Directionless Silver Pushed Around by Fed News, Concerns

Directionless Silver Pushed Around by Fed News, Concerns

This week, silver was unable to sustain last week’s gains, sinking below $20 and only passing that mark on two brief occasions.

Silver started out below $19.80 per ounce on Monday, but quickly rose to $20.12. However, concerns prior to a two-day Federal Reserve meeting set to begin the next day soon drove it back down and the metal closed the day at $19.92.

Tuesday, silver continued to fall, dropping as far as $19.57 early in the morning. Though it was able to rise to $19.97 later in the day, by Wednesday it had fallen even lower, to $19.49, on the release of US second-quarter GDP and June private payroll numbers, according to Scotiabank’s Gold & Silver Marketwatch. Later that day, the white metal made its second rise above $20, hitting $20.04 as market participants took in the news that the Fed will continue quantitative easing.

Silver closed Thursday at $19.63 after hitting a high of $19.90 earlier in the day.

If Barclays is to be believed, investors may still have more up-and-down movement to weather. The investment bank said Monday that the white metal may decline another 12 percent to hit its lowest price in three years. It believes silver may be set to form a “a triangular pattern called a bearish pennant,” according to Bloomberg.

Dhiren Sarin, the firm’s chief technical strategist for Asia Pacific, noted, “[w]e are moderately bearish at the moment though we are watching these levels.”

Gold-silver ratio to rise

The gold-silver ratio — the amount of silver ounces needed to buy an ounce of gold — rose to a three-year high of 66.6 on July 19 and is set to reach 70 by the end of the year as a result of excess silver supply, Bloomberg reported.

Explaining the situation, Dominic Schnider, head of commodities research at UBS’ Singapore-based wealth management unit, told the publication, “[t]he silver market is in fabrication surplus, and the only thing that’s keeping it alive is investment demand and there is no meaningful increase in ETFs. In an environment where gold falls, silver simply just does more, it’s more volatile.”

Tidigare Chefsekonom ECB spår skuldkrisen återkommer

"Skuldkrisen återkommer och drabbar fler länder"

 

Skuldkrisen Starkt stigande obligationsräntor, ökad volatilitet med påföljande finansiell osäkerhet över vad som sker med euron har satt press på aktiemarknaderna. Nu spår Jürgen Stark, tidigare chefekonom i ECB, att skuldkrisen återkommer – denna gång med nya rop på hjälp till flera länder i eurozonen.

Jürgen Stark uttalar sig i en intervju i den tyska tidningen Handelsblatt om situationen i Euroland, där den Europeiska centralbanken, ECB, snart tvingas hjälpa ytterligare länder.Det har bara ett år sedan ECB:s chef Mario Draghi lovade att göra det som krävs för att rädda euron.

Jürgen Stark siar om att ECB inom kort och med stor omfattning tvingas stödköpa olika länders statsobligationer. På tur står Italien och Spanien, men även Frankrike behöver sannolikt samma medicin.
Centralbankchefen Draghi har slagit fast att endast länder som accepterar bankens krav på omfattande åtgärder kommer att få ekonomisk hjälp, men det kravet tror förre chefekonomen inte kommer att kunna behållas.

För att rädda eurozonen från fullständig kollaps kommer sannolikt ECB att tvingas stödköpa statsobligationer även från länder som inte har gått med på att underkasta sig till centralbankens krav på ekonomiska åtgärder.

Jürgen Stark var fram till för två år sedan chefekonom i ECB, men avgick överraskande av ”personliga skäl”. I bankkretsar spekulerades det om att Stark var motståndare till att ECB skulle stödköpa olika länders statsobligationer.

What's New - Sino Agro Food

Sino Agro Food skriver idag på hemsidan om att man är först i Asien med med en inomhus räkfarm.

What's New

Silverpriset kan få skjuts av nya solkrafts initiativ

New Solar Power Initiatives May Boost Silver Prices

Most silver market players have long since resigned themselves to the fact that the white metal’s average price for the year will likely be significantly lower than was initially expected — back in April, HSBC (NYSE:HSBC) cut its 2013 silver outlook to $26 per ounce from $33, while earlier this month Canaccord Genuity reduced its 12-month forecast to $23 per ounce from $32.50.

However, if recent reports from China and Japan are to be believed, silver may be poised to benefit from an unexpected source of demand: the solar power industry.

China and Japan step up

Though silver is perhaps best known as an investment tool, it is not without other sources of demand, one of which is the solar industry.

In an article published last week by Casey Research, Jeff Clark, senior precious metals analyst at the firm, notes that while photovoltaic technology, the backbone of the solar industry, did not begin registering on silver demand charts until the turn of the millennium, the amount of silver consumed by solar panel makers has risen approximately 50 percent per year since that time.

Currently, it accounts for 5.6 percent of all industrial silver use, but, as mentioned, two factors mean that amount may be set to increase.

The first is the fact that on July 4, China’s State Council said it will stand behind a plan, originally put forward by the nation’s State Grid, to raise China’s solar generating capacity to 35 gigawatts (GW) by 2015. That is 67 percent higher than the previous target of 21 gigawatts (GW) and will mean a yearly addition of 10 GW from 2013 to 2015, according to Clark.

Second, Japan, China’s western neighbor, will increase its solar generation capacity by about 5.3 GW this year, David Franklin and David Baker state in a Sprott’s Thoughts report. Also this year, the country’s domestic solar power market is expected to reach $19.8 billion, meaning that it will pass Germany as the world’s largest solar market.

Potential market impact

The key question, of course, is exactly how much impact these factors will have on the silver market as a whole.

Franklin and Baker give a clear outline of their likely effects, stating that as per information from the Silver Institute, making 1 megawatt of electricity requires up to 2.8 million ounces of the white metal. If China and Japan end up increasing their solar generation capacity by as much as they currently plan — a combined total of about 27 GW — together they will require around 91 million ounces of silver. That’s up to 11 percent of global mine supply by 2012 numbers, a fairly sizeable amount.

Looking longer term, they point out that silver used in solar panels cannot be recycled; once it is used, it is gone forever. That means solar generation has the potential to put ever-increasing pressure on the silver market, particularly if other countries follow China and Japan’s lead in upping their solar generation capacity.

What’s an investor to do?

Franklin, Baker and Clark all appear to agree that the silver market could benefit significantly if all goes as expected in China and Japan. However, those who are not yet convinced should consider watching future silver price forecasts to see whether they take the two countries’ plans into account; Franklin and Baker state that so far no 2013 silver price forecasts have incorporated these announcements.

Investors who are ready to leap into the market might take a leaf out of Clark’s book — he finishes his article by emphatically advising investors to “buy silver now.”

Redeye om Orexo

 Orexo: Det mesta pekar i rätt riktning

Andra kvartalet blev resultatmässigt klart svagare än vi räknat med även exkluderat nedskrivningen som görs av projektet OX-NLA. Framför allt är det FoU-kostnaderna som dragit iväg mer än väntat. Zubsolv är nu godkänt för den amerikanska marknaden och lansering planeras till i början av september. Ett sinnrikt utformat avtal med kontraktsförsäljningsorganisationen, Publicis Touchpoint Solutions, gör det möjligt för Orexo att sälja Zubsolv på egen hand. Vi har efter rapporten gjort relativt omfattande ändringar i våra prognoser, främst till följd av den kommersiella strategi bolaget nu väljer. Ändringarna ger ett starkt positivt utslag för vårt motiverade värde som ökar till 113 kronor per aktie (95 kronor).

Redeye Bolagsanalys 25 juli

Silver Wheaton CEO tror botten nådd

Smallwood said in the interview:

"I put more faith in the gold side mostly because so much silver is produced as a byproduct. Only about 25 percent of silver actually comes from silver mines. Having silver mines shut down doesn’t really have that big of an overall impact because so much of silver still gets produced as a byproduct no matter what the price of silver is. So we tend to look at gold from that perspective more than silver."

"And when I see mines shutting down because they can’t work at $1,250 gold, or $1,300 gold, more expansion projects being cancelled or deferred, that tells me that we have hit a bottom. The supply side is just not there. And once you see tightening on the supply side that puts price pressure on the commodity. There are all sorts of other factors, but having that price pressure sure helps. I do think it indicates we are at a bottom."

Google TV

Google TV släpps i ny tappning

Av Michael Jenselius +

Nya uppgifter pekar på att den nya dongeln Chromecast endast var början då Google uppges arbeta på en förbättrad version av sin tv-box.

I onsdags visade Google upp den nya tv-dongeln Chromecast som låter användarna strömma ljud och bild från flera olika webbtjänster till en tv-apparat. Chromecast styrs med en smartphone eller surfplatta som kör Android.

En rapport i Wall Street Journal i går avslöjar dock att Chromecast endast är en del i ny strategi från Google. Enligt källor som talat med Wall Street Journal kommer den tidigare satsningen på Google TV att få ett rejäl ansiktslyft med stöd för både video kamera och en rörelsesensor likt Microsofts Kinect.

Googles chef för Android och Chrome, Sundar Pichai, meddelade i en intervju att den nya versionen av Google TV att bli en ”komplett Android-lösning för tv-apparater”. Han ville dock inte avslöja några tekniska detaljer kring den nya versionen av företagets tv-box.

Sundar Pichai uppger inte något datum för när den uppdaterade versionen av Google TV kommer att bli tillgänglig, men hoppas kunna visa upp en rad samarbetspartners på CES-mässan nästa år.