Silver and Gold Prices

One glance at the chart tells you that silver and gold and platinum and palladium all trod water this week. On the other hand, stocks rose this week, mostly today. US dollar index flatlined, and today silver and gold broke.

Lo and Behold! The Dow exceeded 12,850 today, and fact of the business is, nearly reached the May intraday high (12,876). Dow today gained a respectable 156.82 points (1.23%) to close at 12,862.23, nearly on the 12,869.95 high. S&P500 was even happier, rising 19.36 points (1.46%) to 1,344.90. What has everybody clambering all over each other to buy stocks?

Well, if you can believe it, government numbers. Personally, I don't put nearly as much stock in government numbers as I do in astrology, and I couldn't even tell you what my birth sign is -- the Possum, or the Turkey Buzzard, maybe.

Yet in this age of Reason, High Technology, and Right Big Government Lies, people still suck up those government numbers like they were single malt scotch at a free bar.

All this big news was that the government's unemployment rate dropped to 8.3%, nearly the low for the last three years. (On another note, if you believe unemployment is 8.3%, call me about some wooden Krugerrands I can sell you really cheap.)

Truth is, market was looking for some excuse to rise, that was the news today, so it took the bait.

Oh, and by the way, did I tell y'all that a Greek Debt Deal Is Near?

Y'all might wonder why I am so negative on stocks. Because they are in a primary down trend (bear market), and if I don't do much more than keep you out of stocks, five years from now you'll still think I was the brightest bulb in the box. Hide and watch.,

That US Dollar Index this week played Bait and Switch. Looked like it would break through 79.50 and fall off the face of the earth, but it stopped and rallied and even ended the week 7.6 basis points higher than last Friday.

Today the dollar index lost a tee-tiny 3.2 basis points (0.04%), leaving me wondering why the currency market has gone so quiet all of a sudden. It ended at 78.959, but climbed as high as 79.357. This currency thing isn't clear. Dollar may rally still and euro may sink to its intrinsic value -- zero -- before the dollar does.

The 1.3200 level seems to have blocked the euro this week. Closed 1.3155 today, up 0.06%. Also bumping up against its critical 62 day moving average, and can't punch through. Brace yourself for another stumble for the euro.,

Reason hath fled the yen market. Closed today down 0.50% at 130.56c/Y100 (76.59/US$1), giving back a third of its spectacular gains since 24 January. It gaps down, then bounces right back, gaps up, then waterfalls down. Why does that picture make me thing of Nice Government Men in their cubicles phoning their partners in manipulation on the market floor?

Well, I know election year has come because so many pious confessions are spontaneously erupting from politicians' lips. Yesterday it was Bernard O'Bama shaking out his Christianity before the National Prayer Breakfast, and even Newt Gingrich is claiming to have got religion. You may think I am harsh to say these things, but I say it's as sorry as gully dirt for politicians to trade on their faith. I never have thought much of them "talkin'" Christians, only the "walkin'" ones. They never need to tell you what they believe, because you already know from watching 'em.

All the This Day In History websites say that the 16th (income tax) amendment was ratified 3 February 1913, but that's a lie. Secretary of State Philander Knox fraudulently and knowingly certified it when it had never passed. The irregularities in the supposed state ratifications are too numerous to list, but you can read all about it in "The Law That Never Was" by Bill Benson and Red Beckman. Of course, if you don't pay the income tax, the government will try to jail or kill you.

Speaking of the IRS, tax time is fast approaching. My friend, Dan Pilla, Jr., at www.taxhelponline.com has over 25 years experience fighting with the IRS for taxpayers' rights. If you have bad tax problems, Dan's the man to call. One of the 11 books he has written is "How to Get Tax Amnesty." Check him out. I receive no remuneration whatever for recommending Dan.

Y'all enjoy your weekend!

Good thing about writing these commentaries is that every day that dawns brings a new chance to be wrong.

I was not, however, wrong to suspect silver and gold were about to jump, based on that one-slightly- down-other-slightly-up rule. But more below.

Okay, y'all, a Greek Debt Deal Is Near. Don't forget that. What kind of person would I be if I didn't remind y'all?

The US dollar, Laughingstock Of Fiat Currencies, only slightly less ridiculous than the euro and yen, shed 35.6 basis points (0.46%) today to land at 78.932. Yesterday's Big W resolved into a triple top, and obligingly fell lower than Friday's lows, to 78.623, relieving our minds of the worry that it might suddenly rally. Still, give the devil his due. Until the dollar clearly violates that 78.60 level, it's liable to do anything. Well, we all know that over time it can only do one thing -- slowly evaporate -- but I mean in the short run.

The scruffy and disgusting euro is flagging at the 62 day moving average, today 1.3209. Euro closed up 0.58% at 1.3158. Looks like it won't punch through, but will fall again for some sort of double bottom.

Did I mention that a Greek Debt Deal Is Near? Don't forget that. That will really help the euro by, uh, by, uh, well, I'm sure it will help Greece, at least. We won't talk about all the other bankrupt countries because one of them begins with an F.

On the other side of the globe pretty much nobody knows what they're doing, because they bid up the doomed yen 0.07% to 131.32c/Y100 (Y76.20/US$1). It's still rallying -- why is anybody's guess, given the fundamentals. Never mind, don't expect anything to make sense in a fiat money world.

Okay, stocks hung me on my own words, and sure's this world did manage to peck through 12,700. Dow rose 83.55 (0.66%) today and closed at 12,716.46. S&P500 rose through my strict 1,320 to 1,324.08, gaining 11.67 (0.89%).

As that notorious wit and indefatigable wag, Queen Victoria, used to quip, "We are not amused." Nor are we enthused. Stocks may simply be setting up for a little double top below 12,850, whence they will sink like your car keys when they were in your shirt pocket and you leaned over to get a better view of Hoover Dam. BICBW.

Anyway, who would want to own stocks and undergo all that fatigue of trying to pick the right one and do all that worrying when you can just buy gold or silver, stick it in the safe, and wait until Ben Bernancubus and the US Gov do what they do best: destroy the dollar.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Musing back over the yen's performance yesterday, and recalling the current buzz among Those Who Must Talk Whether Mentating Or Not, Asian stocks also rose yesterday, "on Greek Debt Deal Talks" and Japanese industrial production grew faster than economists estimated. A statement so obtuse, so wanting in causal connection, stinks of the same Bimbo Financial Journalism that moved that Canadian TV commentatoress to say gold wasn't a good investment "because it wasn't backed by anything like the US dollar is."

Point is, tons of hot money slosheth around the world looking for a likely place to light, hungry for return, and stupidly harkening to the latest news and commentary, groundless though they be. Investment du jour (IdJ) today is US stocks, because there may be a Greek debt deal and Bernanke's indigestion is improving. Tomorrow the IdJ will be European stocks, because there may be a Greek debt deal and Ferkel and Sarcophagus are no longer miffed at each other. Besides, the planets are lining up and Pisces is ascendant in the Fishbowl. And the Japanese are switching to rice from wheat.

I'll be glad when the adults come back and take charge again.

Okay, I can't dodge it; let's look at today's markets.

Now I've heard of heads and shoulders, upside down and right side up, triangles, boxes, wedges, spikes, and double and triple tops, but I don't recall seeing many Big Ws before. Be that as it may, there 'tis on the US Dollar Index chart, a Big W. Breaks down and begins at 79.50, drops to 78.75, rises to 79.45, drops yet again to 78.75, then today rises to 79.50. Man, that's either a PERFECT double bottom, or it's the Nice Government Men painting the tape. What do y'all reckon?

Mattereth not. Implication is that a dollar close above 79.50 turns the dollar higher, a close below 78.75 pulls the plug.

Dollar index today rose 11.8 magnificent basis points (0.15%, for those of y'all with magnifying glasses) to 79.285. Could it turn and resume its rally from here? Might, but I think the NGM in Japan, Europe, and the US have the dollar on the run, and want to keep it there. After all, a Greek Debt Deal may be near.

Disappointing its partisans, the euro today was chipped and clipped for 0.46%, closing down at 1.3080. It's bouncing off its 62 day moving average, a significant moving average for the euro. Also backed through through the 50 DMA today (131.06). Nothing here suggests the euro is NOT headed higher.

As the mysterious schools of investment herring switch from east to west, the Yen rose again today by 0.17% to 131.19c/Y100 (Y76.22/US$1). I am so suspicious it's scary. Scares even me. I keep looking at the dollar selling at about 130 eurocents and about 130 yen, and I keep thinking, "Now isn't that just like Nice Government Men! They pick some silly target number that makes it obvious to a blind man what they're doing, forgetting that nature doesn't round." This looks like a target range ginned up in a meeting over rubber chicken in Basel at the BIS.

The smell of the sickroom hovereth yet over stocks. A few indices rose today, but the S&P500 and the Dow were not among them. Dow lost 21.04 points (0.17%) to settle at 12,632.68. S&P500 perched at 1,312.39, down 0.62 point or 0.05%.

Folks, y'all lay a ruler across the tops of Thursday, Friday, and on through today. I'll show you a failed breakout attempt today, but nothing else to fertilize respect or optimism. I'll give it this: if the Dow can better 12,700, and the S&P can better 1,320, stocks MIGHT have a chance to creep or crawl higher.

Creep or call, not found new inter-generational wealth transfers. But mostly, stocks want to drop.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Scariest thing about writing a daily commentary is that buzzard that sits on your shoulder squawking, "What happens when you run out of things to say? Or on the day nothing happens?"

One of the advantages of being a natural born fool is that you never have enough sense to admit that you have nothing to say worth hearing, so that solves the first. But today was one of those days when not much happened. Oh, everybody showed up for work and went through the motions, but nothing much changed.

The US DOLLAR INDEX rallied a mite, up 13.1 basis points (0.17%) to 79.107. This changes nothing, however. Five day chart might have bottomed late Friday, but dollar will have to burst through 79.50 to prove that. 50 day moving average stands above the Dollar Index at 79.67, and other indicators point unanimously down. Not nearly enough enthusiasm to move much higher.

Greek debt talks are foundering -- come to think of it, they've been foundering since they began -- and the euro, having hit 132.34 Friday and its 62 DMA, backed off today to 1.3130, losing 0.68%. This doesn't near about turn the trend down. Look for higher euro still.

Something's going on with the yen, but I don't know what. It's the sorriest of the three big fiat currencies, worst debt, etc., but it's rising. Monday of last week it gapped down horribly in a move that screamed, Government Manipulation. Stayed down one day, traded back up through the 50 DMA, then Friday gapped UP above the 20 DMA and through internal resistance about 130.5c. This points to another trip back to the top of the trading range above 132c.

Against both the euro and the yen gold is breaking out toward the sky. Not quite confirmed yet in the euro, but clearly in an uptrend.

Against the other Loser Fiat Currencies, silver also offers a bright outlook. Silver in Euros has broken out of a down trend and traded up to its 200 DMA, standing above its 20 and 50 DMAs. The 20 has just crossed above the 50. Once silver crosses through 26 euros, it will be bye-bye earth. Silver in yen shows a similar set-up, but not quite as fully unfolded.

STOCKS had another sickly day. Dow only fell about 0.5% to 12,653.72, down 6.75 points, far less than the andSP500 that lost 3.32 points or 0.25%. Other indices lost more than the Dow, too, sending the smell of ripe mackerel into the air. A drop through 12,530 will push the Dow's head underwater. RSI and MACD are ripe to drop.

STOCKS -- they may be YOUR chance to buy a ticket on the Titanic this year.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

The SILVER PRICE gained 6.6% this week, gold gained 4.1%. Meanwhile, they also bludgeoned their way through two or three resistance levels. This is about as good a week's performance as I have ever seen.

On Wednesday, thanks to the Bernancubus Fed's announcement they will continue jimmying interest rates down and inflating until 2014, gold shot from $1,670 to $1,705 in a single bound, smashing down $1,680 resistance. Next day it pierced $1,705 AND $1,725.

That carries GOLD PRICE through the downtrend line from September a full three percent and three days, proof enough it is a solid breakout. And for good measure gold also rose above its 150 DMA ($1,686), the rarely broken safety net under gold's bull market.

This week SILVER beat 3260c, then 3300c and 3350c and now stands knocking at the 3400c door, where it meets stout resistance. Most important goal here is for silver to climb above its 300 DMA. During this bull market silver has only rarely broken below this moving average. Whenever it crosses above it again, silver is offering you an extremely low-risk buying point.

Some time or other a correction will come. One target is the 200 DMA at 3575c, about where some lateral resistance also abides. Should silver pierce that mark, nothing stands in its way before 4000c.

RSI on both metals stands at 70, pushing the ceiling for overbought, but overbought can easily get MORE overbought and stay there longer than expected.

Big Picture has come into focus. The SILVER and GOLD PRICE correction has ended, but may correct and bump along sideways for the first quarter or two. Nonetheless, both are headed much, much higher. Gold can hit $2,660 this year, silver might hit 7600c, even 8300c.

Is the bull market over? Merciful heavens, NO! The wild part of the ride is only now beginning.

German chancellor Ferkel spoke at the Davos economic forum yesterday, coinciding with the FOMC's actions here. Coincidence? Or timed to manipulate fall of the dollar against the euro? No matter, she said nothing new. Crisis continues to be the elephant in the living room.

An Israeli website reported yesterday that India has agreed to pay for Iranian oil with gold. Not sure whether this can be believed, but if it's true it is a flashing harbinger of change.

Markets followed through today as expected from yesterday: gold and silver up, dollar down, stocks down. Maybe inflation isn't the universal economic panacea after all -- but what do I know? I'm no central banker, I'm just a natural born fool from Tennessee, not rating even 3 MLCs on the Scientific Stupidity Scale.

STOCKS melted when they approached the Kryptonite of last spring's highs. Dow gave up 21.65 (0.17%) to close 12,735.31 while S&P500 lost 7.60 (0.57%) to close 1,318.45. Dow below 12,650 will accelerate the fall.

More instructive is the last few days' behavior of the Dow in Gold Dollars (DiG$) and the DiSoz. From G$164.94 (7.969 oz) on 29 Dec. the DiG$ has fallen to G$152.47 (7.376 oz) today. From 450.5 oz the DiSoz has plunged to 377.88 oz today. Since the December highs showed upside breakouts on the chart, their retreat and failure now underlines one future: silver and gold will gain much more value against stocks, or, stocks will lose more value against metals. Same thing.

US DOLLAR INDEX today fell 17.7 basis points (0.23%) to 79.402. This further fall below 79.50 merely confirms that the dollar has broken down from its uptrend. Low came at 79.07, and dollar may be forming a rounding bottom there, which would send it higher for a few days. Owch, it's below its 50 DMA (79.59). Lower closes will simply nail more nails into the dollar's coffin.

Euro took a breather today, closing down 0.02% (nothing, basically) to 1.3104. Must remain above 1.3050 or foster suspicions that the ultimate bottom for the euro's long move is not yet behind us.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

I was minding my own business sitting in front of my computer concentrating when all of a sudden my Stupid Meter went off, alarm blaring and honking, Stupid needle pushed way over into the red. Clearly somebody in the world was pushing the safety envelope for Stupid Radiation. Problem is, if the hole in the ozone layer closes up, then the Stupid Rays cannot escape the earth's atmosphere, and every man, woman, and child on earth -- especially those registered to vote -- loses 8 points off their IQ for every day the Stupid Meter reading exceeds 4.8 Central Bankers (standard scientific measurement for stupidity. One Central Banker, abbreviated "CB" = 10 "ERs" or "Elected Representatives" = 100 SCJs or "Supreme Court Justices." One SCJ = 100 MLCs or "Moe-Larry- and-Curlys." One the other hand, in order of ascending stupidity, Ten CBs = 1 SE or "Secretary of Education," and 10 SEs = 1 TSAA or "Transportation Security Administration Agent.")

My heart had no more settled down from the scare that Stupid Meter alarm had given me than my Hogwash Detector went crazy. I jumped up and ran outside, because an alarm that strong meant a TIDAL WAVE of hogwash must be about to engulf my house and Tennessee. About that time I realized that everything was all right. Last night we had a State of the Union speech last night and today an FOMC meeting announcement and whenever you overload a Stupid Meter and a Hogwash Detector like that, you have to expect a lot of alarms.

Bernancubus and the FOMC announced today that they would keep interest rates low until "at least late 2014" and that the committee "expects to maintain a highly accommodative [read: inflationary] stance for monetary policy." But that's okay because they expect "inflation" to be subdued. To prove beyond all quibble that they have all lost their minds, the FOMC specified a two percent (2%) goal for long term inflation, measured by some price index that makes about as much sense as averaging the price of tire-irons with kumquats and SUVs and calling that an index.

Go look at the five-day charts you will notice that suddenly today the silver and gold charts rise straight into the sky. THAT was when the Federal Open Market Committee made its announcement, and THAT shows you how markets interpreted the Fed's announcement: "more and more inflation."

Of course, the US dollar index took this news of more inflation on the chin, sinking below 79.60 support to 79.426, down 44.2 basis points or 0.57%. That wrecks the rally, but stopped just below the 50 day moving average (79.56). I suppose it is POSSIBLE the dollar might turn and resume rallying, but clearly the Fed is working with the other Nice Government Men and Beneficent Central Bankers to lower the dollar and yen against the euro.

And the scabby euro took a great jump to close at 1.3108, up 0.56% and almost touching its 50DMA at 1.3142. Since it already stands above its 20 DMA (1.2891), piercing the 50 DMA will twist up the frenzy knob on the euro's momentum.

The Japanese yen presents a fine picture of government manipulation. It fell through internal support today and at one point through the trading channel reaching back to August. Closed up in that channel, but Oh, My! Somebody BIG is selling yen. Closed 128.66c/Y100 (Y77.72/US$1).

Stock investors are about to set off my Lunacy Monitor, as they bought today on news that the dollar will be trashed and the Fed will inflate more. Can that possibly aid the ailing economy? In a pig's eye it can. The economy is ailing only because of inflation in the first place (Don't argue with me here. There would have been no speculative real estate bubble and stock bubble and soap bubble unless the Fed had been inflating and making money artificially cheap, exactly as they are doing now.) More inflation will help the US economy as much as another drink will sober up a drunk.

Dow rose 83.1 points (0.66%) to 12,758.85. S&P500 rose 0.87% (11.41) to 1,326.06. This charade, this farce, this "inflate-poke-and-hope" management ought to bring tears to any sane eye.

But, it's an ill wind that blows no good, and the ill winds of Central Bank and Government Stupidity, Keynesianism, and Official Hogwash all blew mightily into the sails of silver and gold today.

Just to show you things haven't changed much, except that 120 years ago men had more courage, on 25 January 1787 the militia of what was called "Shay's Rebellion" was met and dispersed by superior Massachusetts state forces at the Springfield (U.S.) Armory. Shay's Rebellion was an uprising of debt-ridden, taxed-out farmers who had fought a Revolution for liberty only to find that at home they were being made debt slaves.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

US dollar today gained a massive, spectacular 2.3 basis points (0.03%) to end at 79.806. It skidded to a stop just above the 50 DMA (79.52).

High today reached 80.184, low skidded to 79.643. Without closing higher than 80.20, the dollar is merely trolling for fools gullible enough to buy it on the way down.

Of course, if the buck hangs around above 79.50 for a few days, I might change my mind.

Scabby euro rose 0.09% today to 1.3036, not much changed from yesterday, but still rallying. Still headed for 1.3200 at least.

Yen, on the other hand, fell off a cliff today. Dropped 0.9% to 128.71c/Y100 (Y77.69/US$1), leaving behind a huge gap and punching through its 20 DMA (129.65) and 50 DMA (129.19). Support there is none before 128c, or the 200 DMA at 127.37c. Looks like the Nice Government Men in Japan woke up today and decided to lower the yen.

Stock indices shrugged off their confusion today and all decided to drop together. Dow lost 33.07 (0.26%) to 12,675.75. S&P500 gave back 1.35 to 0.1%. Charts aren't quite the same.

S&P500 has bumped into overhead resistance from last spring's highs and stopped cold. Dow punched through slightly, reached 12,764, and has traded back to the line for -- a failure and fall back, or a final kiss good-bye? Not clear yet, but stocks don't have much gas left. Dow won't reach 12,870, S&P500 shouldn't reach 1,360.

On 24 January 1848 James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter's Mill in northern California, the discovery that set off the Gold Rush. Discoveries of gold in California, Australia, and later South Africa led to a CHEAPENING of gold against silver, and the price of silver in gold rose steadily from 1848 until 1873, when silver was corruptly demonetized first in the US ("Crime of '73") and then in the new German Reich. Contrary to the propaganda, it was NOT new silver discoveries, like the Comstock Lode, that led to silver's cheapening against gold or its demonetization. That was all politics, and silver was gaining value from 1848 forward, never trading below the $1.2929 statutory value from 1848 to 1873, and rising at some points to $1.35 (4.4% over statutory price). No, ultimately driving silver out of the monetary system was a project of special interests who planned to drive out first, silver, and then gold, and so create their own money out of thin air. So far, they've won, and think what a tragedy it would have been if the banks had lost. Why, how would states have raised the money to fight all those world wars without central banks and fiat money? Gee, they couldn't have, so they would have been forced to make peace. It would have been a historical tragedy, wouldn't it?

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

A joke on the streets of Moscow these days: "Everything the Communists told us about communism was a complete and utter lie. Unfortunately, everything the Communists told us about capitalism turned out to be true."

Markets have made their intentions considerably clearer today. Dollar's rolling into the gutter again, stocks are indecisive and faltering, gold and silver are shaking off their worries and marching higher.

Let's start with the US Dollar Index. Dealing with all these fiat currencies for me is like having to listen to a long lecture on tapeworms and other internal parasites. Thus I want to get it behind me as quickly as possible.

What the dollar is losing, the euro is gaining as the frenzied rats, uncertain which ship will sink first, swim from one ship to the other. Here's the answer to their quandary: BOTH are sinking.

Dollar index today lost 67.1 basis points, a meaty 0.86%, to grab a branch at 79.704. Falling through the trap door at 80 sends the dollar much lower, and a fall through 79.50 (probably tomorrow) will only tie anvils to the dollar's feet.

Dollar's rally is over for a while. Broke clean through the uptrend line, closed below the 20 day moving average (80.53), and has only barely avoided breaking the 50 DMA (79.45). None of this promises anything other than lower prices for the dollar. It has fallen off the kerb into the gutter.

Euro meanwhile has a full load on and has posted two gaps up in the last 3 trading days -- breakaway gap, headed for 132+ resistance. Not clear yet how substantial this rally is, or how long it might last. May constitute no more than a rally before one last spike down, but looks good from here. Momentum points skyward as euro has passed its 20 DMA (1.2889) and is drawing a bead on its 50 DMA (1.3163). Euro closed today up 0.77% at 1.3031.

Yen did little today, up 0.08% at 129.93c/Y100 (Y76.96/US$1). Above the 20 DMA (129.62) but looking awfully tame.

STOCKS today looked lost and bewildered, some indices up, some down. Confusion promises nothing good as stocks run out of enthusiasm and steam.

Dow fell 11.66 (0.09%) to 12,708.82. Broader S&P500 rose 0.62 (get out the magnifying glass) or 0.05% to 1,316.00.

Dow acting allergic to 12,750. Last high close came 2 May 2011 at 12,810. That is now doing the same thing to the Dow that Kryptonite does to Superman.

S&P500 is also struggling at analogous downtrend line from 29 April 2011 close at 1,363.60.

Don't expect either index to reach those last high levels. This will bring great pain to many, and I take no pleasure in reporting it. Stocks are in a primary down trend, and have much, much further to fall in the years before that bear market ends.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Within the markets are planted automatic circuit breakers, set to explode Humility Bombs whenever you begin to believe that you have things figured out. I stepped on those mines today.

What a week! SILVER gained -- look! --- 7.3%, while GOLD moved up only 2%. Dow gained more than gold, 2.4%, platinum augmented 3% (a word for you engineers out there), and palladium added 5.8%. Dollar index dropped 1.7%, and probably broke its rally's back.

I love kids, but mine were always easy to catch whenever they were doing something wrong. If I got one alone and asked him what he had been doing, he said one thing. When another said something else, I knew I wasn't getting the story whole.

It's the same way with markets. When markets that SHOULD confirm don't, some monkey business is afoot behind the scenes.

So today I ask myself, how could the Dow rise 96.5 points (0.76%) while the broader S&P500 rose only 0.88 (0.07%)? And when the Dow rose 3/4%, why did the Nasdaq and Nasdaq-100 DROP? Somebody's story doesn't match here, and when that happens with markets, the larceny of Nice Government Men pops instantly to mind. I don't want to become one of those imagination-challenged boors who blames everything on government intervention, but that doesn't mean they don't intervene. And we KNOW they have a special group, the President's Working Group on Markets, set up in the Reagan reign to manipulate the stock market. I suspect they treat the Dow, the most widely watched stock index, as a kind of Potemkin village for the economy, a number they try to keep perky so we mushrooms will feel good and not panic.

Anyhow, the Dow (if not the S&P500 or Nasdaq), has penetrated overhead resistance. If the move is real, then stocks ought to advance smartly, not dragging feet. We'll see. None of this, lest you conclude otherwise, changes my long term view of stocks, which are locked in a bear market (primary downtrend). If it's a rally, this, too, shall pass, and more diving shall follow.

Dow today ended at 12,720.48, up 96.50 or 0.76%. S&P 500 closed 1,315.38, up 0.88 (0.07%).

I bet y'all wonder why I waste good electrons talking about the scrofulous US dollar index and scabby euro and scurvy yen. Easy: they are the chief competitors to silver and gold. Their course offers guidance where the metals are headed, and chronicles the metals' ongoing war of annihilation against all the phony fiat currencies in the world.

Dollar ended the day down only 6.1 basis points (0.08%) at 80.155, thus capping a week of disaster. Dollar index smashed through its uptrend line today. That does not guarantee twill proceed lower, as it did the same for several days early this month and again in December, but whenever a market breaks a trend line or resistance, the presumption states it will continue in that direction.

Anyway, think about the backdrop. The world's states are engaged in a very polite war of competitive devaluation, trying to build their own economies at their neighbor's expense. Everyone smiles and bows and says they're working together, but back in the office they are figuring out how to lower their currency's value. Truth is, neither the Bernancubus nor the White House Toad want an appreciating dollar. Worse, they've had a fight on their hands as scared money poured out of the euro all summer, headed for refuge in US treasuries and driving up the dollar.

For what technical analysis is worth under these manipulated circumstances, today the dollar index fell through both its uptrend line AND the 20 day moving average (80.51). That targets a fall at least to the 50 DMA (79.39), although some support lingers around 79.70 - 79.85.

Euro today closed lower as traders took profits out of their week, 1.2931, down 0.23%. Yen changed nothing, up 0.11% at 129.83c/Y100 (Y77.03/US$1).

Also, I have learned that altogether y'all know almost everything in the world, so I have a question. Anybody know where I can find a slightly used 10 - 20 kilowatt PROPANE generator, a good brand like Kohler? Drop me an email if you do, please.

Again I must confess, I just don't get it. I heard a lady from South Carolina on National Proletarian Radio (voice of Socialism Worldwide). They are voting in the meaningless Republican primary for president this weekend, you know, the one with the Invisible Candidate (R*n P**l). This lady lives in a county with 12% unemployed, and she said they needed to elect somebody who could help them. I gasped for air.

Doesn't she understand that the government is the REASON we suffer economic turmoil and instability? Rotten money?

With all due respect, when did anybody from any government ever help anybody? Of the three greatest lies in the world, the first on the list is, "Hi! I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you." All government money comes with a sock in the jaw. All government help comes with ropes, chains, and shackles.

I don't get it. Why can I see this, and somebody from South Carolina (of all places!) not see it? When are folks going to wake up grasp that the government cavalry is NOT coming, and you don't want 'em to? If anybody is going to help us, it will have to be US, and we have to start by re-building our own local economies, working to restore our neighbor's prosperity as well as our own, building on a sound foundation of clean local food grown by local people. That's just for starters.

I just don't get it. We're standing on acres of diamonds, and people still want to call in the government to screw everything up even more than they already have.

Y'all enjoy your weekend!

Big news today was the Dow poking its head through 12,600 to close at 12,623.98, up 45.03 or 0.36%. Likewise the S&P500 rose 6.64 (0.5%) to close at 1,314.50.

A reader pointed out to me yesterday that I might be missing an upside down head and shoulders in stocks, and he may be right. However, if stocks rally above this level, it will be a trap for bulls that will collapse to their grief within short months.

Other big news came from the euro, which made good its escape through the downtrend line and cleared the 20 day moving average (1.2898) today to close at 1.2965, up 0.84%. Assuming it closes above the downtrend line tomorrow, the euro will have a minimum target of 1.325. This doesn't represent any underlying strength or reform, only a technical reaction to the long fall from 142.47 in October. Euro still stinks worse even than the US dollar.

The US dollar index fell 56 basis points (0.72%). Recall that 60% of the dollar index' value is determined by the euro. Now trading at 80.05, barely above 80. That certainly cracks the uptrend line, and leads to conclusion the dollar will fall at least to its 50 DMA at 79.32.

Japanese Yen lost 0.4% to 129.71c/Y100 (Y77.10/US$1). 'Twas a nasty fall, punching through but not staying below the 20 DMA (129.46). 50 DMA isn't far away at 129.13. Should the Yen close blow that, well, it's headed for 128 again.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Act 87, Scene 1 opened in the European Financial Crisis Farce today, and the audience swallowed it like a big bass nailing a minnow -- hook, line, and sinker.

IMF "announced" it would be seeking another $300 million in funding for bailing out Europe. This is, mind y'all, pie in the sky -- no agreements, no approvals, no plans, no money, just the "want-to"s. (Besides, being bailed out by the IMF is like having your life saved by a surgeon who amputates all your arms and legs to cure your hangnail.)

(By the way, if you believe the timing of this IMF announcement was accidental, talk to me about some great bargains on Florida swamp land.)

That was all the euro needed, since it was way oversold to begin with. Everybody in the world expects it to drop to 1.2000, so "everybody" has already sold it and there are no new sellers to drive it down further. Scrofulous euro rose 0.94% to 1.2856 at the close. This pokes thru, but barely, the downtrend line. Before you pop a cork, remember that the euro did the same on the first trading day in January, then promptly fell to new lows. Thus this doubter needs to see a three day close above that downtrend line. 20 DMA stands at 128.99, not far above.

The Japanese yen stood flat-footed today, up a squeenchy 0.4% to 130.23c/Y100 (Y76.79/US$1).

Of course the scabby US dollar index paid thru the nose for the scrofulous euro's rise. Dollar lost 0.86% (66.8 basis points) to 80.514. Closing below 80.50 will make the dollar look brown around the edges; below 80 sends the dollar testing its parachute. Today's low came at 80.47. No confirmation yet, but clouds are lowering over the dollar's future.

Taking enthusiasm from the IMF announcement, stock investors send stocks back up to their resistance ceiling. Dow rose 96.88 (0.78%) to close at 12,578.95, just below that 12,600 resistance. S&P 500 closed at 1,308.04, up 1.11% or 14.37 points.

Doesn't matter what I or anybody else thinks about the future of stocks, some patterns always hold true. One is the "Three Strikes and You're Out." Stocks challenged this level in May and July, and now knock upon that same door. A failure this time seals their fate, just as a significant penetration of 12,600 would send them much higher.

By the by, that July failure sent stocks to 10,600 in a few weeks.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

I hope y'all enjoyed your day off yesterday. Markets sure did. GOLD, SILVER, and stocks were closed yesterday, hence y'all heard not from me.

That euro is making me nervous. Whenever the world and I are all expecting lower prices, the limit of the move is probably near. This is a warning that the euro has completed a down move and is due for a corrective rally at least. That also implies that the US dollar index might suffer a downfall, at least temporarily.

Fundamental causes driving the euro down have not changed -- banks still insolvent thanks to tons of unpayable government debt they hold, government insolvencies still not solved and distrust is spreading to the debt of the big countries now. Still, fundamentals only drive markets over the long term. Day to day, anything can happen.

Today the euro turned up. Rose 0.43% to 1.2729, and bumped its itty head on the overhead downtrend line (from the November breakdown). Yen also rose today, only 0.18% to 130.17c/Y100 (Y76.82/US$1), but also bumping on overhead resistance, and above its 20 DMA (129.30) and 50 DMA (129.05) and 200 DM (127.08). All headed up, so yen's momentum is up, too.

US DOLLAR INDEX stumbled over the weekend. From Friday's nearly 81.80 high it fell to a low today at 80.77, establishing that level as new support. Dollar's daily chart shows a double bottom before New York opened, then stronger prices all day. Closed at 81.80, down 33.2 basis points or 0.43%. However, like a vulture circling in the sky, the dollar lurched into its uptrend line (about 81.25). That may be a mere touch for further footing to another rise, or it might mark the advance's end. We'll see tomorrow, but I expect to see a higher dollar still. This rise ought to reach at least 82.50, maybe 83.50 before it ends. Anything higher points to prices above 88.70. Dollar is building what looks an awfully lot like a rising wedge, deadly to higher prices, so it must not close below 80.

Somewhere around 12,450 Dow lies a line of Enthusiasm and Despair. Below that point, investors run like Bugs Bunny from Elmer Fudd. Above that line they snort cocaine and buy. Dow hit 12,573.65 today, and bounced off like a mudball toward the ground. Closed at 12,482.22, up 60.16 (0.48%), not much of a gain for all that work.

S&P 500 rose 0.35% (4.57 points) to close at 1,293.66.

I know that minds greater and more insightful than mine, some of them paid big Wall Street money to think and talk, say that stocks will head higher. I know they are smarter than this natural born fool from Tennessee, but if somebody in pointy shoes and a shiny suit told you that pigs could fly or central bankers could think, would the shoes and suit make you believe him?

All I can see is a gigantic broadening top in the Dow, and a deadly rising wedge, blocked by double resistance about 12,600. BICBW.

Saw a letter from a subscriber in Steve Saville's The Speculative Investor. Subscriber complained that he was losing interest in watching the market because of the elephant in the living room, i.e., the financial crisis now roiling Europe that has been running since 2008. You just never know when that elephant will lift a foot and put it down, crushing all your expectation. Nor can you know the government/central bank reaction and its effect.

This elephant overhanging every market takes all the fun out of watching markets. It was already getting a bit tiring, watching folks proving the same thing over and over, or unsuccessfully trying to disprove it. I'm worn out with it, because it doesn’t mean anything any more, and nobody learns. The brainless apparatchiki and Keynesian ideologues who run central banks will -- PLAINLY -- respond in the same stupid way to every crisis, pushing bales of new money out the window. All that only prevents any real debt and bad investment liquidation that would cleanse the economy for renewed growth.

I'll say it: there is no hope for the government run economies of the world, and that's all of 'em. The only cures that would work -- sound money and economic freedom -- they will as likely embrace as a wino will begin drinking Coca-cola and hot tea.

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I have no lease here in La-La-Land. I'm focusing my energy on building an economy that DOES work, and making an end-run around the government Luddites and troglodytes. And I'm going to look for those folks who feel the same way, people whose word is as good as a hand-shake and wouldn't call a lawyer if a police car ran over them.

And if they pick me up and put me in jail again, well, I'll find something to do there, too, but the alternative is to watch the economy crumble around us and leave ruins for our grandchildren. I'm not electing any presidents, no congressmen, not joining political movements, because I don't have to wait until the world is perfect to build the world I want. I'm doing it now, with the people who want the same thing, and all those bossmen and their wreckers and enforcers will just have to root hog, or die, but without me.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission.

To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

This week's big gainers were platinum (up 6.1%), palladium (3.8%), and silver (2.9%). Gold gained only modestly (0.9%), as did stocks. US dollar index remained above 81 and gained a little ground: rally intact.

Tomorrow is the 12th anniversary of the 14 January 2000 all time inflation-adjusted high in the Dow: 11,722. That would equal 15,325 today. So in value-terms, although the Dow today stands nominally above that 11,722 close, it's an illusion. In inflation adjusted dollar terms, the Dow since 2000 has lost 19% of its value. Against gold and silver it has lost much more, over 80%.

Today the Dow lost 48.81 (0.4%) to close 12,422.21. S&P500 lost 6.4 (0.5%), ending at 1,289.10. For the week, the Dow tried to penetrate doubled resistance at 12,600 from the long narrow triangle it fell out of last August, failed even to beat 12,500, and has rolled over almost off the bed. Next move will be an Edgar Rice Burroughs special, headed toward The Earth's Core. Will look like a mole with a motor.

(Yesterday I wrote that the Dow had fallen out of a "long narrow equilateral" triangle. One puzzled reader wrote to ask me how a triangle could be both long and narrow AND equilateral. I wore out three try-squares trying to figure a way, but couldn't. So scratch the "equilateral." The triangle was just long and narrow, period.)

Today the US dollar gained a massive 76.1 basis points (0.98%) to close 81.531, while the euro lost 1.11% to close at a new low for the move, 1.2675. What happened?

When talks on cutting Greece's debt looked close to collapsing, the S&P rating agency downgraded government debt of France, Austria, Italy, and Spain by a notch each. From AAA France and Austria fell to AA+, Italy was lowered to BBB+ and Spain twitched from AA- to A. That spooked investors out of euros and into dollars, which may be likened to hiding from a lion in a bear's den.

Folks may pretend that Greece, with less than 2% of the Eurozone's GDP, raises no waves when its boat sinks. However, they can't pretend that France doesn't matter, since portfolios all over Europe are stuffed with France government debt which today became worth much less than yesterday.

The pretence of debt and fiat money is melting like a wax mask too near the fire. What can any investor count on any longer, when what was supposed to be the lowest risk investment -- government debt -- suddenly devalues overnight, or may even be wholesale devalued in banking deals out of control of investors or citizens?

Under these circumstances, I remember those great sentiments of Omar Khayyam, "Ahhh! Take the cash, and let the credit go, nor heed the rumble of a distant drum." You'd better get value in your own hands and in real things, because all the abstracts and illusions are leaving the planet for money heaven.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Tear off the top of the chart, where the label is, and ponder with me for a moment this picture.

It is a broadening top, a well-known and fatal topping formation. Draw a line from the March and June 2010 lows, and another line from the May and June/July highs. You have constructed a long, narrow equilateral triangle.

Half way through forming that triangle, the market falls OUT of the triangle, free falls, then catches. Since then it has been building an enormous rising wedge, a bearish formation that usually breaks out downside.

Now that market has traded up off its October lows all the way to the bottom boundary of that triangle. Whoops! Did I fail to mention that it stands dead under where the triangle's upper AND lower boundaries cross? Double the pleasure, double the fun, double the resistance.

Only conclusion I can draw from this chart is . . .? That it will shortly drop like your English 101 grades after you stopped studying and started staying out all night drinking beer and carousing with your low-life buddies.

Count on it, semester grades WILL be published.

I have just described to you the chart of the Dow Jones Industrial average.

Today the Dow gained a gnat's moustache 21.57 points to close at 12,471.02, still stymied by the doubled resistance overhead. S&P 500 rose 3.02 to 1,295.50, also flea-bite stuff. A bad break is coming.

The US dollar today flew like an anvil over the Grand Canyon. Gave up all that it had gained on Wednesday and closed near Tuesday's low, down 52.3 basis points (0.67%) to 80.828. Changes no part of the long term outlook. Yen and euro rose today, yen slightly to 130.27 (0.12%) and euro more spicily to 1.2817 (+0.85%).

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Buying U.S. 90% SILVER coin rather than Silver Eagles over the last few years has saved investors from $3.25 to $2.25 PER OUNCE. You can buy more than 10% MORE silver by dodging the Eagles and purchasing 90% instead.

And don't let anybody fool you about recapturing the premium when you sell at market peak. I've been there, and you won't. At the peak nobody asks,

nobody asks, "What KIND of silver do you have?" They only ask, "How MUCH silver do you have?" Always buying the least expensive (but still liquid) form of silver or gold greatly increases your investment's leverage, because it increases the ounces you own.

TODAY silver and gold kept up their advance, the US dollar resumed its role as Big Bully Of Filthy Fiat, and stocks seem to be hovering at their arc's top preparatory to an earthward plunge.

Some stock indices rose, some fell today, reflecting fear and indecision. Dow fell 13.02 to 12,449.45, S&P500 gained a flea-bite 0.4 to $1,292.48. Charts have look and feel of a dying advance.

US dollar index bellied up to the table and chug-a-lugged another 50.3 basis points (0.65%) to end at 81.308. This takes the buck back to where this bar-fight started over the weekend with a new high at 81.50. Tomorrow the dollar will finish this fight by breaking beer bottles over its opponents heads, pitching them out of the bar, and closing the doors higher.

Dollar rally continues.

Euro and yen both closed lower. Yucky yen closed 130.12c/Y100 (-.04%) and scrofulous euro closed at 1.2709, down 0.52%. For the moment, the dollar has 'em licked, but it's every bit as sorry as they are. Well, that's not quite right, but it's still plenty sorry.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Amazing, human nature! Astounding how fads and rumors propagate. Take the stock market. You can literally watch prices ebb and flow with whatever shallow and meretricious opinion fad reigns for the nonce. Come January's end and they'll all be holding their breath over whether the Dow finishes January up or down, which allegedly predicts the rest of the year.

Savages who believed a solar eclipse meant that a sky dragon was eating the sun were no less rational. Rationally, the outlook for stocks ought not vary from the economy's outlook, but O my! When humans in crowds are involved, rationality flits thru the window.

In like fashion are rumors propagated, like the one I addressed days ago about the Bernancubus suddenly devaluing the dollar by 40%. Folks, the man did say he might devalue the dollar in his speech on 21 Nov 2002, "Deflation: Making Sure 'It' Doesn't Happen Here." He discusses all the measures he can undertake to inflate, and he mentions Roosevelt's sudden 40% devaluation, but apparently the rumor-spreader overlooked that, although The B-thing clearly intimates that devaluation is one policy tool. Go read it at http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2002/20021121/default.htm.

But nothing here is new. Devaluation is ALWAYS the inevitable outcome of the Federal Reserve's existence, because it is an engine of inflation. It was spawned to inflate, and must inflate or die. Will it inflate? OF COURSE. So instead of looking at the plain historical record -- the US dollar down to 1.3 cents of its value in 1913, when the Fed took charge of managing the dollar -- rumor mongers fluff up everybody's dander with silly "sudden devaluation" stories and myths about gold confiscation. taking minds off the real action -- constant theft by inflation -- and leading them onto a red herring, thus handily keeping the victims in the dollar trap. A person more suspicious than I might think that this very rumor was actually created in a Nice Government Disinformation and Rumor Mill.

I've told y'all before, and will keep telling you till you want to put cotton in your ears or in my mouth, there is less chance of the yankee government confiscating your gold than there is of your being abducted by flying-saucer riding aliens. This is not 1934.

When somebody asked bank robber Willie Sutton why he robbed banks, he answered, "Because that's where the money is." Why did bank-robber Roosevelt confiscate gold in 1934? Because that's where the money was -- THEN, but not now. Today the large pool of wealth sitting on the shelf waiting to be stolen is -- IRAs, 401(k)s, and pension funds.

Wherefore, fool that I am, I see little point in worrying about rumored, hypothetical, and six-sigma unlikely sudden confiscations when (1) you already know the Fed is CONSTANTLY devaluing the dollar, and (2) your retirement is where the yankee government can pick it up anytime they want.

I'm not saying they WILL, only if they want to make a 1934-type forced loan, that's the window where they'll do the borrowing. Meanwhile, all the victims still keep their wealth in paper dollars. Beats me!

I've burned up my lines without even mentioning today's market.

Stocks eased up. Dow swung a leg over 12,400, up 69.78 to 12,462.47. Not terribly convincing. S&P500 rose 11.38 to 1,292.08. But listen -- I got this story straight from my barber's cousin who shine shoes at a Washington barber shop where Ben Bernanke's janitor gets his hair cut, and he told me the Big Ben thinks stocks will end January higher. Un-huh!

US dollar fell a mite today -- 16.2 basis points, a chigger bite, no more -- and still only needs hold on at 79.50 to maintain its rally. Euro rose a gnat's eyebrow to 1.2775, ditto the yen to 130.17c/Y100 (Y76.82/$1).

On 10 January 1429 the Order of the Golden Fleece was established in the Habsburg dominions. Today, membership is reserved for bankers and central bankers alone.

On 10 January 1901 oil was discovered in Beaumont, Texas, setting off the Texas oil boom that hasn't stopped yet.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Don't look now, but the US dollar index has started its next leg up. Oh, today it gave up 45.6 basis points (0.6%), but gave it up to 80.98, after Friday's close at 81.264. Dollar gained 164.4 basis points last week! Face it: y'all will be dealing with a strong dollar for several months, UNLESS it falls below 79.50.

The euro is no longer a contender, except in the "Fiat Currencies Race to the Bottom." It rose a bit today, 0.4%, to 1.2764, but this is virtual leagues from support around 1.3200. Market refuseth yet to believe that the euro has been fixed.

Yen is still playing with that bottom channel boundary line -- the bottom line of the channel it fell OUT of. Rose today 0.17% to 130.15c/Y100 (Y76.83/$1). Doubtful that the Nice Government Men in Japan would let the yen out from under their thumb.

STOCKS have stalled around 12,400. Dow today stirred a little bit, up 32.77 (0.27%) to 12,396.69. S&P500 rose about the same, 2.89 (0.23%) to close 1,280.70.

Back off and you'll see a gigantic broadening top, like unto the top posted in 1999 - 2000. Takes a long time for a market that big to roll over, but by the time it does it has built up lots of downside inertia.

I know there will be sirens aplenty, crooning in your ears that the worst of the recession is over and the economy will come back this year. All I can say is, Hide and watch.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Scoreboard don't lie. Silver and gold had a good week despite the US dollar index's 1.3% gain. Stocks added big time this week, then practiced subtracting, and Friday ended lower than Monday. Palladium got hit on the head with a sledge hammer. Gold/Silver ratio is edging up toward our 57.5 target.

Somebody has floated the rumor out there that "Bernanke is going to devalue the dollar 40%." This reminds me of the man who stands on the front porch with a shotgun, fiercely daring anyone to steal his property while out the back door the thieves are loading his furniture and appliances into a moving van. Since 2001 the US dollar has dropped from 121 to 81, or 33%. While y'all are worrying about the Bernancubus devaluing by 40% SUDDENLY, he and the Greenspan have already devalued it SLOWLY by 33%.

Rumors and internet hysteria -- they merely misdirect your attention from what's important. Wonder what department in the US government is responsible for floating rumors? Disinformation, the Soviets used to call it.

INCOMPREHENSIBLE -- that's what my friend Catherine Fitts warned me today is coming in 2012. What you hear grows more incomprehensible as more and more commentators fail to comprehend what is happening. Economy ain't recovering, cavalry ain't coming but more inflation is. And it mattereth not which of the flyweight nitwit smoothtalkers is elected.

STOCKS today dropped a little, giving up more of this week's gains. Dow closed 12,359.92 55.78 (0.45%) lower than yesterday's close and 37.46 lower than Monday's. S&P500 today closed at 1,277.81, down 3.25 (0.25%).

Stocks may rally before the end of the month as high as 12,600, maybe 200 points higher on a spike, but that will limit it. Rest of the year will fill stock investors with weeping, wailing, teeth-gnashing, and hair-pulling.

US DOLLAR INDEX gained 32.8 basis points today (0-.42%) to 81.264. Dollar has gained 111 basis points in two days, a sign that this week's upside breakout was genuine and has some legs. Should overcome 81.50 early next week and march toward 83.50. Nice Government Men must be puking in their wastebaskets.

Not to mention the European NGM. Euro fell 0.58% today to 1.2713, riding the roller coaster toward 1.2000. Eventually this will cause the US NGM to puke in their wastebaskets, as this competitive currency devaluation (Shades of the Great Depression!) makes US exports dearer. Japanese NGM showed this week they wouldn't abide a rising currency. Closed today 129.93c/Y100 (Y76.96/$1), up 0.19% but contained for the nonce.

Today is Epiphany or the Feast of the Three Kings celebrating the visit of the three magi to the baby Jesus. SPECIAL OFFER

U.S. $5 and $10 modern commemoratives.

These are US $5 and $10 gold commemoratives minted to the ancient standard over the past 20 years.

The US gold $5 commemorative contains 0.2418 oz gold and costs US$404.75 while the US gold $10 commem contains just twice as much gold, 0.4838 oz, and costs US$809.50.

Premium over gold content value for these is a tiny 3.5%.

I will sell lots of Five (5) each $5 gold commems ($404.75 each) for $2,023.75 + $25 shipping = $2,048.75 per lot. A $10 gold counts as two $5 golds, so you can order one $10 and three $5s and that equals five $5s.

I reserve the right to mix the orders as suits me, but have mostly $5s, so you'll most likely get those.

Limit ten (10) lots per customer.

Special Conditions:

First come, first served, and no re-orders at these prices. I will write orders based on the time I receive your e-mail.

We will not take orders for less than the minimums shown above.

All sales on a strict "no-nag" basis. We will ship as soon as your check clears, but we allow Two weeks (14 days) for your check to clear. Calls looking for your order two days after we receive your check will be politely and patiently rebuffed. If you want faster shipping, please send a wire.

Spot gold basis for all prices above is $1,616.10 ORDERING INSTRUCTIONS:

1. You may order by e-mail only to . No phone orders, please.

Your email must include your complete name, address, and phone number. We cannot ship to you without your address. Sorry, we cannot ship outside the United States or to Tennessee.

Repeat, you must include your complete name, address, and phone number. Our clairvoyant quit without warning last week and we can no longer read your mind.

2. Orders are on a first-come, first-served basis until supply is exhausted.

3. "First come, first-served" means that we will enter the orders in the order that we receive them by e-mail.

4. If your order is filled, we will e-mail you a confirmation. If you do not receive a confirmation, your order was not filled.

5. You will need to send payment by personal check or bank wire (either one is fine) within 48 hours. It just needs to be in the mail, not in our hands, in 48 hours.

6. We allow fourteen (14) days for personal checks to clear before we ship. If your hurry is greater than that, you can send a bank wire. Once we ship, the post office takes four to fourteen days to get the registered mail package to you. All in all, you'll see your order in about one month if you send a check.

Y'all enjoy your weekend!
WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Today the US dollar index cashed that check it wrote yesterday. Rose 78.2 basis points (1.01%, giant move) to $80.911, nearly reaching yesterday's 81.10 target. High struck 81.016. Once the buck worms its way past that 81.00 turnstile, it will run fast for 81.50.

What the dollar won, the euro lost. It fell 1.22% to close at 1.2787, face still firmly set on 1.2000 or less.

How can I be so sure? Yesterday the euro gapped down, then today gapped down again, closing way below the last low. Down, down, down.

Somebody slapped the yen today, knocking it below the lower channel boundary established August thru October. Fell 0.51% to 129.69c/Y100 (Y77.10/$1). Hope of higher yen died today.

Stocks were a mess today. Nasdaq and Nasdaq-100 rose slightly, as did the S&P500, but the Dow and other sank, evidencing great confusion and faltering confidence. Today's Dow chart pictures precisely running out of gas (see chart at www.nasdaq.com) and sputtering to a halt. Dow fell 2.72 (0.02%) to 12,415.70, while the S&P500 rose 0.29% (3.76) to 1,281.06.

Today the Dow sank as low as 12,283, crossing the perilous and deadly 12,300 line. Last three days (as well as today's chart) look like and empty jet fuel tank at 20,000 feet. Dow must breach 12,500 or drop into free fall.

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Dollar index made a rounding bottom (or upside-down head and shoulders) over the last three trading days. Unless it drops below 80, that pattern will hold and send the dollar higher, to 81.1 at least. Close below 80 negates that outlook.

Euro gapped down today, utterly gainsaying yesterday's pin prick across the downtrend line. Closed down 0.87% at 1.2940. Looking for 1.2000.

Yen sidestepped today, flat, but holding on to the break above the trend line. Ended at 130.37c/Y100 (Y76.70/$1). Itching to move higher.

Tired out by yesterday's gains, stocks took a rest today. Dow rose 0.17% (21.04 points) to 12,418.42. S&P500 rose 0.2% (0.24%) to 1,277.30.

I don't get it. Economy's future remains burdened by massive bad debts and malinvestment from the last boom cycle -- shucks, from the booms since 1913. Apparently at midnight a.m., 1 January 2012, some Great Wheel turned that will fix everything. At least, that's how the stock market is acting, but I reckon somebody forgot to tell me about the Great Wheel's turning.

Add to that what seems to be the Federal Reserve's resolve to keep on inflating, which is the only cure they know and the one cure that won't help. Oh, and the Bernancubus and Co. have announced that they're going to be more transparent and announce what course they expect interest rates to follow, which gives them a chance at making even more mistakes in uncharted waters. Whoops -- they made that decision to be more open at last month's meeting, but kept it a secret until today. The Three Stooges weren't this ridiculous. Curly, Larry, and Moe are in charge of national monetary policy!

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Well, if you don't like the markets, stick around. They're bound to change, and sometimes, like today, with a bang. Trouble is, sometimes we're hard of hearing.

Dow today pierced 12,300, rising 179.82 (1.47%) to 12,397.38. I reckon if you twist a rope, you hang by that rope, so I will hang. That close suggests that stocks will reach 12,600 before they stop. Sorry, I don't reckon they can reach higher than that, unless the Bernancubus and Obamaramus can walk on water.

S&P 500 rose 1.55% (19.46 points) to 1,277.06.

Not even the White House Dimwit-in-Chief trying to pick a war with Iran could keep those stocks down today, but something gave the US dollar index heartburn. It fell 43.4 basis points (0.56%) to 79.62, and is right on its uptrend line. If 76.50 fails to hold, dollar will land at 78.

Scabby euro rose 0.7% to 1.3052, rising up to the downtrend line. 20 DMA stands above at 1.3121.

Japanese yen made good it's breakout from last week, closing above overhead resistance (the lower boundary of the trading channel established in August, September, and October). Rise could take the yen to 132, if the Japanese Nice Government Men don't draw out their Samurai swords of manipulation first. Closed 130.47c/Y100 (Y76.65/$1).

The law is written on our people's hearts -- I see that every day in the way they do business. But if you go to court to seek justice and the rule of law, well, like Dante warned those descending into hell, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!"

Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought.

- Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger
The-MoneyChanger.com

© 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned:

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.

One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose.

Dow in Gold Ounces : 7.803
Dow in Gold Ounces 23-Dec : 7.661
Change Day: 0.14 or 1.8%
Change Year: -0.341 or -4.4%

Dow in Silver Ounces : 438.30
Dow in Silver Ounces 23-Dec : 423.26
Change Day: 15.04 or 3.6%
Change Year: 63.88 or 14.6%

Dow Industrial : 12,217.56
Dow Industrial 23-Dec : 12,294.00
Change Day: -76.44 or -0.6%
Change Year: 644.14 or 5.3%

S&P 500 : 1,257.60
S&P 500 23-Dec : 1,265.33
Change Day: -7.73 or -0.6%
Change Year: 0.08 or 0.0%

US Dollar Index : 80.205
US Dollar Index 23-Dec : 79.999
Change Day: 0.206 or 0.3%
Change Year: 1.032 or 1.3%

Silver Price Performance Percentage Annual Change for the Past 10 Years

*These tables are both available on the front page of goldprice.org and update daily

The GOLD PRICE and SILVER PRICE staged a rally today all out of proportion to the US dollar's meager drop. Gold gained $25.90 to close Comex at $1,565.80 while silver added 60.1c to close 2787.5c.

Sure, maybe that jump arose out of folks closing out short position before the long weekend, but maybe not. Remember that silver closed higher yesterday while the GOLD PRICE fell. It's way to early to say definitively, but we may have seen gold's bottom at $1,522 (intraday) yesterday. Silver might continue to struggle.

For the new year, silver and gold may move sideways in frustration until mid-February, or at worst, late May. I'm basing this on their behaviour when they previously crossed below their 300 and 200 DMAs in correction.

This much I am sure of. Unless the European bank solvency crisis breaks out into a delirium and frenzy (daily a possibility), I was wrong to wax so bearish on metals at mid-December. We will NOT see huge drops in silver and gold unless a financial panic breaks out in Europe. But panic or not, silver and gold will be higher this time next year than they are now, because THEIR BULL MARKET IS NOT OVER. Look at 10 year charts of silver or gold to prove it to yourself. And neither in price nor in time have they fulfilled their bull market promise yet.

What would signal trouble? SILVER PRICE breaking below 2600c and gold below $1,500. Only way I know to deal with this is to buy and keep on buying as they step down, or if they step down.