Physical Gold Demand Exceeds Current Availability - Perth Mint

My first four stories today are all courtesy of Roy Stephens. The first one is from Melbourne, Australia...and posted over at smartcompany.com.au. The headline reads "44% jump in property listings points to price falls in 2011: Expert". Louis Christopher, Managing Director of SQM Research, said that "the huge number of listings means prices are now hanging by a thread and a market downturn is imminent." As a 27-year veteran in the residential real estate market myself, I can tell you with absolute certainty that this is, in fact, 100% correct. A big build-up in listings after a long real estate boom is always the precursor to a housing crash. Look out below! The link is here.

The next offering from Roy is this piece that was posted over at the france24.com website late yesterday. The headline reads "Japan to buy euro zone bonds, but markets expect little impact". I always have to give my head a shake when I see one country's worthless paper being exchanged for another country's worthless paper. This is madness...and you can read all about it, here.

The next story is posted over at spiegel.de yesterday...and is headlined "Survey of German Bankers: At Least One Euro-Zone Country Could Go Bankrupt". Billions in loans have succeeded in pulling Greece and Ireland back from the brink of bankruptcy. But many bankers are still expecting the worst. A new Ernst & Young survey reports that almost half of German banking executives think at least one euro-zone country will go belly up. Only one? Before this is all over, I expect the Eurozone to be a smouldering ruin. The link to the story is here.

Here's Roy's last offering of the day. It's a piece that was posted over at The Telegraph late last night. It's a rather long Ambrose Evans-Pritchard article that's headlined "The dam breaks in Portugal". This is E-P with the brass knuckles on. Today is the day that Portugal has a big bond issue. If it goes poorly, or not at all, then they will immediately fall into the arms of the IMF. This is another of the PIIGS down the drain. Will Spain be next? And after that...? This is well worth the read...and the link is here.

Here's a story from reader Phil Barlett that was posted in yesterday morning's edition of The New York Times. In a story filed from London, comes this statement..."There was a period of remorse for banks but I think this period is over,” Mr. Diamond told a parliamentary committee.“The question for us is how do we put some of the blame game behind us...no more apologies." Why is the 4th movement [March to the Gallows] of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique running through my head at the moment? The headline reads "It’s Time to Stop Criticizing Bankers, Barclays Chief Says"...and the link is here.

The rest of my stories today are all precious metals related. The first is a GATA release from yesterday. Chris Powell's headline pretty much says it all..."Physical market repels precious metals price suppression, Davies tells King World News". I feel that it's worth your time...and the link is here.

To back up what Ben Davies said in that King World News story above...is this piece posted over at Dow Jones Commodities News and filed from Singapore yesterday. The headline reads "Physical Gold Demand Exceeds Current Availability - Perth Mint". "Demand for gold bullion has been unrelenting since gold's price dropped below $1,400 an ounce. We cannot meet all the enquiries that we are getting," said Nigel Moffatt, Treasurer of the Perth Mint, one of the world's largest gold refiners and distributors. Demand for our coins and medallions is strong, but the biggest demand is coming from banks and traders looking for kilo bars. This is a must read story...and I thank reader 'David in California' for passing it along. Since there's no direct link to the story itself...the link to the GATA release is here.

Here's a story from yesterday's edition of The Australian from Sydney...and it warms the cockles of my heart no end. The headline reads "Reserve Bank's gold sale cost us $5bn". The first sentence reads "The Reserve Bank [of Australia] sold most of the nation's gold reserves more than a decade ago because the board believed its price would remain flat." Like Prime Minister Gordon Brown of England [and their gold] before him, this was not the real reason for the sale at all. Back in those days, there had been a gold short squeeze of biblical proportions...and many world government [Britain's included] had to make up some b.s. story about why they were selling their gold. The real reason they were doing it was to bail out the big bullion banks caught short. This story is part of that. So keep that in mind as you read this. It's a must read as well...and the link is here.

Here's another story filed from Singapore yesterday. It's a Reuters piece posted over at yahoo.com in the Philippines...and the headline reads "China's first gold fund raises target $500 million". China's Lion Fund Management, which last month launched the first gold fund in the world's biggest producer of the metal, has met its goal of raising $500 million for the fund, the company said in a statement. All this money will be invested in gold-backed exchange-traded funds on the global market. Look out for this fund. This is just the thin edge of the wedge...and I expect this fund to grow exponentially as time passes. The story is worth your time...and the link is here.

Eric King sent me his latest Richard Russell blog...and this one's entitled "Gold is the Ultimate Survival Mechanism". When the 'R' man is talking...we should all be listening...and the link is here.

Lastly today is this 40-minute interview with your humble scribe that I did with Dr. Dave Janda. Dave is an orthopedic surgeon based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He's an author...and talk radio host on WAAM Talk 1600. The good doctor asked me if I would do a show with him...and we did it live on Sunday afternoon. It went well enough that he asked me back for another performance on Sunday, February 6th at 4:15 p.m. Eastern time. Anyway, here's the mp3 file for Sunday's interview. It's a big file...and takes a while to download...and the link is here.