the calm... before the storm...

Good morning and welcome to a Terrific Tuesday! Last evening I received an email asking where the daily Precious Metal Musings had gone. I wrote back telling him that gold had been trading for the past month in the tightest range it’s seen since 2013. From my cheap seat, precious metals have gone into "sleep mode." There's just nothing to write about. Sugarloaf greeted me this morning with their 1970 hit, "Green-Eyed Lady.”

So yesterday I watched the New York Spot Prices rebound again. This time, gold closed up $3.00 settling in at $1,277.90, Silver was up $0.18 to $17.04, and Platinum closed up $4.00 at $931. In early morning trading gold has lost $2.90, silver is down $0.07, and platinum is even. I should have awoken to Blood, Sweat, and Tears "Spinning Wheel" with the ups and downs of this market.

In other news, the Dow closed up yesterday 17.49 to 23,439.70, and the dollar was up against the basket of world currencies except for the British Pound, Hong Kong Dollar, and Russian Ruble.

Since restarting Precious Metal Musing in August, we’ve watched gold, silver, and platinum prices stagnant and the market going nowhere fast. So yesterday evening, after receiving the email from my reader, I was perusing my regular sites when I found an interesting article on Bloomberg Markets. I immediately began to dig deeper and uncover an avalanche of material worth sharing.

The article from Bloomberg Markets, “Dalios’s Bridgewater Boosts Gold Holdings in SPDR, iShares” is focused on the world’s largest hedge fund – Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates.

As of the end of September, Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, had boosted its holdings in SPDR Gold Shares almost seven-fold, and more than tripled its stake on iShares Gold Trust, a regulatory filing showed Monday.

Hedge funds and other investors poured a combined $672 million last quarter into SPDR Gold, the largest exchange-traded fund backed by bullion, and $764 million into iShares Gold.

Did you just sit back and take pause? I mean, when someone like Ray Dalio recommends investors have 10% of their portfolio in precious metals and then invests almost $1.5 billion in the yellow metal, he must see risks that we don’t. Sure, there are political, economic, and environmental factors influencing the markets; however, there doesn’t seem to be anything visible on the horizon. But then, most folks don’t act – they react, and that’s what makes Ray so successful!

In other news, Turkey has gone on a gold-buying spree that I think is worth mentioning. According to the World Gold Council, Turkey’s central bank has purchased 30.4 metric tonnes of gold during the third quarter of this year. This makes Turkey #2 in gold buying this year. Further, Bloomberg reports Turkish citizens have bought 47 tons of gold coins and bars in 2017. Up from 14.8 metric tonnes in the same period last year.

Folks, all of this buying has occurred basically in the last 120 days or so while we watched the metals bounce around and do nothing. This was while our government and news media try to keep us fixated on Trump and Clinton conspiracies or on Hollywood and government salaciousness. I think we (the U.S. and world) have some serious issues that people the likes of Ray Dalio and even countries such as Turkey see. Don’t allow the media to get your attention off the ball. Focus…and invest as if your life depends on it. It does!

Well, I’ll let that be it for today. Go out there and make a difference! See ya’ll later!

*Disclaimer: Precious Metal Musings™ is written for entertainment and news purposes only and should not be used in making purchases and/or sales of precious metals.