Your humble correspondent used to watch this relationship very closely until the latter the latter part of 2008 made it go haywire, but I've noticed it popping up on the radars of chartheads recently and being featured in essays good and bad.
What do we see here? There's no return of the so-called benchmark of 50:1 in the near future, that's for sure. Techies will grab the MACD and RSI both clearly oversold and say the bias is likely to swing back towards gold in the near future. I agree. Those moving averages also seem to be heading for a pinch moment.
Final thought: Silver is more constrained by traditional Adam Smith-like factors of supply and demand. This because its supply is largely as a by-product of industrial metals and its demand has a larger proportion of commodity-based uses. It's not simply a store of wealth like gold. Silver strengthening against gold would imply, therefore and theoretically, a better world economy, so maybe we can follow this ratio chart as a sentiment guide. When is the recession going to end? Bernanke's pie-in-the-sky 2009? Roubini's L-shaped lost decade to come? My own thumb-in-the-air guess of late 2010? Maybe our old friend the GSR can help map it for us.
Check out the following, kindly sent along earlier by reader MH. Straight pastes of the two reports about how Sweden's Securitas are investigating the torture of locals in Peru. They're coming at you from all sides now, Bristow. Run and hide and don't tell anyone! Great PR tactics so far, idiot!
The Peruvian company Forza, owned by Swedish Securitas, is accused of having tied and beaten demonstrators – one to death. The abuses are said to have occurred at a demonstration against a mining operation in Rio Blanco, in Peru, 2005. According to Reuters, photographs representing the alleged incident have been published by a Peruvian human rights association.
- If this is true we have to take action, says Gisela Lindstrand, [Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications] at Securitas AB to Expressen.se.
The photographs, distributed by an anonymous source, show men covered in blood with their hands tied behind their backs and plastic bags over their heads. One of the men is later seen dead in another photograph. In the photographs one can also see men wearing vests with the text Forza.
The photos clearly show that personnel of Forza played an active role in the repression and torture, said Javier Jahncke at the human rights organisation Fedepaz to Reuters.
The tortured men are said to be demonstrators against the mining operation which was about to start in Rio Blanco in 2005.
Local police accused
The company Forza was responsible for the mining venture’s security.
Also local police are accused of having helped put down the demonstration.
After receiving the allegations, Peru’s congress is initiating an investigation of the incident.
-We have contacted our subsidiary and we are investigating this in peace and quiet, says Gisela Lindstrand [Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications] at the international section of Securitas AB.
According to her, Securitas bought Forza in 2007, two years after the alleged events.
-If this is true and these persons remain at the company we have to take action.
Distancing itself
Gisela Lindstrand explains that Securitas asked Forza if they comply with laws and regulations when it bought the company.
Securitas distances itself from the behavior shown in the photographs.
-It is not conceivable that we would act this way. We are a serious security company, says Gisela Lindstrand.
Reuters have been in touch with Forza, but they decline to comment.
A company which is today owned by the Swedish security group Securitas will be investigated in Peru concerning suspected torture and abuse of the local population in relation to surveillance of mines in the country.
-We are trying to find out what has happened. It will take a while to investigate, says Gisela Lindstrand, Securitas Group [Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications], to TT [Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå].
Peru’s congress has said that suspected crimes by police and private security firms in 2005 will be investigated. Prosecutors are allegedly already working on it.
Last month, a human rights organization published photographs of men and women protesting against mining in Rio Blanco, in Peru.
The victims bled heavily and some had their hands tied behind their backs and plastic bags over their heads. One photograph shows a man bleeding heavily from his neck, and another photograph shows the same man dead one day later, according to Reuters.
“Want to investigate”
In one photograph, an armed guard from the company Forza, can be seen. Forza was bought by the multinational Securitas in 2007.
The photos clearly show that personnel of Forza played an active role in the repression and torture, said Javier Jahncke at the human rights organization to Reuters.
Lindstrand reports that she contacted Peru on Tuesday.
-I have spoken with our country manager and said that I want an investigation into what happened.
In Rio Blanco, Forza is working for the mining company Moterrico, which was bought by the Chinese Group Zijin in 2007. The mining company states that the allegations are one in a sequence of “resistance activities” against mining activity.
The police force in Peru is under-funded. Security at the country’s remote mines is contracted out to private security companies, which in turn hire former policemen and soldiers. They often face local protests against the social and environmental downsides of mining.
Trained security guards
According to human rights organizations, private companies often go way beyond the limits of the law in their assignments.
Lindstrand points out that the company [Forza] was bought after the suspected abuse, and that all Securitas Group’s security guards are trained in human rights.
-If this has happened, it is something which could never happen today, because now Securitas’ rules apply.
-TT: Can you guarantee that even in remote locations in Peru?
Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. Robert Frost, 1874 - 1963
I'm not saying I called the gold top well, cos I didn't. Let's make that clear. I've felt antsy about POG from about $930 upwards and mainly sat on the sidelines about it. Lucas or Gary can tell you about the chart and the tops and thing like that, I see two things going on, 1) too many latecomers at this party that don't know enough about the sector and 2) real deflation risk that will suck the air out of all money, with "all money" including gold by the permabull goldbugs' own definition. I could rattle off a whole list of goldstock carnage victims from bigguns like GG to tiny weeny ones like CGK.v today. But I won't. Let's just make an example of four usual suspects:
Dynasty Metals (DMM.to) down 6.9% at $4.99. Low volumes and could have been worse. Absolutely zero problems about holding them all and waiting the rough waters out. I'd also add if gold goes further South and gets weak hands to panic.
Kinross (KGC) down 6.9% at U$17.07. Yup, it happened. I know they're all dropping, but the mediocre 4th quarter didn't help. Neither did the facile pumping of Tye Burt at the BMO conference yesterday.
Nadagold (NG) down 12% at U$2.65 . How could I not include NG on a day like this? Hate me I'm still short. Despise me cos I'm a mile in profit. Grind your teeth at me as I grin and whisper "don't say I didn't tell you". Keeping loathing me cos I'm not covering yet. Es un perro con pulgas y la pura verdad carajo.
Troy Resources down 8.7% at $1.05. Low volumes and that. If it drops under a buck buy with both hands. No wait, first buy my NOBS report on TRY.to then buy with both hands. This is at least a double with gold at U$900 so don't worry about the day-to-day spot price shenanigans. My biggest position in the trading portfolio, up nicely already and holding no worries.
Check out this peer group of Fortuna Silver (FVI.v), Endeavour Silver (EDR.to), Great Panther Resources (GPR.to) and First Majestic Silver (FR.to). All junior scale producing silver miners. Note how one company stands head and shoulders above the rest in the last five days.
That's basically because;
1) it doesn't screw its shareholders around 2) it has strong financials 3) it will still be financially rock solid if silver drops to $10 4) it has honest management that cares about its workers and the nowadays all-important social and environmental angles
And that's why I have liked, like and will like Fortuna Silver (FVI.v). Those who bought the NOBS report will know that i'm looking for a lower price to buy back in, but if that lower price doesn't materialize I won't be surprised. Cream rises, you see.
If you'd like to find out the details of FVI.v, its fundamental strengths and my proposed trading range in the short term please consider investing U$10 in the report. The details are here. You buy a copy and we both benefit, as there is plenty of money on the table for those interested in trading this stock.
Not all silver miners are the same, so buy yourself a good one.
Your humble correspondent used to watch this relationship very closely until the latter the latter part of 2008 made it go haywire, but I've noticed it popping up on the radars of chartheads recently and being featured in essays good and bad.
Your humble correspondent used to watch this relationship very closely until the latter the latter part of 2008 made it go haywire, but I've noticed it popping up on the radars of chartheads recently and being featured in essays good and bad.
