Silver ensures bullish outlook among precious metals

The new year started off with a bang with precious metals out-shining the competition. Is this a harbinger of things to come? We think so and we are not alone. Forecasts for Gold for 2012 include a price per ounce of $2,200 by Morgan Stanley, $2,050 by UBS, and $2,000 by Barclays.

The year 2011, for other than gold investors, has been a disappointment, more like a train wreck. Growth has been paltry, unemployment remained high, sovereign debt in the stratosphere. The U.S. political system has been dysfunctional unable to make easy decisions, never mind the hard ones. There was no housing rebound and the eurozone looked like it was a house of cards. But look on the bright side. Despite a prophecy by Harold Camping, the world did not end on May 21.

There was also some other good news. There was no double dip in 2011. Osama bin Laden was “laid to rest in a solemn ceremony concluding upon impact with the Indian Ocean at a terminal velocity of 125 miles per hour,” (at least that’s the official version) in the words of Dave Barry, humor columnist for The Miami Herald. Moammar Gadhafi and other dictators also suffered major setbacks (to put it mildly.)

There are some issues hanging over the economy in 2012 that will determine if the upcoming year will also be a disappointment.

In 2011, American politics was silly undermining confidence in ways that damaged economic prospects. There was the April battle over spending that nearly shut down the government and would have had a devastating effect on the ability of Congress to continue spending insanely more money than it actually has. The December standoff was over whether to continue a cut in the payroll tax that both parties agreed to in principle. But most damaging was the summer brinkmanship when many House Republicans threatened to block an increase in the debt ceiling — which would have meant a default on U.S. debt — unless they got their way on major spending cuts. The sides hammered out an agreement under which the government will continue to spend tons more money than it has while a super committee will devise a plan to solve this problem once and for all. This committee fell short of its goals. Perhaps in 2012 we will see “a Super Duper Committee.” Even after a deal was struck, Standard & Poor’s cut the U.S. government’s credit rating, blaming the downgrade on the reduced “effectiveness, stability and predictability” of American policymaking.

Stay tuned. This year’s election is going to be a cliffhanger. Obama has going for him the lackluster Republican lineup. He may actually win. But with a razor thin mandate and a Republican-controlled Congress, Obama in his second term will not have much room to maneuver. With the economy in such a fragile condition, it would be best, whatever the outcome of the November election, that the result be decisive and unifying. Meanwhile, a move toward a libertarian approach sill appears unlikely.

To see what is likely to happen in the precious metals market in the nearest future, let’s begin the technical part with the analysis of silver.

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Posted by Silver Guru on Jan 8 2012. Filed under Silver Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry