Everyone seems to be focused on Gold recently while ignoring the real upside potential in Silver… by Chris Vermeulen of The Technical Traders Everyone seems to be focused on Gold […]
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An average of 277 people leave New York every single day… by Josh Sigurdson and John Sneisen of World Alternative Media Josh Sigurdson talks with author and economic analyst John […]
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Silver’s open interest is rising and within 10,000 contracts of its record high… submitted by J. Johnson Great and Wonderful Monday Morning Folks, Gold is trading at $1,554.40, down […]
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The high tensions caused by Washington between the US and Iran are to blame for the Ukrainian airliner that was shot down… by Paul Craig Roberts via PaulCraigRoberts.org The high […]
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The U.S. and Canada share a rich history of collaboration and partnership. Today the two countries enjoy one of the best trading relationships in the world. We also share something else—an appreciation for gold coins.
Let’s take a moment to honor one of the most popular gold bullion coins in North America—the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coin. Learn how this coin came to be and about its significance to both countries.
In 2019, the Gold Maple Leaf Coin marked its 40th anniversary. The Royal Canadian Mint introduced the 1-ounce coin in 1979. At the time, the purity of the coin’s gold was 99.9%. Back then, South African Krugerrands were the only pure gold bullion coins being minted anywhere in the world.
Four years after the coin’s debut, in 1983, the Mint raised the bar by lifting the Maple Leaf’s gold purity standard to 99.99%. This coin made history as the first bullion coin to be struck from 99.99% pure gold. Not to be outdone, the Mint raised the coin’s gold standard to 99.999% in 2007.
Today, the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf Coin remains highly regarded for its purity and quality. It’s considered the premier product of the Royal Canadian Mint, and it’s one of the most sought-after coins in the U.S.
The back of the coin, with a $50 face value, still bears the original maple leaf design created by master engraver Walter Ott. The maple leaf reigns as the unofficial emblem of Canada.
The front of the coin depicts Queen Elizabeth II. It’s the first coin to show the queen without a crown. Canadian artist Susanna Blunt produced the most recent portrait of the queen to grace the coin.
In 2019, the Royal Canadian Mint marked the 40th anniversary of the Gold Maple Leaf Coin with a special edition of the coin. The Mint boasts that this is the “world’s best gold bullion coin.”
“When it began in 1979 as a trial project to transform Canadian gold…few could have predicted the runaway success and staying power of the highly acclaimed Gold Maple Leaf bullion coin, with nearly 30 million ounces sold to date,” the Mint reported in February 2019.
In 2012, the Mint announced it was permanently adding a visual security feature to the coin. The security mark consists of a textured maple leaf that’s micro-engraved with laser technology on a small area of the reverse (maple leaf) side of the coin. In the center of the mark is a two-digit numeral denoting the year of issue (such as “19” for 2019). The numeral is visible only when it’s magnified.
“By introducing an unprecedented visual security feature to our world-famous Gold Maple Leaf bullion coin, we are proud to offer precious metal [enthusiasts] a gold bullion coin [that] is a world leader in its security as well as its purity,” the Mint said in 2012.
Are you wondering where to buy Canadian gold coins? At U.S. Money Reserve, of course! Buy the renowned Gold Maple Leaf bullion coin online or call 1-844-307-1589 today.
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2019 was a very big year both personally and professionally for me and our company. The changes were big, and almost all of them for the better. Personally, I am happy to say that my family and I have never been in a better place, we spend more time together and focused on the important things like Faith, Values and Communication. On the professional side, we made significant strides in technology, infrastructure and personnel that have allowed us to hit the ground running in 2020.
I hear people every year tell me they struggle to grasp the year change when they are signing documents, writing checks or any other instance where they are required to manually write the year in the course of their daily activity. Fortunately for me, I am eager to tackle the new year each and every year as a means to continually move myself, my family and my business forward.
U.S. Money Reserve and our clients saw a lot of movement by countries, institutions and the masses towards precious metals as a means to hedge and/or protect their financial futures.
People who owned gold last year reaped amazing benefits. The spot price of gold was $1,282.90/oz. at the beginning of 2019. At the end of 2019, it rose more than 18%, to $1,514.75/oz. For the average gold owner, this could have huge implications for their retirement plans, their savings for their kids, or simply for their financial safety net.
Overall, 2019 was the best year for the yellow metal since 2010, when gold was still riding high in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
A lot of reasons added to this past year’s rise, most notably interest in gold as a safeguard against economic uncertainty. Events such as the trade war between the United States and China and the Brexit situation contributed to this uncertainty. More uncertainty seems like it could follow because while a “phase one” trade deal is in place and a new Brexit deal is poised to pass Parliament, much remains unresolved.
Events such as these drove the actions of the most powerful buyers in the world.
Central banks across the world felt the need to purchase gold. For example, the central banks of China and Russia bought around 251 metric tons of gold in 2019. The single largest buyer of gold was Turkey’s central bank, which bought 144.8 metric tons. Banks’ appetites for gold were so ferocious that the Central Bank Gold Agreements, which had limited the amount of gold that banks were allowed to sell off, were completely scrapped and deemed irrelevant.
This shopping spree could make the gold in the hands of Americans more valuable. It also doesn’t appear likely to end soon. Goldman Sachs looks for global central banks to collectively acquire around 650 metric tons of gold in 2020, while Standard Chartered is projecting central-bank purchases will total 525 metric tons.
As all of this was happening, another precious metal was having an especially memorable 2019.
This dramatic rally was spurred by two factors. First, demand increased as countries such as China implemented new rules requiring car manufacturers to install catalytic convertors on their cars. These devices clean pollution from emissions and require palladium to work.
Secondly, palladium’s supply was under extreme stress. The metal already has only limited sources. Most palladium comes as a byproduct of platinum mining, and most of that comes from either South Africa or Russia. During this past year, the mines in South Africa suffered from a series of issues that greatly diminished their ability to export the metal. Together, these factors pushed the price of palladium to astronomic highs. Palladiums owners are reaping these great benefits.
Both gold and palladium demonstrated extraordinary performance in 2019. All the fundamentals that led to those performances are still in play.
Central banks have no reason to stop buying gold. Many outlets and professionals are predicting that uncertainty is poised to push all the precious metals higher in 2020, in fact many believe the actions of 2019 are beginning to look like the sturdy foundation for an even more impressive 2020.
So, whether you are an institution, a patriarch or a parent you should consider protecting your family and future by diversifying your portfolio before prices go even higher.
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Who’s first in line for turkey? Who gets to deal the cards? Who picks tonight’s movie?
You can settle almost anything with a coin flip. Learn about the history of the coin toss, its significance over time, and how we use coin flips today to decide everything from United Kingdom elections to football kickoffs.
Coin tosses have been around for centuries.
Since the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages in Europe, the coin toss has helped people to decide between two options, according to the JSTOR Daily website.
“Known as ‘heads or ships,’ in reference to the images that appeared on the Roman sestertii, the coin toss was a children’s game of chance as well as a gambling game among the patrician elite,” JSTOR Daily says. “Legend has it that Julius Caesar would settle legal disputes with a coin toss.”
In the Middle Ages, children played a version of the coin toss known as “cross and pile.” What we now know as “heads” was the cross, and what we now refer to as “tails” was the pile. Back then, the top of the coin bore the image of a cross, and the reverse side was called the “pile.”
These days, coin tosses traditionally rely on a heads-or-tails choice. “Heads or tails” refers to the two sides of a coin, according to the Grammarist website.
“When a decision must be made with two equally viable answers, or two people disagree and must find an equitable way to choose between two answers, a coin may be flipped. As one person tosses the coin in the air, the other person calls either heads or tails,” Grammarist explains. “Heads refers to the side of the coin with a person’s head on it. Tails refers to the opposite side, not because there is a tail on it, but because it is the opposite of heads.”
So when trying to determine who gets to pick a movie for the night, for example, one person will call heads or tails, and a coin will be flipped. If that person calls “heads,” and the heads side of the coin appears face up, then he’s the winner—meaning he gets to pick the movie. But if that person calls “tails” and the heads side of the coin appears face up, then he’s the loser—meaning he doesn’t get to pick the movie.
From pigskin to politics, the coin toss has become a fixture in everyday life.
According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the coin toss in professional American football dates back to 1892. It’s also a mainstay in college and high school football, as well as numerous other sports. A referee and team captains gather at the center of the field for coin tosses.
A coin toss happens at the beginning of a football game to figure out which team gets possession of the football. It also occurs for the same reason at the outset of an overtime period.
As FOX Sports explains, unless the winner of the toss defers their choice to the second half, that team must choose one of two privileges. The loser is given the other privilege. Those two privileges are the opportunity to kick the ball to the other team or to receive the kickoff and to pick which end of the field the team will defend.
Perhaps the most critical coin toss in football happens during the NFL’s Super Bowl. It’s so important, in fact, that football fans place bets on which team will win the toss. By the way, a specially minted coin is made solely for each Super Bowl coin toss.
Sports fields aren’t the only places where you’ll see coin tosses.
In several elections in the U.S. and the U.K., coin tosses have determined winners and losers. For instance:
But two of the possibly most crucial coin tosses in U.S. history had nothing to do with politics.
According to The Telegraph newspaper of London, the naming of what now is Portland, Oregon, came down to a coin toss.
Asa Lovejoy and Francis Pettygrove, who both owned the land that would become Portland, each wanted to name the new town after their respective hometowns: Boston, Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine. Pettygrove prevailed in the 1845 coin toss, and the Oregon city was christened Portland.
Another momentous coin toss took place in December 1903, when the Wright brothers flipped a coin to see which one of the pair would take flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, in the first-ever powered aircraft. Wilbur Wright won the toss. However, Orville Wright’s subsequent trip was deemed the first powered flight, according to The Telegraph. In 2013, the U.S. Mint released three commemorative coins—$10 gold, $1 silver, and 50ٴ¢ clad coins—to mark the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ aeronautical feat.
“The coin flip seems like a simple, mundane act,” FlipACoin.com observes. “However, coin flipping can provide a wealth of insights on probability, statistics, and human history.”
Don’t leave your financial future up to a coin toss. Partner with U.S. Money Reserve to learn more about the power of precious metals.
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year, except for your wallet. This relationship has proven to be especially strong in 2019. In fact, the shopping season was breaking records almost as soon as it began.
That doesn’t even factor in what was spent in brick-and-mortar retail stores; number crunchers are still debating that final tally.
Black Friday was followed by “Small Business Saturday,” which raked in more than $3.6 billion. On Cyber Monday this year, consumers spent a record $9.4 billion, which was 18.9% more than they spent on Cyber Monday 2018. The shopping spree began even before Black Friday. On Thanksgiving Day, Americans spent an estimated $4.2 billion online alone.
All that spending doesn’t even include travel costs and other seasonal-related expenses.
Before these huge spending hauls were reported, even before the holiday shopping season began, experts at Harris Insights & Analytics forecasted holiday spending would be 5% higher in 2019 than in 2018. The National Retail Federation reported that U.S. holiday spending totaled $707.5 billion last year. For 2019, Gallup projected that the average American adult was going to spend $920 on gifts this year. This wouldn’t be an issue, except…
In November, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that wages increased 3.1% in the preceding 12 months. ADP reported a similar increase of 3.2% for the same period of time according, to its third quarter 2019 Workforce Vitality Report.
This means that the rate at which holiday spending is increasing is faster than the rate income is rising. This indicates that people are spending a bigger percentage of their means this year than they did last year.
Why would people put this much into spending beyond their means? Stress and a sense of obligation may be important factors.
This comes from the 2019 Bankrate Holiday Gifting Survey, an annual study by consumer financial services company Bankrate. By contrast, its 2018 study found around 45% of people were feeling pressured to overspend. This rise in a sense of pressure could explain why people are overspending this year.
I don’t want to rub elbows with the Grinch and Scrooge. I’m not against the holidays. Personally, I love them. Unfortunately, when people get caught up in buying new things, they often lose sight of protecting what they already have. During the most wonderful time of the year, don’t neglect the year-round task of protecting your money.
When you are buying phones that maybe will last about two years before they need to be replaced, take a moment to consider putting your money somewhere more secure for the long term.
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Paul Volcker racked up many milestones as chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1979 to 1987. Most notably, he sought to reverse the inflationary slide of the U.S. by pushing for higher interest rates.
Following Volcker’s death on December 8, 2019, because of complications from prostate cancer, The Washington Post noted that the 92-year-old “left as deep an imprint on the U.S. economy and financial system as has anyone of his generation.”
In honor of Volcker, we recount and remember the important ways he helped shape the economic landscape as we know it.
Even before he assumed the Fed chairmanship, Paul Volcker played a critical role in the gold market. Volcker, then an official at the U.S. Treasury Department, firmly recommended in 1971 that President Richard Nixon remove the U.S. from the gold standard, The Post’s obituary reports.
“In 1971, international investors were dumping dollars, pushing down their [appeal in] the global currency market, and throwing into question the longstanding practice of making dollars convertible to gold at a fixed rate,” relates The Post.
In response, Volcker and George Shultz, then a White House aide, trekked to the Oval Office to urge that Nixon immediately give up the gold standard. Following a powwow from August 13 to 15, 1971, at the Camp David presidential retreat, Nixon embraced Volcker’s advice, opting “to abandon what had been a bedrock of the global financial system,” according to The Post. Volcker and others insisted that “maintaining the dollar’s peg to the price of gold was an untenable policy.”
Nixon announced the gold-standard decision August 15, 1971, on national TV.
After Volcker’s death, Ed Conway, economics editor for the United Kingdom’s Sky News, wrote that eliminating the gold standard “was perhaps the single most important economic decision of the postwar era.”
“It brought an end to fixed exchange rates and ushered in a new era, where a government’s currency was worth what people thought it should be worth, rather than a certain weight of gold,” Conway wrote.
So why the change in direction? The international financial system established at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, at the tail end of World War II had crumbled, so Volcker “led the creation of a new order, in which the values of currencies would float freely against each other,” The Post reports. This new order demanded an exit from the gold standard.
“The dollar [was] at the center of the financial system, convertible into gold, with other countries having a fixed exchange rate against the dollar. That whole framework had come under great pressure, and it was clear that something had to be done,” Volcker recalled.
Volcker explained that amid an environment of continuing inflation, the U.S. had to grapple with the reality that the international monetary system had to be altered. One of the vehicles for doing that: suspension of the ability to convert U.S. dollars to gold.
“Foreign governments could no longer exchange their dollars for gold; in effect, the international monetary system turned into a fiat one,” according to a Federal Reserve history of this historic occasion.
The suspension, enacted by Nixon, soon led to the end of the Bretton Woods–designed monetary system.
Volcker ultimately credited Arthur Burns, then chairman of the Fed, with vigorously arguing for the abandonment of the gold standard. “It was not a permanent solution, in my mind, but it was a necessary transitional step,” Volcker recalled.
Volcker, who once referred to himself an enemy of gold, said he was surprised that Nixon and Secretary of the Treasury John Connally conveyed suspension of the gold standard as a “great triumph.”
“This was America exhibiting its strength and power, dealing with speculative pressures in an appropriate way and seizing the moment to deal with the price question at home…. The economy responded favorably; the stock market responded favorably,” Volcker said. “There had been very ominous predictions of what would happen to the stock market. The stock market went up instead of down.”
Still, some critics remain displeased with Volcker’s advocacy for getting rid of the gold standard, in part because the U.S. economy continued to reel even after Nixon’s 1971 anti-inflationary moves.
Today, some politicians and analysts would like to see the U.S. return to the gold standard, though. “A gold standard is [one] avenue, among others, to restore our trust in government, by appropriately constraining the discretionary power of government,” the libertarian-oriented Cato Institute think tank has argued.
Call U.S. Money Reserve at 1-844-307-1589 to learn more about the gold standard or changes in today’s gold market.
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As noted in our 2019 silver price forecast, an ounce of silver went for $15.47 on December 31, 2018. As we expected when we declared 2019 a bright year for silver, the price of silver jumped +15% in 2019. During the year, silver prices have reached highs of over $19.50 an ounce and settled in around $18 an ounce in the last trading days of December. Now that the new year is here, it’s time to look at the silver price forecasts for 2020.
Are the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 good times to buy gold and silver? To make an informed decision, it helps to begin by looking at the many ways silver gets used, the relationship between supply and demand, and finally, industry analysts’ estimates for the expected price of silver in 2020.
These three general areas spark most of today’s demand for silver:
The latest report from The Silver Institute tracked silver supply and demand through 2018. In the last year of the survey, the global supply of silver was 1,004.3 million ounces. At the same time, the physical demand equaled 1033.5 million ounces. This created a deficit of several million ounces.
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It’s worth noting that unlike other precious metals, production uses actually account for the greatest portion of silver demand. The increase in demand for production silver has typically been modest but consistent.
For instance, The Silver Institute reported these changes in demand for the decade before and including 2018:
Increased demand for production silver typically comes from industrial expansion. For instance, a scholarly report on Science Daily found that increased production of solar panels has positively impacted demand for silver, as well as prices.
On the other hand, the average silver prices from the charts provided by The Silver Institute don’t directly correlate to supply deficiencies and surpluses. For instance, the average price per ounce was higher in 2016 than 2018, but the supply deficit in 2016 was actually smaller. Production use of silver—and more generally, supply and demand—provides a sort of support for silver’s price but doesn’t tell the whole story.
As explained on Market Watch, investors may consider industrial and manufacturing use of silver, but that’s not their primary motivation for buying it or any other precious metal. They consider their investment purchase a sort of insurance premium against market upheavals. Market Watch offered examples of events or concerns that could influence the price of silver in 2020. These could include predictions or uncertainty about the following issues:
Of course, nobody has a crystal ball to know exactly what events will transpire in 2020. It’s helpful to look at the silver forecast from industry analysts and experts to explore some potential scenarios.
| Industry Experts | 2020 Silver Price Prediction (per ounce) |
|---|---|
| Keith Neumeyer (CEO, First Majestic Silver) | $130 |
| EB Tucker (Director, Metalla Royalty & Streaming) | $20+ |
| FocusEconomics (Economists) | $16.60 |
| LongForecast.com (Forecasting Agency) | $22 |
| Degussa Analysts | $23 |
| Johann Wiebe (Analyst, Thomson Reuters) | $17.50 |
Price predictions/forecasts last updated on 12/13/2019
| Financial Institution | 2020 Silver Price Prediction (per ounce) |
|---|---|
| Goldman Sachs | $18.00 |
| Bank of America | $17.54 |
| The Bank of Montreal | $18.60 |
| Commerzbank | $18.50 |
Price predictions/forecasts last updated on 12/13/2019
Some people refer to silver as poor man’s gold for a couple of reasons. First, the price of an ounce of silver is much cheaper than the price of an ounce of gold. Still, most analysts believe these two metals are linked, and price changes in one of these precious metals generally reflect prices changes in the other.
Some analysts argue that silver should be uncoupled from other bullion because of its industrial applications and the recent supply deficits. For example, silver demand reached a three-year peak in 2018; however, supply fell.[7] In that respect, silver may be vastly undervalued when compared to gold.
No matter which perspective is correct, investors rely upon silver for the same basic reasons that they purchase other precious metals. They want to use the metals as portfolio insurance in case other markets don’t perform as anticipated. Generally, the price reflects that behavior as much as it does industrial demand, if not more.
It is impossible to say exactly what will happen during 2020 or beyond. However, silver still looks like a good buy, especially with the disparity between supply and demand over the past few years.
If you hope to find a good deal on precious metals, silver appears to provide it. Prices have made steady progress in the past year, but industry analysts believe it has room to grow. Not only will you buy a metal that’s precious to investors, it’s also a material with many uses for production.
To protect portfolios, learn more about investing in silver and even how to add silver to an IRA.