Economic swing time: Gold rises after the fall

Since the new year began, volatility has been the name of the financial market game. From Shanghai to New York, from stocks and bonds to oil prices, it’s swing time. On old news that means next to nothing, and on new news that means nothing more or more of the same, wild three- to five-percent swings up one day and down the next, have become the “new normal.”

Whether Macao or Las Vegas, the Dow or the DAX playing the markets, it is nothing more than a gambler’s game. Juiced by record-low interest rates and tens of trillions of quantitative easing dollars, euros, yen and yuan, today’s wild market fluctuations are symptoms of rampant speculation detached from sound market fundamentals. 

TRENDFORECAST: In countries across the globe it’s the same story in a different language: The top one percent of income earners collected 95 percent of all income gains since the Panic of ’08. There is no connection between speculative equity market profits being made by the 0.01 percent and the fundamentals of the economy that impact the lives of 99 percent.

When these unprecedented money-pumping Ponzi schemes eventually collapse, we forecast a rapid rise in gold prices as speculators and survivors place their bets on safe haven assets.