Phantasmix Stock Market Blog

Somewhat cynical, but pretty sure I’m not unique with this line of thinking:
The level of destruction in Japan can be compared to after-war conditions.
Which should be a boon to the economy, in a most basic sense. Everything has to be re-built. All raw materials should go up. And whoever makes bulldozers will benefit (Toyota?).

As for 75% of the rice fields being flooded, it shouldn’t have a huge effect on rice prices, at least outside Japan. They only produce about 5% of world’s rice: not much land there.

• Donate to Canadian Red Cross

• Japanese live TV in English

• Japanese construction stocks surge

Here’s a 3-year daily chart showing that even when the U.S. dollar went up temporarily, the gold kept creeping higher. It’s in a bull market, you see.

And check out the lines I drew. Price is in an uptrending channel, and has room to run.

I won’t be making any claims as to the extent of the up move in precious metals. Just watching the currency policies in the U.S. and reserve the right to change my opinion at any time.

In the chart: $USD US Dollar index, GLD gold ETF. Black line is GLD.
Click to enlarge

If Wikipedia is to be believed, then “The average gold/silver ratio during the 20th century was 1:47″.

As of today

Gold spot $1,432  :  Silver spot $34 = 42:1.
Not too out of whack.

But what’s really interesting, until mid 19th century (confirmed with sources other than Wiki) the average ratio was 16, which translates into $87.50 silver price today.

Historical gold/silver ratio