Chart of the day is...

...gold.

Now I really gotta go...boring things to do, boringly.

Chart of the day is...

...gold, dailies:

How's your stomach?

Chart of the day is...

...received from reader 'KC' and comes with the following:

"This is a deceptively simple philosophy that I have been working on and fine tuning for most of my life.  I am delighted to say that I believe I have refined it down to its essence- - sufficiently to share it with a select band of friends that may appreciate its elegance and simplicity."

Chart of the day is...

...the long-term price of diamonds:

50 Years Historical diamond price trend chart
for average One Carat D Loupe Clean wholesale diamond prices

Evolution Graph from 1960 to 2010

Because I had the weirdest dream about this last night. Chart from this page

UPDATE: Via his twitter a/c, @randyduax points your humble scribe towards this diamond robbery story. Utterly fascinating, thanks RD.

Chart of the day is...

...a poll of three polls taken in September 2011 that show voter intention for the 2011 Argentina Presidential elections, set to take place on October 23rd:

Just so you know, a winner will be declared in round one if either a) any single candidate gets more than 45% of the vote or b) gets more than 40% with the second placed candidate more than 10% behind.

Or put more simply, what part of "Cristina wins" do you not understand?

H/T Ricardo at los huevos y las ideas

Chart of the day is...

...copper, 60 minute chart.

To quote Alex Ferguson, it's squeaky bum time.

Or to quote a pirate, aaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhh

Chart of the day is....

...GLD versus SLV versus GDX versus GDXJ, 10 day chart:

A bit of a sinkage for sure, but it has to be said that the stocks have done ok compared to their metals.

Chart of the day is...

...of Rio Alto Mining (RIO.v):

Interestingly, its 52 week low is September 14th 2010 and its 52 week high is 14th September 2011.

Update: Would you like to read Ian Parkinson of CIBC on RIO.v and the rationale behind his new $4.80 target? Ok, click here.

Chart of the day is...

..Silvercorp (SVM) (SVM.to) ten day chart.

Splat!

Subscribers: You'll get a Flash update that mentions the action in this stock in a few minutes. Enjoy the rest of your day, people.

Update: RayJames defends SVM, link here.

Update 2: We understand that SVM will issue "a full rebuttal" (source quote) later this morning. This heard from two places now.

Update 3: Two developments: Firstly, SVM came out with its rebuttal this morning and you've probably already rad that, but it's here. Secondly, this is the website of the original anonymous short sellers. Here's how they start their presentation:

September 14, 2011

Our Questions About Silvercorp. (NYSE: SVM, TSX: SVM CN)

Situation Background
On August 29, 2011, we anonymously sent a letter to a number of parties including Ernst & Young (Silvercorp’s auditor) and the Ontario Securities Commission. We indicated that we planned to post some of our research on Silvercorp on the Internet and we included a preliminary copy of our research with that letter. On September 2, 2011, before we had posted any research, Silvercorp announced publicly that it had received a copy of our letter from Ernst & Young. Silvercorp published a press release in which it stated its response to certain of the matters raised in our letter and made reference to certain documents. In the release Silvercorp stated that a special committee of its board of directors has been established. We reviewed Silvercorp’s response, updated our analysis further, and are now posting our revised analysis on the Internet. On September 9, 2011, the media reported that the British Columbia Securities Commission had been made aware of our research and was “examining both the nature of the complaint and the allegations contained in [our] letter.” We have sent a copy of this Internet posting to the British Columbia Securities Commission, the Ontario Securities Commission, Ernst & Young and Silvercorp’s independent directors.

Update 4: Here's the BMO take on today's developments, as per Andrew Kaip (who called the first downmove a buy last week and did well by it).

Disclosure: As subscribers already know I'm long a very small amount of SVM and will hold them for the time being.

Chart of the day is...

...The Euro, dailies.

When you say "the dollar is strengthening", all you're saying is that the dollar is performing relatively better than the lump of crap that comprises a full 57.6% of the index you use to measure it.

Telling me "the dollar is strong these days" is like telling me a six year old kid is fast cos he beat a four year old kid over 50 metres.

Chart of the day is...

...copper, dailies.

So in the last two trading days, copper has moved from $4.13 to 3.93/lb. Not so good, longs.

UPDATE (after breakfast): Oops, make that 3.91

Chart of the day is...

..the one year chart of Sunward Resources (SWD.v):

It's also a bit of advice for you retail shareholders in Canada. With the notable exception of Cormark, you should be on the phone to your brokerage and saying, "Hey, you know there's an 8m+ oz gold deposit in Colombia and you don't cover it. Why don't you cover this stock? C'mon, tell me WHY?".

PS: This humble scribe will be away from his humble office this morning.

Chart of the day is...

...the GDX and GDXJ five day showing against silver, gold and the Dow:

Well blow me down, the miners are actually winning for once.

Chart of the day is...

...the gold/silver ratio (GSR):

Let's leave commentary to Frankie and his dulcet tones:

Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight it with all of our might
Chances are some heavenly star-spangled night
We'll find out just as sure as we live
Somethin's gotta give
Somethin's gotta give
Somethin's gotta give

Chart of the day is...

...a theoretical chart that shows what an investor or trader is looking for when something "goes parabolic".

This 'parabolic' word has been bandied about recently in the world of precious metals, first with silver a couple of months back and now gold. Therefore your humble scribe offers up this little chart and allows you time to think on whether we're seeing a parabolic move in gold right now. Or not. 

No further comments, use your own brain.

Chart of the day is...

...the US Dollar over the last five days:

Yes I know, it's contextually weak just to focus on the last five days. All the same, up is up. Also, it does tie in with this sentiment noted in IKN121, dated Sept 25th:

"Under such circumstances, we may well be able to watch gold run higher in dollars as that currency strengthens and a full on demand for bullion in the old continent."

But WTFDIK, just lucky timing I guess.

Chart of the day is...

...the population of Argentina.

The definitive results of the Argentina census taken on October 27th 2010 were released yesterday and show the country with 40,117,096 people on board. It also notes that for every 100 women there are 95 men, which means it's probably becoming a nicer place to live. La Nacion report on the numbers here.

Chart of the day is...

...another one on Mexico versus Peru silver production, because the world is full of reporters who aren't just dumbasses, they're lazy too and can't be bothered to find the facts for themselves (and yeah, I am talking about you, mailer of yesterday, and rompes mis huevos una vez mas y te voy a cantar en nombre, dale?)

Seriously, gimme a break here. You want proof?

Proof. Oh, unless you think I'm just making up the figures you can see for yourself at MEM Peru and Camimex Mexico. But I'm not.

Mexico is the world's number one producer of silver, period.

Chart of the day is...

...copper dailies.

The red circle on that chart highlights last Friday's action and it was something we featured in IKN121, out last Sunday, with this script accompanying. We've been watching the state of copper pretty carefully recently, y'see. 

Last week we noted our concern about the “fight for four”, as copper was having all sorts of trouble in making up its mind whether the sink below $4/lb or move higher. By way of a reminder, here’s a small snippet of last week’s text:

“...the best bellweather commodity metal out there, copper, will need a close eye on it for the next couple of weeks. I’ve previously said out loud that I’m not worried about the state of play in copper as long as the metal stays $4 or over, so the last few days of struggle to hold that line is telling. There’s no rush to judgment here, but radar on copper? Yes.”

Cut to today and as we can see on the above futures chart, up to last Friday copper had traded both above and below $4/lb on every single day for 14 trading days after its significant drop in the early days of August. However Friday August 26^th marked a change in direction, which also happens to be the right direction for those long Cu such as your author.

Just as last week, we’re not calling outright victory at this point and we’re not rushing to judgment. What we are doing is saying that copper looks healthier now and may turn out to be one less thing to worry come this time next week. Vamos a ver....

DYODD.

Chart of the day is...

...monthly copper production figures for Mexico, 2009 onwards:

Hey, take a wild guess as to when Cananea stopped striking and came back on line?