Inflation is here! A few weeks ago, we predicted that a point of inflation was possibly upon us and it was going to be reflected in the bond market. We suggested that the turning point was July 8, 2016. At that time, ten-year U.S. notes were trading at 1.35%, yields on tips were negative, gold was fetching $1,375 (15% more than it did a year ago), and consumer prices were less than 1% higher than the previous year. It appears we might be right. The headline CPI rose 0.3% between August and September, registering a year over year increase of 1.5% while core CPI was up 2.2% and running ahead of the Fed’s target rate of 2.0%.

What about copper? By Harold AGJ Davis,    www.prairiecropcharts.com  Winnipeg, Manitoba As a key industrial commodity, copper prices are very sensitive to pressure changes in economic activity. Thus, any copper market analysis also encompasses an economic insight. What is copper telling us now? Copper’s price responsiveness to economic expansion and contraction over the past half century is well understood. Yet, in the past fifteen years or so, copper’s moves have not corresponded as closely to changes in American industrial production and construction as they once did. It seems that copper’s drivers have evolved and demand swings are no longer dependent upon the service sector dominated American economy. Rather, the capital spending, infrastructure development and booming construction of Asia, China in particular, appear to have taken over.

  At the Montreal Analyst.com and Canadian Mine Analysis.com, we believe that gold and silver mining stocks will be one the best performing groups of this decade. Since many readers  are not familiar with gold mining and silver mining, we thought that we would give a quick capsule summary of the “nuts and bolts” (better yet the picks and shovels)of mining. The basic premise naturally is that the property (project) contains gold. A company wants to determine if gold (or silver) reserves are in the ground. This is done primarily by exploration (such as samples) and eventually by drilling. The samples and drill results are sent to a lab for analysis. That will help estimate the  amount of reserves in the ground. It takes time and is expensive-and it’s only the start.

The price of gold bullion is blatantly being manipulated as we have seen again this week. It was so obvious by what transpired on Tuesday. On our sites in the past, we have said that without manipulation by the central banks colluding with certain brokerage houses gold would likely never have been below $1300 an ounce during the last four years.