Heraclitus of Ephesus, an ancient Greek philosopher, said that "no man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man". If he lived today and monitored the comments and actions taken by the US Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, he might have formulated his thoughts differently. Mnuchin just disrupted the markets once again after having done so in January, when he said that the US would welcome a lower US dollar.

On Monday, Mnuchin held a conference call with the US regulators to discuss plunging stock market and it was made publicly known. Of course, that was just as effective as a mid-flight announcement that starts with "Don't panic". People panicked. They also ran for the hills, leaving their stock holdings behind.

• Read more

Among gold's many ratios, the one with the general stock market is currently particularly important. Not only because the latter declined profoundly, but also because the link between both markets is now particularly strong. There were only two cases in the previous decades when gold and stocks behaved like they do now. And they were both followed by something epic.

• Read more

Stocks plunged to new lows, the USD Index declined as well, and gold rallied to new highs. The yellow metal was even featured in Jim Cramer’s Mad Money! Is gold the only asset worth owning right now? What should one do, given all this strength in the precious metals sector?

• Read more

And so it happened. The Fed raised the interest rates, just like we expected it to. And the market reacted negatively as some investors with too dovish expectations were surprised by the Fed’s move. Some parts of the market reacted more, and some parts reacted less. The part that reacted in an explosive manner were the mining stocks. After an initial rally, they exposed the true nature of the recent upswing. It was fake. Just after breaking above the previous highs, mining stocks were breaking below the previous lows – all during one session. The reversals should be confirmed by significant volume and both the size of the decline and the corresponding volume were epic. The implications are truly extreme.

• Read more

All eyes were on the quick increase in the values of mining stocks as they moved above their recent highs. Is this a repeat of 2016 when mining stocks were leading the way to much higher price levels? If so, then one should act quickly as gold and silver would be about to join the miners in their near-vertical run. But is it really the case?

• Read more