters mobilising through the internet were largely credited with bringing about revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
"The government doesn't want us forming crowds through the internet," said Rachid Salem, of Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria.
"The Swiss government has taken steps to freeze any assets belonging to Mubarak and his allies, shortly after the 82-year-old transferred power to the military.
"The Federal Council (government) has decided to freeze any assets of the former Egyptian president and his entourage in Switzerland with immediate effect," the Swiss foreign ministry said in a statement released on Friday.
"We're aware of some urgent conversations within the Mubarak family about how to save these assets," The Telegraph quoted the western intelligence source, "And we think their financial advisers have moved some of the money around. If he had real money in Zurich, it may be gone by now."
Mubarak apparently learned the lesson from ousted Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who hastily fled to Saudi Arabia while Swiss authorities froze his family’s bank account.
"There's no doubt that there will have been some frantic financial activity behind the scenes. They can lose the homes and some of the bank accounts, but they will have wanted to get the gold bars and other investments to safe quarters," The Telegraph quoted a US official as saying."
You have a very true insight into the current events and the causes behind them. I completely agree with your comments specially the one below:
"And I don't think there's any putting that genie back in the bottle, because the Internet and business are so tightly intertwined now."
The genie is now out of the bottle. Lets hope there is a successful follow thru for this wonderful youth revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, and other places in that region yet to come, and good wishes for spread of fairness, equality, prosperity and true democracy to prevail. No more silencing of the Human voice, no more ignore of human rights and the peaceful PEOPLE POWER, no more fear of speaking up, and no more oppressive control and/or ruling under a sadistic police state.
I take my hat off for the hero’s of Egypt who made their dream come true and I honestly wish them the best.
Here is one of several news media that reported the Freeze of Mubarak assets in Swiss banks; he has about $3.5 billions there out of an estimated $70 billions. I wonder if he and his sons had transferred most of what they could to Saudi Arabia and UAE during the last 18 days before his resignation. After all, it was Saudi king who offered him and his family asylum there if he wishes to do so. Perhaps this is why he was dragging his feet refusing to step down until most of the assets are transferred out from European and US banks over to a safer Saudi and UAE banks according to some resources. I guess he failed to get the last $3.5 billions out from Swiss banks
It’s really a shame that the country has been sinking in poverty and high unemployment for decades while their dictator was accumulating or should I say stealing this outrageous wealth from the country’s resources and its people under the eyes and supervisions of his supporters, what a shame!!
The domino Effect is taking place and the winds of change is sweeping thru the whole Middle East. One nation after another seeking democracy, freedom, better living standards and human rights, fairly ellected leaders, and social justice so who is going to be NEXT?
read on:
"Anti-government protests broken up in Yemen and Algeria
Mid-East: Will there be a domino effect?
Anti-government rallies in the capitals of Algeria and Yemen, inspired by events in Egypt, have been broken up.
Riot police in Algiers dispersed thousands of people who had defied a government ban to demand that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika step down."
The Standoff between protesters and the Army is continuing and there are reports and talks about a possible clashes to take place soon if the Army don't listen to the demands of the people..They are very close now to try force their way into the presidential palace and TV Local Main Station.
I guess if this does happen in the streets of Egyptian cities then El-Erian prediction will come true
"If we get widespread violence in the streets you will get a massive risk-off trade," El-Erian said. "You will see equities sold off, oil go up and you will see a Treasury rally. The reason you would see that is people would start extrapolating the geopolitical risk and reassess the Middle East as a whole."
You are right Bill, that is not a fair question and you are not my advisor. I respectfully apologize if I offended you and I take my question back. Thanks for all the time and effort that you put to make this blog a very unique one to help all of us learn how to trade better.
Come on Les, every body knows that Bill is our main source for trading insight and resources on this blog and I respect him a lot. I just meant to ask you both about SLW in particular because you are, more than anyone else on this board, have written a lot about your previous moves trading this particular stock on the way up and down following purely TA and Bill has talked about it before from a fundamental point view. That was my reason really for asking you both at the same time, didn’t mean to offend anyone, and I would be glad if either of you or both of you replied. In addition, I know Bill is quite busy and he may not be able to respond to every body's question or comment here. Anyway, thanks for your reply, let’s see what the next week brings. Lots of actions in the Middle East and North Africa this weekend and this kind of unrest and search for democracy and change may last for many months or even yrs so I would say to every one here, get used to it.
Good Call Bill, I traded silver miners on the way up to these levels but not sure now if some steam needs to come out from current prices during the next 2 or 3 wks before it moves up again probably to $40 or more in the next leg up. Thx.
There were few downgrades of SLW yesterday due to High Valuations only at these levels, some thinking it's topping here and may pull back to 38 or 39 before zooming up again to 50 and over. However, others think the bullish trend in GOLD and Silver continues next 2 weeks and SLW will hit over 50 in just few more days mostly due to unrest in Libya and Arab Gulf States. Any idea what is your TA Crystal ball telling you at this point? Thanks
I read this somewhere on the internet about Bernanke under the title "Bernanke, You Stupid Bastard" and I think it answers the question about whether he should be considered a Saint or Not quiet well, read on...
"
Bernanke, You Stupid Bastard
Yes, you.
And Trichet, and the rest of the Central Bank fools.
But especially you, Bernanke.
There's dumb and then there's really dumb. Let's take a short walk back down history lane.
You were sure there was no housing bubble.
Then you were sure it wouldn't pop.
Then you were sure when the subprime problem hit, that it wouldn't cause a recession.
Then you were sure you had it under control with Bear Stearns' hedge funds.
Then you were sure you had it under control with Bear Stearns itself.
Then you were sure it was under control with Lehman, even though you had to know Citibank and others were refusing their collateral in the repo market.
You were sure QE would support higher bond prices - and lower yields. The exact opposite thing happened.
You were sure QE2 would suppress long end yields. The exact opposite thing happened.
Oh yeah, you made excuses both times, but in fact you publicly said that in both cases the exact opposite thing would happen that did.
Now let's look at what happened just today.
Oil went up almost $7 today for the WTI contract. For each dollar that crude oil rises, we transfer roughly $95 billion (estimates vary from $90-100) outside of the United States.
That's a direct hit to GDP.
In ONE DAY the entire impact of your so-called "QE2" was ERASED.
(As an aside, yes, I can do the math on the direct import numbers; the argument here is on the total economic impact, which is as noted above. Estimates there vary somewhat, but they're centered around $90-100 billion/year/dollar increase.)
Your entire gambit and what you sold to Congress and President Obama was that you could "restart" credit expansion with your policies. Implicit in your policy was a need to do so, because without it you cannot succeed. The World Economic Forum at Davos released a paper saying that we needed, collectively, to add one hundred trillion dollars of new debt to the system to support the paltry growth numbers you and your economists are putting up. Worse, the CBO stuck up numbers in the TBAC report that show another doubling of Federal Debt in the next nine years and a rough quadrupling of debt service costs to $800 billion, implying a paltry 3% blended rate.
We had the collapse starting in 2007 because people couldn't afford the debt they already had and yet your entire scheme, to succeed, requires doubling all systemic debt AGAIN.
So how are you going to do it Ben?
Who's going to take on that debt, and how are they going to service it?
You know damn well it can't work, and won't. You also know damn well you've goaded and prodded the Federal Government into taking on $4.5 trillion in debt we cannot afford, or nearly 30% of GDP.
How are you going to take that back off Bernanke? You keep being asked this, but all you say is that you're confident "you have the tools."
Uh huh.
You don't have jack and you know damn well you can't pull your pump-job back one iota without laying bare on the table the fact that the Federal Government is supporting 12% of GDP with borrowed money. If it disappears we have an instant Depression worse than the 1930s.
The bad news is that if you keep this crap up it will disappear by force of the market, there's not a damn thing you can do to prevent it, and that day is rapidly approaching.
EVERY prediction you've made about the economy over the last five years has been wrong.
All of them.
The market is rising only because you're "promising" infinite leverage.
But infinite leverage means certain financial ruin if you're wrong about external forces. And the economy is not a closed system under your control. You cannot control other nations, you cannot control commodity speculators and you cannot control other central banks and politicians. You think you can force China off their peg, but they can suppress riots longer than we can. You think you can keep printing but now Egypt has gone down, Libya is collapsing and if Saudi Arabia folds you're instantly ****ED and so are the rest of us.
Never mind that it's not just the Middle East. What if Venezuela folds? Mexico goes feral with their drug war? How about South Korea, which now has how many banks closed due to runs?
The longer you keep this crap up the worse the instability will become. Eventually something will break that's important, and then it's too late.
You can't win this game Bernanke. And the longer you keep trying to protect the banks that should have been shut down and taken into receivership in 2007 the more damage you're going to do. When the history books are written on this catastrophe your name is going to be featured in bright lights as the personal architect and chief jackass who pontificated that he knew it all because he studied The Great Depression.
Yeah, you studied it all right. And now you're duplicating the mistakes made then, writ even larger.
There are no statesmen left in this nation when it comes to Congress. Not one who will haul your ass in front of them by force of subpoena, put your clear and public record of "accuracy" in front of you and then demand that you justify your twisting of the clear English language to come up with "2% inflation" as your "interpretation" of STABLE PRICES.
You're going to fail Bernanke. You're failing right now. You've destroyed one nation's government and this evening, as I write this, a second is falling apart. The madman behind the second, Qaddafi, has apparently ordered his military to strafe civilians, murdering hundreds.
But behind it all, your policies and those of your cronies, believing in an indefinite Ponzi Scheme of exponential debt without bound, are responsible for every bit of what's happening today worldwide - and what is to come tomorrow.
The only way you can stop it is to admit you were wrong, pull liquidity and allow the insolvent institutions to collapse. And collapse they will - all of them. I'm convinced you know that too. And I'm also convinced that there's three words you will never utter so long as you infest Washington DC: I ****ed up.
So here we sit as Americans, with no solution. There is nobody in Congress or The Administration that has the balls to stop you, and you're too much of a douche to admit you blew it and do what should have been done three years ago.
As a result, all we have left is to be prepared for what's to come.
It's not going to be pretty, and I hope Americans are ready for it.
Congratulations Ben Bernnake. Your place in history is secure, and I'm sure Beelzebub thanks you daily for your cooperation.
Some day I'm quite sure you'll meet him face-to-face."
http://market-ticker.org/post=180591
There are talks about Muammar Gaddafi already fled to Venezuela as per Foreign British Minister’s statement who said that Gaddafi left his son to continue the fight in Libya against peaceful protesters using all types of weapons including Mirage Jet fighters and hiring mercenaries to do the dirty work. Two Jets already landed in Malta with their colonels pilots asking for asylum.
"Security forces and protesters have clashed in Libya's capital for the second night, after the government announced a new crackdown.
Witnesses say warplanes have fired on protesters in Tripoli.
To the west of the city, sources say the army is fighting forces loyal to ruler Col Muammar Gaddafi, who appears to be struggling to hold on to power.
Libya's deputy envoy to the UN has called on Col Gaddafi to step down, and accused his government of genocide.
Ibrahim Dabbashi said that if Col Gaddafi did not relinquish power, "the Libyan people will get rid of him".
Smoke and flames
The BBC's Jon Leyne, in neighbouring Egypt, says Col Gaddafi has now lost the support of almost every section of society."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12531637
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/21/live-blogging...
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/02/21/liby...
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2...
"CAIRO (AP) -- Stocks markets across the Gulf Arab states fell Sunday, with Dubai's largest exchange registering the steepest drop as unrest in the Mideast lapped at the shores of oil kingpin Saudi Arabia.
The Dubai Financial Market closed down 3.66 percent, to 1,536 points, with developer Emaar Properties' shares sliding 4.73 percent. The company was the force behind the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. In Kuwait, the benchmark index closed down 2.52 percent, to 6,394, and bringing its year-to-date losses to more than 8 percent.
"
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gulf-shares-drop-on-...
http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=europe
http://finance.yahoo.com/intlindices?e=asia
other indexes are down too, will the US markets follow suit and sell off on Tuesday and ignore POMO injections? Will miners follow the market trend and sell off as well ignoring the jump in POG and POS which is now over $1403 and $33.5 respectively? Also OIL hitting over $105, the highest in 2 yrs. My guess people this time around will rotate money out of other types of equities and even bonds into miners instead. Historically miners do sell off when market does correct but perhaps this time is different with the unrest/killings going on in many parts of the world especially in OIL sensitive and strategic areas and the meeting of the G20 summit was fruitless with china refusing to listen to Geithner on currency? and ..and ..What do you think guys? Will every thing starts to sell off on Tuesday? Your thoughts..
duplicate
A very good and interesting analysis for the roots of the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa and a bit of info on each country given by CNN news, however, I can add few other reasons as causes for the unrest as well but this article talks about the majority of them so take a look:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/19/mideast....
A SENIOR member of the Saudi royal family has warned that the oil-rich country could be harmed by the uprisings sweeping the Arab world unless it speeded up reforms.
Prince Talal bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud told BBC Arabic that "anything could happen" if King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz did not proceed with a program of political transformation.
"King Abdullah ... is the only person who can carry out these reforms," the prince told the broadcaster.
"On his departure, may that be in many years to come, latent trouble will surface and I have warned of this on many occasions. We need to resolve the problems in his lifetime," the prince added.
Talal added that if Saudi authorities "don't give more concern to the demands of the people, anything could happen in this country".
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/saudi-p...
http://www.leap2020.eu/geab-n-52-is-available-glob...
very interesting events unfolding in our life time...keep watching
California Kid .Les, Bill and others..
Very interesting comments, thanks for the transparency every one.. In my opinion, PMI is one of the candidates for a buy and hold for yrs as kaimu introduced it to us and I agree with him. When a strong believer in the company takes a risk buying over a million shares of the stock at 3 cents a share in Apr/2009 and hold the position until now where price hit 80 cents even higher few months ago, such a strategy obviously is very rewarding and there are many few stock candidates like this one. I can almost guarantee you that any one who traded over one million shares of PMI in and out since Apr/2009 would not have come to a similar gain or performance. Hence, I do believe that some winners are really made for BUY and HOLD strategy and not made for day or swing trading. Your chances of making higher gains holding those are far outweigh the chance of achieving similar gains trading them in and out for the same time period, of course with a bit of luck on your side that help you choose such winners in the first place and sit on them. Unless of course you are a high frequency trading computer that is fed complex trading formulas to trade the capital in and out in micro seconds and keep scalping those micro gains on the way up and the way down all year long.
However, we are human and we make our own decisions when to buy or sell always. Unfortunately we sometimes let our emotions take over or let others influence our decisions in a negative way and we end up holding the bag or suffering deep loses. I guess we all learn from our own mistakes and try to do better the next time although some may never learn and may repeat the same mistake over and over and over again. Just watch the events around you in the world and you will you come to the conclusion that the majority of people never learn from history and they tend to repeat the historic mistake over and over again.
GLTA
FD. I hold a large position as well bought last year when Kaimu mentioned it and after I saw some fund managers starting to get their hands on the shares and I am still holding with no intention to sell at this point. I wish I knew Kaimu back in Apr/2009 and bought the shares at 3 cents as well :). By the way Kaimu, I don't know what your entry price was anyway but I just wanted to make a point in my comments above. Thanks for the tip again.
"Pham-Duy Nguyen, On Thursday February 17, 2011, 7:01 pm
Gold may advance on speculation accelerating costs will boost demand for the precious metal as a hedge against inflation, a survey found.
Eleven of 15 traders, investors and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, or 73 percent, said the metal will rise next week. Three predicted lower prices and one was neutral. Gold for April delivery was up 1.5 percent for this week at $1,380.90 an ounce at 10 a.m. yesterday on the Comex in New York.
Consumer costs in the U.S. gained for a seventh straight month in January and the U.K. consumer price index rose to a 26- month high. Oil traded near the highest in two years, cotton topped $2 a pound for the first time ever and copper rose to a record this week.
“Rising commodity prices are the symptoms of a dollar debasement strategy and in no way can bring down the rate of inflation,” said Michael Pento, a senior economist at Euro Pacific Capital in New York."
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gold-May-Advance-on-...
Looks like more and more interesting days and weeks to come for GOLD and Silver especially with the ongoing unrest and overthrowing of dictators and bad regimes in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa and democratization of that region. It’s going to take a long, long time of unrest and fights over power and control until you truly see real democracy in that region, but at least they started and that’s good..
Got Gold, Silver, Oil, Natural Gas, .. you name it..
(RE-POSTED)
By Nabila Ramdani 7:25PM GMT 12 Feb 2011
"Internet providers were shut down and Facebook accounts deleted across Algeria on Saturday as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested in violent street demonstrations.
Plastic bullets and tear gas were used to try and disperse large crowds in major cities and towns, with 30,000 riot police taking to the streets in Algiers alone.
There were also reports of journalists being targeted by state-sponsored thugs to stop reports of the disturbances being broadcast to the outside world.
But it was the government attack on the internet which was of particular significance to those calling for an end to President Abdelaziz Boutifleka's repressive regime.
Protesters mobilising through the internet were largely credited with bringing about revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
"The government doesn't want us forming crowds through the internet," said Rachid Salem, of Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria.
"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaan...
By Nabila Ramdani 7:25PM GMT 12 Feb 2011
"Internet providers were shut down and Facebook accounts deleted across Algeria on Saturday as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested in violent street demonstrations.
Plastic bullets and tear gas were used to try and disperse large crowds in major cities and towns, with 30,000 riot police taking to the streets in Algiers alone.
There were also reports of journalists being targeted by state-sponsored thugs to stop reports of the disturbances being broadcast to the outside world.
But it was the government attack on the internet which was of particular significance to those calling for an end to President Abdelaziz Boutifleka's repressive regime.
Protesters mobilising through the internet were largely credited with bringing about revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
"The government doesn't want us forming crowds through the internet," said Rachid Salem, of Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria.
"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaan...
Take a look at this:
"The Swiss government has taken steps to freeze any assets belonging to Mubarak and his allies, shortly after the 82-year-old transferred power to the military.
"The Federal Council (government) has decided to freeze any assets of the former Egyptian president and his entourage in Switzerland with immediate effect," the Swiss foreign ministry said in a statement released on Friday.
"We're aware of some urgent conversations within the Mubarak family about how to save these assets," The Telegraph quoted the western intelligence source, "And we think their financial advisers have moved some of the money around. If he had real money in Zurich, it may be gone by now."
Mubarak apparently learned the lesson from ousted Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who hastily fled to Saudi Arabia while Swiss authorities froze his family’s bank account.
"There's no doubt that there will have been some frantic financial activity behind the scenes. They can lose the homes and some of the bank accounts, but they will have wanted to get the gold bars and other investments to safe quarters," The Telegraph quoted a US official as saying."
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/02/13/13748...
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/02/13/13745...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356723/Eg...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/pres...
davefairtex..
You have a very true insight into the current events and the causes behind them. I completely agree with your comments specially the one below:
"And I don't think there's any putting that genie back in the bottle, because the Internet and business are so tightly intertwined now."
The genie is now out of the bottle. Lets hope there is a successful follow thru for this wonderful youth revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, and other places in that region yet to come, and good wishes for spread of fairness, equality, prosperity and true democracy to prevail. No more silencing of the Human voice, no more ignore of human rights and the peaceful PEOPLE POWER, no more fear of speaking up, and no more oppressive control and/or ruling under a sadistic police state.
I take my hat off for the hero’s of Egypt who made their dream come true and I honestly wish them the best.
Here is one of several news media that reported the Freeze of Mubarak assets in Swiss banks; he has about $3.5 billions there out of an estimated $70 billions. I wonder if he and his sons had transferred most of what they could to Saudi Arabia and UAE during the last 18 days before his resignation. After all, it was Saudi king who offered him and his family asylum there if he wishes to do so. Perhaps this is why he was dragging his feet refusing to step down until most of the assets are transferred out from European and US banks over to a safer Saudi and UAE banks according to some resources. I guess he failed to get the last $3.5 billions out from Swiss banks
It’s really a shame that the country has been sinking in poverty and high unemployment for decades while their dictator was accumulating or should I say stealing this outrageous wealth from the country’s resources and its people under the eyes and supervisions of his supporters, what a shame!!
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/swiss-government-f...
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/11/switzerland-free...
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/137153/switzer...
The domino Effect is taking place and the winds of change is sweeping thru the whole Middle East. One nation after another seeking democracy, freedom, better living standards and human rights, fairly ellected leaders, and social justice so who is going to be NEXT?
read on:
"Anti-government protests broken up in Yemen and Algeria
Mid-East: Will there be a domino effect?
Anti-government rallies in the capitals of Algeria and Yemen, inspired by events in Egypt, have been broken up.
Riot police in Algiers dispersed thousands of people who had defied a government ban to demand that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika step down."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12441180
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/algeria-moves-to-...
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2...
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/...
Niceeeeeeeee :)
The Standoff between protesters and the Army is continuing and there are reports and talks about a possible clashes to take place soon if the Army don't listen to the demands of the people..They are very close now to try force their way into the presidential palace and TV Local Main Station.
I guess if this does happen in the streets of Egyptian cities then El-Erian prediction will come true
"If we get widespread violence in the streets you will get a massive risk-off trade," El-Erian said. "You will see equities sold off, oil go up and you will see a Treasury rally. The reason you would see that is people would start extrapolating the geopolitical risk and reassess the Middle East as a whole."
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41528763