This week's biggest winner was gold stocks, up 3.9%, followed by cotton and copper, which rose 2.9% and 2.2% respectively. The biggest drop was in Bitcoin, down 4.6%, followed by crude oil which lost 3.7%. Government currencies, stocks, and short term bonds were all down slightly for the week, while long term bonds gained 1.0%.
This week the markets were almost all lower, with Japanese stocks, copper and crude oil seeing the largest declines. The only rising market was gold stocks, which managed a 2.7% gain.
This week saw rallies in Coffee and Cotton, and a decline in Copper and long term bonds.
Bitcoin continues to hold at a fairly high level despite the failure of Mt Gox, once the largest Bitcoin exchange, but recently marginalized by problems with withdrawals of bitcoins and government currencies. It will be interesting to see what the underlying causes of these difficulties turn out to be – fraud, technical difficulties, hacker attacks, or something else entirely. In the meantime, the rest of the world's exchanges continue to operate smoothly. One of the key advantages of Bitcoin is that the users act as their own banks: there is no need to trust third parties to hold your money! By keeping your funds in your own wallet, you eliminate the risk of a third part failure like that of Mt. Gox.
Filed under Banking, Bitcoin, Bonds, Coffee, Commodities by 
Over the last week, and over the last month, assets have followed the same basic pattern: stocks mostly higher and currencies, bonds, and commodities mostly lower. Bitcoin has been the biggest winner by far, rising 29% in the last week and 179% over the last month. In addition to the fast rising price, global trading patterns are shifting as well. Read more below.
Markets were almost all higher this week, with only the HUI gold stocks losing ground. Bitcoin and the Japanese Nikkei stocks gained more than any other asset classes. The USD and JPY the strongest of the government-issued currencies. On Friday I was a guest on Power Trading Radio with John O'Donnell. We talk about stocks, housing, income, and discuss our forecasts for the price of gold. Check it out!
Filed under Bitcoin, Bonds, Coffee, Commodities, Cotton, Dow Jones Industrials, EUR, Euro, Platinum, price of gold, S&P 500, Silver, Stocks, US Dollar by
Markets were mostly higher this week, with government currencies, bonds and commodities all up while stocks were mixed and Bitcoin was slightly lower. The Japanese Yen gained more than any other asset class, while the HUI mining stocks lost the most ground.
Markets were mixed this week, with currencies and bonds mostly higher while stocks and commodities were mostly lower. Bitcoin gained more than any other asset class, while silver lost the most ground.
Markets were mostly lower this week. Bitcoin and crude oil fell more than any other asset classes, while silver was the biggest winner. Copper and the Nikkei stocks were the only other assets in the black.
Markets were mostly lower this week. Bitcoin gained more than any other asset class, while gold stocks showed the greatest losses. Silver and long term bonds were the only other assets in the black.
This was a mixed week for everything but government issued currencies, which were all lower. Bitcoin gained more than any other asset class, while cotton and coffee showed the greatest losses. Precious metals gained slightly, and gold stocks were unchanged. This assessment is based on the London PM fix; if the New York close was used instead, most prices given would be about 1.5% lower, and every asset class but silver and Bitcoin would be in the red for the week.
Filed under Bitcoin, Bonds, Coffee, Commodities, Cotton, Dow Jones Industrials, EUR, Euro, gold prices, Platinum, price of gold, S&P 500, Silver, Stocks, US Dollar by
