gold

The case against gold

Gold is trading like it's lighter than air, but now is not the time to get carried away and load up on the stuff.

Gold futures for December delivery closed at their second straight record Tuesday, hitting $1,308. The gold price has risen more than 30% over the past year, with a third of that in just the past two months -- and to listen to the ever-expanding ranks of gold MORE

The burlap bubble

It's not exactly a mystery why gold is on fire. But what's with burlap?

Along with cotton, rubber and 10 other glamour-challenged commodities, burlap is part of the CRB raw industrials subindex. The index doesn't include gold and shares little in common with the precious metal – except that both just hit new highs.

Gold, as we hear about 1,298 times a day lately, is a bet on the global economic crisis MORE

Is gold overvalued?

Gold is starting to bug some people.

More investors are viewing the long-running gold rally as overdone, according to a survey of fund managers released Tuesday by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

A net 19% of global fund managers said gold is overvalued in the firm's latest survey, conducted last week. That's up from 12% last month.

Their worries certainly haven't held down the price of gold, which hit another intraday trading record MORE

Silver shines in gold's shadow

Is silver about to streak higher?

Silver's price has risen 8% in the past month, recently topping $20 an ounce for the first time since early 2008. The rally comes at a time when gold has been hitting new highs, on the latest round of fears that crisis-crazed central bankers will destroy the value of paper money.

Silver remains far from its own peak, set 30 years ago at a time of MORE

Gold glitters on debt jitters

Questions about the health of Europe's banks helped send the price of gold near record levels Tuesday.

Gold rose $7 an ounce to $1,258, after a series of reports raised questions about banks' capital levels and their exposure to bonds issued by stressed nations such as Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain.

Tuesday's rally takes the gold price up almost $100 an ounce from its midsummer low and just a few dollars from MORE

Central banks squash goldbugs

Central banks are trading their gold for cash. What do they know that we don't?

By Heidi N. Moore, contributor

We've all seen those commercials where shouting announcers urge consumers to trade in their old gold for cash. Who knew that central banks would be the ones who took them up on it?

Well, sort of. The Bank of International Settlements has bought 349 metric tons of gold from governments, which raised $14 MORE

Commodities: Fun while they lasted

A trader who drunkenly knocked the oil market for a loop has been banned.  He was tanked - what's everyone else's excuse?

By Heidi N. Moore, contributor

If the markets were a TV sitcom -- and really, they're heading that way -- the episode in which a drunk trader mistakenly bought millions of barrels of oil and raised the price of gas would certainly be the moment at which the whole MORE

Russian 'spies,' goldbugs and the struggling dollar

as the alleged Russian spying, in part, a commodities or currency play?

When federal officials arrested 11 alleged Russian spies yesterday, it seemed natural that the accused agents would be interested in the CIA leadership, the Obama administration and Afghanistan. But who knew that they were gold bugs?

James G. Rickards, senior director for market intelligence at Omnis, pointed us to the fact that the FBI complaint mentions that the global gold market was one of the key sources of interest of the Russian Federation and its intelligence agency, SVR.

"On a number of occasions, the SVR specifically indicated that information collected and conveyed by the New Jersey conspirators was especially valuable. Thus, for example, during the summer and fall of 2009, Cynthia Murphy, the defendant, using contacts she had met in New York, conveyed a number of reports to [Moscow] Center about prospects for the global gold market."

According to the complaint, the SVR responded in November 2009 that the information on the gold market was very useful and had been forwarded to Russia's Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economic Development.

If Russia wanted information on the gold market, it would hardly be alone. In 2009, of course, gold jumped 24% in value, closing the year at $1,095 an ounce - a price that seems quaint now that gold is over $1249 an ounce, but was still the biggest story in the financial markets of 2009.

One man vs. the gold bubble

Jeremy Grantham is so tired of hearing about gold that he decided to kill the rally -- by buying some.

What's the surest way to pop a bubble? By buying the inflating asset yourself, of course, in a move that every investor dreads is certain to mark the top.

Funnily enough, that's just how value investor Jeremy Grantham describes his approach to the latest run-up in gold, perhaps minus the dread.

Grantham, a MORE

John Paulson still loves BofA

John Paulson still likes the banks, particularly Bank of America.

Paulson, the hedge fund manager who came to fame with a timely bet against the housing bubble, has lately been playing a recovery in bank stocks. Particularly noteworthy was a big purchase last year of Bank of America (BAC) stock.

A filing Monday afternoon shows Paulson increased that bet in the first quarter by acquiring an additional 16 million shares of the MORE