In Case You Missed It – Week Ended December 5, 2015.

Stories from the week ended December 5, 2015.

This week’s major story was the terrorist attack in San Bernadino that reignited the gun control/refugee debate.

The main economic news centered around the non farm payroll number that came in better than expected. Janet Yellen spoke and clearly signalled a rate hike soon, while the European Central Bank (ECB) lowered interest rates further into negative territory and extended its quantitative easing program into 2017. The ECB stimulus, however, was less than expected and the Euro soared and the dollar fell.

Gold, silver and platinum ended the week up mostly on strong gains on Friday.

Gold closed last week at $1056.60 and closed this week at $1086.30

Silver closed last week at $14.07 and closed this week at $14.55

Here are the stories we wrote, followed or commented on.

November 28, 2015

Black Friday Sales

Reports on sales activity indicated that Black Friday was a bust.

Black Friday sales off 10%

November 29, 2015

Gold

The science surrounding gold gave us these two stories:

Scientists claim link between moon’s tilt an earth’s gold

Gold as light as air!

Black Friday Sales

While overall Black Friday sales were down, online sale were up.

Clicks beat bricks on Black Friday

November 30, 2015

Silver

From Smaulgld.com

American Silver Eagles Set Record For Third Year in a Row

Silver Eagle sales soared to their third straight annual record.

Buy 2015 American Silver Eagle Coins

Gold, Silver and Platinum

U.S. platinum jewelry imports surge in Q3; gold and silver also up.

Gold and Silver

From Smaulgld.com

We released our November U.S. Mint sales report that showed sales of American Gold Eagle coins up 210% from October and sales of American Silver Eagle coins up 27% from October.

November sales of American Silver Eagles were a November record.

Sales of American Silver Eagle coins in November 2015 set a monthly record.

Compare American Silver Eagles for sale at:

BGASC.com

Golden Eagle Coins

SD Bullion

Money Metals Exchange

Sales of one ounce American Gold Eagle coins have picked up in the second half of 2015, but are still below most prior year totals.

You can compare pricing and shipping charges on American Gold Eagles coins of all sizes at these web sites:

BGASC.com

Golden Eagle Coins

SD Bullion

Money Metals Exchange

Federal Reserve

Fed releases statement regarding expedited meeting

Fed will relinquish crisis bailout tools …. BUT Fed rules would require “emergency lending to at least five firms”

SDR

Chinese Yuan joins the SDR- weighting is 10%- comes at the expense of other currencies in the SDR basket, not the dollar. (see SDR report below)

Real Estate

Pending home sales up 0.2%

December 1, 2015

U.S. Economic Data

U.S. ISM Manufacturing falls to 48.6 -first time below 50 since November 2012.

Chinese Manufacturing PMI sinks to three year low

Gold

The main stream media gold naysayers were out in force this week:

CNBC It could get a lot worse for gold this week

WSJ: Gold slips as stronger stocks ECB worries weigh

U.S. Mint Sales Update

US Mint Sold 183K Silver Eagles today & NO Gold Eagles (production halted)

YTD Silver Eagle Sales 44,850,000 (a record)

Buy 2015 American Silver Eagle Coins

Cashless Society

Greeks told to declare cash/valuable they may have hidden.

December 2, 2015

Gold and Silver

From Smaulgld.com

We released our November Perth Mint sales report that showed sales of the Perth Mint’s new silver kangaroo coin selling well in excess of one million ounces. Gold sales at the Perth Mint were down in November.

Perth Mint silver sales remained strong in November.

Compare Perth Mint Silver Kangaroo Coins for sale at these online bullion dealers:

BGASC.com

Golden Eagle Coin

SD Bullion

Money Metals Exchange

Perth Mint gold sales slumped in November.

Federal Reserve

Janet Yellen “looking forward to rate hike as testament to the economy’s recovery from recession”

Regulation

CME Group metals director Harriet Hunnable to leave company Nothing to see here?

San Bernandino shooting news broke today.

Buy 90% Junk Silver From BGASC.com

December 3, 2015

SDRs

From Smaulgld.com

We released our SDRs By The Numbers Report that shoed the admission of the Chinese Yuan to the SDR currency basket came mostly at the expense of the Euro, despite the Eurozone having half the SDR countries’ gold and the highest percentage of its GDP.

The Eurozone has leading gold holdings and GDP, yet its share of the SDR as reduced to 30.93% to make room for the Chinese Yuan. The US dollar share remained unchanged.

European Central Bank

ECB takes rates further into negative territory- QE extended to March 2017

U.S. Economic Data

Layoffs hit 14 month low

Terrorism

Terrorism ‘possible’ in San Bernardino shooting, Obama says, but ‘we don’t know’

Gold

The link below was about a projected decline in the price of gold

Gold Drops as Top Bullion Forecaster Says Rate Rise Near Certain cites “improving US economy”

Later in the day after the ECB announcement, Bloomberg rewrote the story and took out “improving US economy language” and changed the headline to “Gold Futures Rebound From Five-Year Low After ECB Rate Cut” and noted the rise in the price of gold

India Targets Gold Temples in Monetization Scheme

December 4, 2015

Gold

We released our weekly Shanghai Gold Exchange withdrawal report.

SGE withdrawals extend annual record.

U.S. Economic Data

Non Farm Payroll. 211K Exp 200k Last 271k Unemployment rate 5.0% Average earnings up 0.2%

Nov NFP of 271k revised to 298k

Gold

American Gold Eagle Premiums begin to rise as production is halted

American Gold Eagle coin premiums have begun to rise.

Silver

Silver sparkles amid commodities gloom

Gold

Government may ban import of 24-carat jewellery to check smuggling

Moscow Precious Metals Trading volume up 308% year over year

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