Too bad not every hedge fund can be long Apple (even if as Goldman points out, they sure are trying - "One out of five hedge funds has AAPL among its ten largest long positions" - a truly stunning observation and one which means that if Apple, which is priced to absolute perfection, has even one hiccup, we would see an absolutely epic bloodbath in the market).

Because if 2011 was a horrible year for hedge funds which closed the year well below, or -10%, their respective benchmark - the S&P (unchanged for the year), the last thing hedge fund LPs can afford is another year in which they pay 2 and 20 to generate a return lower than the S&P. Yet to their horror, this is precisely what is happening.

The story that was posted over at the zerohedge.com website yesterday was brought to my attention by readers U.D...and the link is here.

Panic is in the air as gasoline prices move above $4.00 per gallon. Politicians and pundits are rounding up the usual suspects, looking for someone or something to blame for this latest outrage to middle class family budgets. In a rare display of bipartisanship, President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner are both wringing their hands over the prospect of seeing their newly extended Social Security tax cut gobbled up by rising gasoline costs.

Unfortunately, the talking heads that are trying to explain the reasons for high oil prices are missing one tiny detail. Oil prices aren’t high right now. In fact, they are unusually low. Gasoline prices would have to rise by another $0.65 to $0.75 per gallon from where they are now just to be “normal”. And, because gasoline prices are low right now, it is very likely that they are going to go up more—perhaps a lot more.

At this point, we can be certain that, unless gold prices come down, gasoline prices are going to go up—by a lot. And, because the dollar is currently a floating, undefined, fiat currency, there is no inherent limit to how far the price of gold in dollars can rise, and therefore no ultimate ceiling on gasoline prices.

Ah, the voice of sanity and reason! This 2-page article showed up over at the forbes.com website on Wednesday...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sharing it with us. The link is here.

This months Market at a Glance commentary from Eric Sprott and David Baker over at Sprott Asset Management was posted on their website late yesterday.

It's always a must read...and February's offering certainly falls into that category as well. The first paragraph reads as follows...

"2012 is proving to be the ‘Year of the Central Bank’. It is an exciting celebration of all the wonderful maneuvers central banks can employ to keep the system from falling apart. Western central banks have gone into complete overdrive since last November, convening, colluding and printing their way out of the mess that is the Eurozone. The scale and frequency of their maneuvering seems to increase with every passing week, and speaks to the desperate fragility that continues to define much of the financial system today."

As I said, this is a must read. It's posted over at the sprott.com website...and the link is here.

European creditor countries are demanding 38 specific changes in Greek tax, spending, and wage policies by the end of this month and have laid out extra reforms that amount to micromanaging the country's government for two years, according to documents obtained by the Financial Times.

The reforms, spelt out in three memoranda of a combined 90 pages, are the price that Greece has agreed to pay to obtain a E130 billion second bail-out and avoid a sovereign default that the government feared would throw Greek society into turmoil.

They range from the sweeping -- overhauling judicial procedures, centralising health insurance, completing an accurate land registry -- to the mundane -- buying a new computer system for tax collectors, changing the way drugs are prescribed, and setting minimum crude oil stocks.

This story was printed in the Financial Times of London yesterday...and is posted in the clear in this GATA release. It's well worth reading...and the link is here.

Even as the European Union signed off Tuesday on a sweeping new arrangement to help avert a Greek default and stabilize the euro, many people here on the streets saw no end to their country’s woes.

“They don’t want to kill us but keep us down on our knees so we can keep paying them indefinitely,” said Eva Kyriadou, 55, as she stood in a square in downtown Athens where the smell of tear gas and the smashed facades from last week’s violent riots still lingered.

Indeed, the deal was reached amid a growing air of stalemate and concern. Greece’s foreign lenders expressed doubts that the new austerity measures the Greek Parliament passed last week — including a 22 percent cut to the private-sector benchmark minimum wage — would actually be carried out, at least before early national elections as soon as April.

This story appeared in The New York Times on Tuesday...and is Roy Stephens first offering of the day. The link is here.

Germany's ruling parties are to introduce a resolution in parliament blocking any further boost to the EU’s bail-out machinery, vastly complicating Greece’s rescue package and risking a major clash with the International Monetary Fund.

“European solidarity is not an end in itself and should not be a one-way street. Germany’s engagement has reached it limits,” said the text, drafted by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and Free Democrat (FDP) allies.

“Germany itself faces strict austerity to comply with the national debt brake,” said the declaration, which will go to the Bundestag next week. Lawmakers said there is no scope to boost the EU’s “firewall” to €750bn, either by increasing the new European Stability Mechanism (ESM) or by running it together with the old bail-out fund (EFSF).

This Ambrose Evans-Pritchard offering showed up very late last night in The Telegraph. I thank Roy Stephens for sending it...and it's well worth skimming. The link is here.

Here in Argentina, when we watch the terrible things that are happening today in Greece, we can only exclaim, “Hey!! That’s exactly what happened in Argentina in 2001 and 2002…!”

­A decade ago, Argentina too went through a systemic Sovereign Public Debt collapse resulting in social turmoil, worker hardship, rioting and street fights with the police.

Some months before Argentina exploded, then-President Fernando de la Rúa – forced to resign at the height of the 2001 crisis – had called back as finance minister the notorious pro-banker, Trilateral Commission member and Rockefeller/Soros/Rhodes protégée Domingo Cavallo.

Cavallo was the gruesome architect of Argentina’s political and economic capitulation to the US and UK when he was President Carlos Menem’s foreign minister and economy minister in the ’90s.

This absolute must read article showed up on the Russia Today website yesterday evening...and is Roy Stephens third offering in a row. The link is here.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency had been hoping to be allowed access to a suspicious facility southeast of Tehran, but the visit was pronounced a failure. German editorialists nevertheless argue that, despite Iranian obstinancy, negotiations remain the best option available.

This story was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and is courtesy of Roy Stephens once again. The link is here.

With the "Friends of Syria" (FOS) grouping sponsored by the Western powers and their Arab allies scheduled to hold its first meeting in Tunis on Friday, Russian diplomacy has shifted gear into a proactive mode. The Kremlin was a beehive of diplomatic activity on Wednesday.

The venue of the birthplace of the "Arab Spring" for the FOS to gather might, prima facie, give an impression that the name of the game is high-flown rhetoric and nothing more.

But that is not how Moscow views the developing paradigm. It estimates that Tunis with its Mediterranean climate and languid look has been carefully chosen as a deceptive location for the West to launch a concerted assault on the citadel of President Bashar al-Assad and to legitimize it in the world opinion. Moscow senses that the final assault on Syria by the United States may not far off, although the US propaganda makes it out to be that the Barack Obama administration is on the horns of a dilemma, torn apart by an existential angst.

This is a must read for students of the new "Great Game". The essay was posted over at the Asia Times this morning...and is Roy Stephens final offering of the day. The link is here.

Santa Monica, Calif., precious metals dealer Goldline International Inc., one of the nation's largest gold retailers, has resolved a criminal prosecution by agreeing to refund as much as $4.5 million to former customers.

Goldline agreed to an injunction that requires the company to "change its unfair sales practices" and to disclose price markups in recorded telephone conversations with customers, said Adam Radinsky, head of the Santa Monica city attorney's consumer protection unit.

The Santa Monica city attorney in November filed a 19-count criminal complaint against Goldline, accusing the company of running a "bait and switch" operation in which customers seeking to invest in gold bullion were instead sold gold coins that were marked up more than 50 percent. Six current and former employees were also charged.

This L.A. Times story was posted over at the syracuse.com website yesterday...and I thank West Virginia reader Elliot Simon for bringing it to our attention. The link to this must read story is here.

Ascension Parish sheriff's officials reported that State Police Crime Laboratory experts were going over a damaged safe looking for evidence, but otherwise revealed no new information Wednesday about the Gonzales robbery-killings that left two dead and one critically injured.

Deputies found three people Saturday with their throats slashed in a residence at 39122 Babin Road, according to initial reports.

The apparent motive, Bacala said, was a safe containing a collection of gold coins valued at an estimated $500,000, which was taken from the home. None of the other valuables in the house were missing, he said.

Livingston is just south of Baton Rouge...and I thank reader 'Tom in Baton Rouge' for sending it along. It was posted over at theadvocate.com website yesterday...and the link is here.

It has been almost a year since a federal court jury in North Carolina convicted Liberty Dollar founder Bernard von Not Haus of what seems to be considered a sort of counterfeiting for issuing his own gold and silver coins and advocating their use as currency. The U.S. attorney prosecuting von Not Haus called him a "terrorist." Hyperbolic as that was, federal authorities lately are hurling that term at anyone who contemplates gold's use as currency.

GATA considered von Not Haus' conviction mistaken as a matter of law and on May 31 last year filed a brief with the court seeking reconsideration.

For whatever reason, the judge, Richard L. Voorhees, has not yet scheduled sentencing for von Not Haus, which may indicate that the judge is seriously considering the issues GATA sought to raise.

The link to this must read GATA release is here.

This short blog was posted over at the King World News website late last night. It's certainly worth the read...and the link is here.

Gold soon will be moving as much as $400 in a day and will become untradeable by ordinary investors, gold trader and mining entrepreneur Jim Sinclair told King World News yesterday. Sinclair adds that gold will become "the last great bubble" but not break because gold will be incorporated into a new commodity-based monetary system.

I thank Chris Powell for wordsmithing the above introduction...and the link to the KWN blog is here.

Gold closed at a new high for the year Wednesday, as measured by the CME April gold contract — up $12.80 at $1,771.30. By the stock-market close, the metal was over $8 higher, up 1.1% on the day.

The NYSE Arca Gold BUGS Index closed up 1.7% at 545.78, just below Feb. 2’s 551.24 high but, perhaps more importantly, breaking the downtrend involving that high.

Gold on the basis of the CME close has risen nearly 15% since the Dec. 29 low, and more than 3% since Friday.

This short marketwatch.com article was posted on their website yesterday morning. It's well worth the read...and I thank reader Elliot Simon for sending it along. The link is here.

Sprott Asset Management's John Embry told King World News yesterday that gold's rise this month would have been greater except for the continuing efforts to suppress it. He is confident that more money printing is inevitable, and thus higher prices for gold, but he doesn't think the public will start paying attention until gold makes another record high.

An excerpt from the interview is posted at the KWN Internet site, here...and it's definitely worth reading.