Solid consensus still on the yellow metal and the buck

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to speak at an excellent conference in Vancouver, British Columbia—The World Outlook Conference. It was a great venue and there were many nice people who attended. Thank you to the excellent team at MoneyTalks.net for inviting Black Swan and putting on yet another great conference.

Overall it was a valuable weekend. Besides having an opportunity to meet with some Black Swan Members and share our views, the presentations by the experts (which were very good for the most part) validated my view that dollar perma bears are alive and well and still loving gold.

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US Dollar Index Failing? Follow-through would be nice ...

The week was mostly shaped by China news – go figure!

As an encore to the week prior when they increased the interest rate on one-year bills and upped the required reserve ratio on banks, they ratcheted up the rate on one-year bills again. Then top officials talked about getting tougher and stopped rampant speculation before it might become a problem. Then they reported fourth-quarter GDP numbers that blew expectations out of the water.

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Too Much Fun for Just One Government

The Heritage Foundation convened again and published their most recent annual report that ranks the economic freedom of 183 countries around the globe. As mentioned in the Key News section above, Hong Kong claimed the top spot ... followed by Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Switzerland.

Canada jumped into the seven hole as the United States fell a notch lower to the eight spot. The reason for the US downgrade:

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Market Comments

Let’s look at what the euro has done against the US dollar compared to what the Chinese currency has done since the last dollar bear market began. Below is a percent change chart with the starting date June 1, 2002. As you can see, the euro (purple) has gained 54% since that time; while the juggernaut of global growth from China—the yuan—has moved about 0% since that time. Thus, the euro has appreciated about 54% against the Chinese currency too.

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Somebody give the Chinese a US talk show slot

With all the controversy surrounding Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and mama bird NBC ... perhaps China would like to slip in and host a show, regardless of whether they get pushed back by half an hour.

It seems Chinese officials like to talk. Ok, maybe they’ve earned it; China has quickly become the make-or-brake(-or-break) for the global economy. So why not soak up the spotlight while you’ve got it, right?

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