A key warning signal of global financial stress has shot above the extreme levels seen at the height of the Lehman crisis in 2008.

Data from the St Louis Fed shows that reserve funds from "official foreign accounts" have doubled since the start of the year, with a dramatic surge since the end of July when the eurozone debt crisis spread to Italy and Spain.

"This shows a pervasive loss of confidence in the European banking system," said Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors. "Central banks are worried about the security of their deposits so they are placing the money with the Fed."

The story is worth the read...and the graph alone makes it worth the trip. This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering was posted late last night over at The Telegraph...and I thank reader David Ball for sending it along. The link is here.

The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency suits, which are expected to be filed in the coming days in federal court, are aimed at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among others, according to three individuals briefed on the matter.

This story was posted in The New York Time yesterday...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sharing it with us...and the link is here.

Securities regulators have taken the unprecedented step of asking high-frequency trading firms to hand over the details of their trading strategies, and in some cases, their secret computer codes.

The requests for proprietary code and algorithm parameters by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a Wall Street brokerage regulator, are part of investigations into suspicious market activity, said Tom Gira, executive vice president of FINRA's market regulation unit.

"It's not a fishing expedition or educational exercise. It's because there's something that's troubling us in the marketplace," he said in an interview.

This Reuters piece was imbedded in a posting over at zerohedge.com yesterday. I thank reader 'David in California' for bringing this very important story to our attention. It's an absolute must read...and the link is here.

Here's a story that was posted over at wealthwire.com yesterday...and is courtesy of Australian reader Wesley Legrand.

This is a 14-minute Bloomberg TV interview...and the link is here.

This is a cnbc.com story/interview from yesterday. Steve Liesman looks at the sagging U.S. dollar and putting the nation back on the gold standard, with James Grant, of Grant's Interest Rate Observer. The 11:25 minute 'Squawk Box' interview is very much worth your time...and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for sharing it with us. The link is here.

Here's a 4-minute audio interview with Jim Rogers over at Financial Survival Radio. It's another posting over at wealthwire.com...and I thank Australian reader Wesley Legrand once again for sending it along. The link is here.

Here's a GATA release from yesterday. Imbedded in it is Doug Hornig's report on the GLD ETF that was posted in Casey's Daily Dispatch on Wednesday. The report is headlined "Tracking Gold" and follows a preface by Casey Research Senior Analyst Vedran Vuk. This is a must read commentary...and the link is here.

Here's a fascinating piece that turned up in yesterday's Financial Times out of London.

The SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) may have sought to defuse conspiracy theorists by opening up its massive London gold vault to CNBC, but instead it opened up a new line of inquiry.

Once inside, CNBC's Bob Pisani held up a random gold bar, its refiner's stamp clearly legible. As Zero Hedge points out in a blog post today -- the serial number on that bar, ZJ6752, does not appear on GLD's most recent bar list, dated August 31.

The FT story is posted in the clear in this GATA release, which is another must read...and the link is here.

Seeing all these newly-minted stories about the GLD ETF in the media during the last couple of days was too much for GATA's secretary treasurer, Chris Powell. In his day job, he is senior editor at the Journal Enquirer out of Manchester, Connecticut.

Chris has a few things to add to the Casey Research commentary, the Financial Times story...and the piece that appeared over at zerohedge.com. He takes no prisoners in this must read GATA release...and the link is here.

Skyrocketing gold prices have jewelers and cash-strapped couples clamoring for wedding bands made of less expensive metals like tungsten, cobalt and even stainless steel.

Over the past three months, tungsten, a steel-gray hard metal, has become an increasingly popular choice over gold with wedding band shoppers at Blue Nile, said John Baird, public relations director with the online jewelry seller.

"The response to our recent men's tungsten collection was immediate," said Baird, adding that the company subsequently debuted a men's Titanium wedding band collection in July.

I borrowed this money.cnn.com story from a GATA release yesterday...and the link is here.

Bolivia's leftist government plans to raise mining royalties to take advantage of high global metals prices, Deputy Mining Minister Hector Cordova told Reuters in an interview late on Wednesday.

Cordova said a mining reform bill, which is in the final stages of analysis, would seek to consolidate state control over the industry. Foreign companies with operations in Bolivia include Japan's Sumitomo Corp, U.S.-based Coeur d'Alene, global commodities trader Glencore and Canada's Pan American Silver.

This Reuters story was posted yesterday out of London. It's only two paragraphs long...and you just read them, but the link is here anyway...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sending it along.

Yesterday's edition of Casey's Daily Dispatch has a very exciting article that was written by BIG GOLD editor Jeff Clark.

With gold a stone's throw away from $2,000 and already up 30% on the year, the objective investor might begin wondering how much higher both it and silver can climb. After all, gold is nearing its inflation-adjusted 1980 high - and that peak was a spike that lasted only one day.

So, how much return can we realistically expect in each metal at this point? And is one a better buy than the other? There are dozens of ways to calculate price projections, but I'm going to use data based strictly on past price behavior from the 1970s bull market.

You have to scroll down a bit to get to it, but it's definitely worth the trip...and the link is here.

This next story is right up there with the GLD ETFs gold...and all other central bank gold.

GATA's Chris Powell has another field day with this story, which is also a must read...and the link is here.

GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk, whose stunning predictions of gold and silver rallies this summer have come true with a vengeance, told King World News yesterday that he expects gold over $2,000 and silver over $50 by the end of October...if not by the end of September.

I stole the introductory paragraph from Chris Powell...and the link to the KWN blog is here.

Thursday's editorial in the New York Sun celebrates the rapidly-growing consideration of returning the United States to the use of gold as currency, an idea acknowledged at length this week by the cable news network CNBC.

This is today's last story...and it certainly falls into the must read category as well. The link is here.