Gold Passes $800

Gold last topped $800 an ounce in 1980, when prices reached as high as $875 an ounce in January. Adjusted for inflation, an $800 ounce of gold in 1980 would be worth more than $2,000 today.

Pick your poison. Place your eggs in a narrow basket or bet against stocks that are just plain powerful. Either way, risk is elevated and picking the right stocks is critical. Forget the dart board and keep a very close eye on the Nasdaq-100. There is your rainmaker. MICHAEL KAHN Barron's

Gold Stocks Pull Back--Broad Market Stalls

MER: Merrill Lynch has supplanted GM as the ultimate broad market leading indicator and MER is currently flashing yet another bearish intermediate-term signal.


IBD shows 6 distribution days for S&P 500, 5 for Nasdaq, 4 for Dow, NYSE composite in last few weeks. I look for possible surprise from the Fed interest rate announcement.

Gold/XAU Ratio 4.33

"An increasingly recessionary looking U.S. economy will likely require 1% real short rates and 3.5% Fed Funds in order to stabilize a potential growth contraction in lending not witnessed since the early 1970s or, to be honest, Roosevelt’s depressionary 1930s. We can only hope that Bernanke, Paulson, and their cohorts recognize the danger and that the music keeps playing with the lights still turned on." Bill Gross PIMCO Funds

Will the dollar rally short term?

“When (not “if”) the greenback catches the inevitable phoenix bid against all the other fiat currency lepers, short term that just might put considerable downside pressure on precious metals. It’s pretty difficult to find a dollar bull these days and the ones who do surface in the television media seem to be apologetic, meek and uncertain. And that scares pure contrarians. It’s often said on Wall Street when just about everyone is on the same side of the boat the boat is close to rolling over. Right now just about anyone who writes or talks about the dollar says it’s going lower, but the reasoning each of the pundits and experts uses to back up those assessments carries with it the fatal flaw that the forex markets are assumed to be rational, fair and open. Are they? Really?" http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=37198