Gold premiums soar in India

MUMBAI (MINEWEB)  - 
An Indian wedding without gold is an unheard of thing. With the nation moving into wedding season mode, gold importers are making hay across the country, asking for extremely strong premiums from jewellers, who have been rushing to get hold of the precious metal.
"Imports are down to a trickle. There is absolutely no gold available anywhere in the country. Most jewellers have been making do with recycled gold, but given the wedding season that is upon us, many of us are finding it difficult to keep pace with the soaring demand for gold,'' said Manish Kedia, bullion retailer.
While some retailers said they paid up premiums as high as $120 an ounce last week, on December 6, premiums crossed $180 an ounce higher than London prices.

Is The Silver Market Manipulated?

Over the past few years there have been allegations made that J. P. Morgan (JPM) and HSBC (HBC) are suppressing the price of silver (SLV), (PSLV)). These allegations need to be taken seriously because they come from credible sources including Bart Chilton (according to Bloomberg) -- a commissioner on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). A lengthy investigation into these allegations was recently dropped, but the controversy is still alive and well.
In this article I address these allegations. I will first discuss the notion of market manipulation. I then discuss the U. S. government's silver price manipulation in the late 1960s as a clear cut example of market manipulation so that readers can get an idea of what I mean by the concept. I then provide the arguments that the price of silver is manipulated today, although I demonstrate that while they are very compelling, they are also circumstantial and consequently inconclusive. Finally I discuss how investors should act given the possibility that the silver price is manipulated, even if readers come to the conclusion that it isn't.
Price Manipulation
The term "price manipulation" is complex and loaded. Before I offer my definition let us look at the definition given by the CFTC according to their glossary:
Manipulation: Any planned operation, transaction, or practice that causes or maintains an artificial price. Specific types include corners and squeezes as well as unusually large purchases or sales of a commodity or security in a short period of time in order to distort prices, and putting out false information in order to distort prices.
Essentially the definition boils down to the first sentence, and so we must look at the CFTC's definition of "artificial price":
Artificial Price: A futures price that has been affected by manipulation and is thus higher or lower than it would have been if it reflected the forces of supply and demand.
The obvious circular causality that exists between the two terms leads me to assert that the CFTC's definition of manipulation is completely worthless: they claim that manipulation leads to an artificial price, which is caused by manipulation.
I propose a simple yet forceful alternative below that provides specific conditions by which one can empirically test allegations of manipulation. Manipulation occurs when:
A: A market participant buys and/or sells an asset or a derivative contract related to that asset in order to control its price.
more @ http://seekingalpha.com/article/1838912-is-the-silver-market-manipulated



MAKE SURE YOU GET PHYSICAL SILVER IN YOUR OWN POSSESSION. Don't Buy SLV, or Futures or Pooled Accounts or any other BS paper silver product .Remember anything on paper is worth the paper it is written on. Go Long Stay long the bull market have even started yet

$1,000 For One Ounce of Silver? ...Don't Laugh! -- Andy Hoffman

 Andy Hoffman from Miles Franklin joins us to for a clarion call about the true, real world value of PHYSICAL SILVER. With the market value of all available Bitcoin's now more than $5 BILLION, compared to around $21 Billion for all investable PHYSICAL silver, Andy says "What we're seeing is a speculative mania."

As for Bitcoin, I ask Andy, if $1,000 USD is possible for a single Bitcoin, what is one ounce of physical silver reallyworth? Andy says, "Alternative currencies are a viable concept... but Bitcoin doesn't have intrinsic value, whereas silver for instance is the second most used commodity on earth, in fact three quarters of ALL production is used for things other than investment."

As for concrete value for an ounce of physical silver, Hoffman's take is this: "My long standing price target, if it weren't rigged, I would say it should be $1,000 - $4,000 an ounce right now. And that's simply using the math of how much money the government SAYS has been printed and how much gold they SAY they have in reserve. And of course they have printed a lot more than they say and they have a lot less gold than they say."


MAKE SURE YOU GET PHYSICAL SILVER IN YOUR OWN POSSESSION. Don't Buy SLV, or Futures or Pooled Accounts or any other BS paper silver product .Remember anything on paper is worth the paper it is written on. Go Long Stay long the bull market have even started yet

Audio: Short-Term Shortages in Silver

 http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/silver-shortages-112220132

Friday, 11/22/2013 18:01

David Jollie of Mitsui explains why and how silver shortages can develop...
SILVER SHORTAGES have been widely reported on the internet in 2013.
But does that mean there's a true shortage in silver worldwide? Market-renowned analyst David Jollie, speaks here to Miguel Perez-Santalla – vice-president at BullionVault in New York – about how the perception of silver shortages arise.
In this edition of Miguel's weekly New York Markets Live, David Jollie also talks about how the professional wholesale silver market operates, plus the 2013 activity in silver trading across the various consumer and industrial markets worldwide. Mining production costs are also a concern at current silver prices. But David is "an optimist" he says, and sees no reason for prices not to rally from here to New Year 2014 as the US Federal Reserve fails to taper its QE money printing anytime soon.
Hear the full 30-minute show now...

Listen To Business Internet Radio Stations with New York Markets Live on BlogTalkRadio

MAKE SURE YOU GET PHYSICAL SILVER IN YOUR OWN POSSESSION. Don't Buy SLV, or Futures or Pooled Accounts or any other BS paper silver product .Remember anything on paper is worth the paper it is written on. Go Long Stay long the bull market have even started yet

Short-Term Shortages in Silver

Friday, 11/22/2013 18:01

David Jollie of Mitsui explains why and how silver shortages can develop...
SILVER SHORTAGES have been widely reported on the internet in 2013.
But does that mean there's a true shortage in silver worldwide? Market-renowned analyst David Jollie, speaks here to Miguel Perez-Santalla – vice-president at BullionVault in New York – about how the perception of silver shortages arise.
In this edition of Miguel's weekly New York Markets Live, David Jollie also talks about how the professional wholesale silver market operates, plus the 2013 activity in silver trading across the various consumer and industrial markets worldwide. Mining production costs are also a concern at current silver prices. But David is "an optimist" he says, and sees no reason for prices not to rally from here to New Year 2014 as the US Federal Reserve fails to taper its QE money printing anytime soon.