Mark O'Byrne's Blog

Gold fell 28% in 2013, while silver recorded a 36% decline. It was gold’s first annual drop since 2000 and gold and silver’s worst performance since 1981 and 1984 respectively.

Gold was trading near four month lows today after its biggest drop in seven weeks yesterday. Another bout of peculiar concentrated selling led to Comex halting trading in December gold futures twice yesterday, the fourth time in less than 3 months.

Ron Paul spoke with Bloomberg television and said that we are in a currency war and we have been for decades. He noted that governments have always competed against each other’s currencies even under Bretton Woods.

Gold is little changed today in pound, euro and dollar terms after the Bank of England and the ECB kept interest rates at record low levels. Ultra loose monetary policies continue.

Gold imports into mainland China from Hong Kong almost doubled to new high in 2012 as Chinese people continue to play catch up in terms of gold ownership. The Chinese were forbidden from owning gold for over 50 years.

The World Gold Council has been exploring ways that Eurozone member states could use their gold reserves to help bring down the cost of borrowing.

In response to a question from Yale University’s Robert Shiller querying the recommendation to hold gold, Faber said: “I’m prepared to make a bet, you keep your U.S. dollars and I’ll keep my gold, we’ll see which one goes to zero first.”

Germany’s central bank will repatriate part of its $200 billion gold reserves stored in vaults in the Federal Reserve in New York and the Banque de France in Paris. It is believed that the Bundesbank may have repatriated the gold in order to be prepared for a systemic crisis and currency crises.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip visited the Bank of England’s gold vault and wonders like most people how the things got so bad.

The U.S. Senate voted 94-0 on Nov. 30 to approve new sanctions against Iran, closing gaps from previous measures, including trade in precious metals. Obama, who opposes the move on the grounds it may undercut existing efforts to rein in the nation’s nuclear ambitions, signed an executive order in July restricting gold payments to Iranian state institutions.