The Following Article was originally posted on CoinWeek.com on March 13, 2013 8:56 PM

Jim Kingsland passed on Thursday, March 7, 2013. He was forty-nine years old. His funeral was held in New City, New York, on Monday, March 11. In addition to being a coin collector, Jim was an influential journalist and financial analyst in the New York Metropolitan area. He was also the author of a book on “Coin and Precious Metal Values,” which was published in 2010 by Random House.

As it is clear enough that his family is very saddened by Jim’s death, it makes sense here to provide some background regarding his career and his ties to the coin collecting community. Most collectors are not aware that Kingsland was a force in the mainstream media for coverage of news events that related to rare coins or bullion.

I am glad that I had the opportunity to meet Kingsland and talk to him about matters relating to rare coins, writing and broadcast journalism. I did not, though, know him well. Scott Travers had a long professional relationship and personal friendship with Jim. Travers is the author of a perennial best seller, The Coin Collector’s Survival Manual, and other books.

Travers was extremely familiar with Kingsland’s radio show on an AM channel in the New York area. “Maurice Rosen, PCGS founder David Hall, CoinAge editor Ed Reiter, Barry Stuppler, David Ganz, Greysheet publisher Shane Downing, and ANA President Tom Hallenbeck all participated in Jim Kingsland’s popular, live radio show that reached eleven million listeners in the Middle Atlantic States,” Travers declares.

Maurice Rosen recollects that “my fondest memories of Jim were when we were co-speakers at coin convention educational events. I was always impressed with his keen knowledge of the precious metals markets and the economic, monetary and political factors influencing their prices. Jim was a rising star in numismatics; it’s tremendously sad his ascent was cut short.”

John Albanese, the founder of the CAC and the primary founder of CoinPlex, remembers Kingsland. “Even before Jim worked for CoinPlex, I listened to his radio show. He was an expert in gold bullion markets and knowledgeable about financial markets in general.”

Travers emphasizes that “Kingsland was an important voice in the coin community.” Indeed, Scott points out that “Jim was an essential conduit between the coin industry and global media outlets. With just a phone call, he could get [coin related] news on major TV new shows.” Travers reveals. He had important positions with Bloomberg, CNBC and Fox.

“Kingsland’s first important position was at Bloomberg,” Travers notes. “Mike Bloomberg had hired him away from 1010 WINS [radio station]. Kingsland assisted in the launching of the extremely successful Bloomberg terminal for financial services. Later, Kingsland was [instrumental] in having coins and other collectibles listed on the Bloomberg terminal. In the early 1990s, Mike Bloomberg introduced him to me,” Scott fondly recollects.

After Kingsland bravely battled serious illnesses, John Albanese offered him a job. “He worked for CoinPlex during our formative stages and helped us get off the ground. Jim will be missed,” John says.

Travers remembers Kingsland’s collecting activities. “He collected silver dollars because they are large and easy to grade. He had problems with his eyesight.”

“Towards the end of his career, Jim became a field producer and the webmaster for Fox Business Network,” Scott adds. Kingsland continued to be a force “behind the scenes,” who often had coin collectors in mind.

©2013 Greg Reynolds

As Written on 1/20/13
Greetings everyone!

First, I remain hospitalized with liver and kidney failure. this commentary will be brief and may contain some typos and some punctuation errors.

so here we are, already half way thru January with a gold price in the $1680 range. I am actually pleased to see gold at this level. The naysayers have been wrong about an imminent collapse for gold and other metals.

The financial world is ever more levered up with debt. A majority of Americans realize that government spending, the financial gods pay no attention to the people; the printing and budget less, reckless spending remains the objective of the financial psychopaths.

These negative financial factors IMHO will only mean a stronger gold price. I think the dollar will suffer due to the consequences from what is going on durjhing the paradigm we find ourselves in.

I often do not comment on silver. Until the CME lowers margins further, silver will move more slowly to the upside in my opinion.

Have a great day!

Jim Kingsland is off today due to illness. If you haven’t, please be sure to watch this video.

Gold may be weak again due to year end selling pressure, but its bull market remains intact.

Goldcore has graciously given CAMI permission to put its educational video about gold on the CAMI site.

This is definitely worth a watch. If the pace is too fast, use the players pause button to read the information more slowly. If the music is not your style, turn the volume down. I like both the pace and the music. This is a well done presentation!

12/10/12

Japan has slid into recession, China’s exports are weaker than expected, Europe remains Europe and whether the Fiscal Cliff leads to a constitutional crisis over the debt ceiling are but a brief laundry list for investors to contend with. Stock futures are flat to a bit lower and a stronger bid has come back to gold futures.Not to sound like a broken record, but Fiscal Cliff developments and other headlines will have the greatest impact on markets.

Technicals matter too, I realize, but they do not predict sudden events, though I fully recognize that technicals can play an important role in measuring the potential length of a move within the markets. Apple, for example, is a curiosity with it’s so called death cross chart pattern formation. $500 would not be a surprise, but it won’t happen in a day.

A few weeks back I had noted that if gold weakened $1675 looked to be a bottoming point. It had moved very close to that area last week. It’s climb bach above 1700 is a positive, but year end weakness could persist if gold has trouble again with the 1730 to 1750 range.

A Gold Video

This is the video of the year. This is the gold bullion vault of the Bank of England. A Chemist (University of Nottingham’s chemistry Professor Martyn Poliakoff)  gives the tour. It’s a must watch from the perspective of seeing the amount of gold in storage.

Published on Dec  7, 2012 via Youtube

12/6/12

Goldman and Gold

They’ve become bearish on gold at Goldman Sachs. From its report:

“Improving US growth outlook offsets further Fed easing
Our economists forecast that the US economic recovery will slow early in 2013 before reaccelerating in the second half. They also expect additional expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet. Near term, the combination of more easing and weaker growth should prove supportive to gold prices. Medium term however, the gold outlook is caught between the opposing forces of more Fed easing and a gradual increase in US real rates on better US economic growth. Our expanded modeling suggests that the improving US growth outlook will outweigh further Fed balance sheet expansion and that the cycle in gold prices will likely turn in 2013. Risks to our growth outlook remain elevated however, especially given the uncertainty around the fiscal cliff, making calling the peak in gold prices a difficult exercise.”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/goldman-calls-the-end-of-the-gold-bull-market-2012-12#ixzz2EIAdzVtj

Jim again: Believable if the economy does strengthen 2^nd half of next year.  Eventually there will be a turn in this cyle of economic malaise, but with the Fed saying it’s on hold through 2014, a strong 2^nd half 2013 is hard to fathom at this point.

The Tax Man Cometh

Notices from payroll departments to employees are starting to go out. It goes something like this:

“Important changes to your tax withholding amounts effective January 1, 2013

The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 that was signed into law in December 2010 will expire on December 31, 2012. What this means to you:

· The temporary 2% cut in employee Social Security withholding (from 6.2% to 4.2%) effective on January 1, 2011, will expire, and the rate will change back to 6.2%.

· The Social Security wage base is increasing from $110,100 to $113,700, resulting in the maximum tax being increased from $4,624.20 to $7,049.40.

· In addition, the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act of 2010 increases the Medicare part A payroll tax by 0.9% (from 1.45% to 2.35%) for all income above $200,000.
Other possible changes effective January 1, 2013:

Tax-related provisions of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) also are set to expire on December 31, 2012 impacting Federal Income Tax withholding. What this means:

· The 10% income tax bracket is eliminated; the lowest bracket will be 15%. The top four brackets will change as shown below. To:

25% to 28%
28% to 31%
33% to 36%
35% to 39.6%

· Optional flat rate tax on Supplemental Wages up to $1 million in a year increases from 25% to 28%.

· Mandatory flat rate on Supplemental Wages over $1 million in a year increases from 35% to 39.6%.

The information above reflects the legislation currently in effect. If the laws change, we will send an update as early as possible in January 2013.”

Jim Again: This yet another indicator of just how money hungry the Federal government has become and it’s only going to get worse.  This is not about taxing just the so called “rich”. Everyone is going to take a hit – don’t be fooled.

Let’s face it, the country has already gone over the fiscal cliff and has managed to catch hold of a branch sticking out from the cliff. But the branch is about to give way to deeper and darker fiscal abyss.

The biggest misconception ever is playing out before our eyes. The Washington insiders want you think that their games involving raising taxes and reducing spending  will ultimately solve our fiscal woes and all will live happily ever after. If both sides reach an agreement by the end of the year, it will merely be a pennies on the dollar salve to a problem that over the next 20 years is actually $100 trillion in size when future liabilities for Social Security, Medicare and other government programs are factored in. It’s as if most fail to grasp the true size and scope, or what is really at stake. Even in the realm of trillions of dollars, should the present negotiations bear 1.6 trillion in enhanced revenue and a piecemeal $400 billion in cuts (as proposed by Obama),  those targeted amounts are nothing when compared to the overall size of snowballing government costs that will be unrelenting until the last of the baby boomers are dead.

Related: IRS finalizes new tax for medical devices in healthcare law http://reut.rs/Vnq81V via @reuters

What’s The Solution?

Your Federal government can only do patches to its very leaky fiscal dam.

The solution could lie in what I like to call “the Next Big Thing”. Unfortunately, the next big thing could come a bit too late. Goldman Sachs recently noted the U.S. could become energy independent by the end of the decade.

Read more  here: http://www.goldmansachs.com/gsam/docs/fundsgeneral/general_education/economic_and_market_perspectives/ps_us-energy-revolution-tpd.pdf

Others say the U.S. could even become a dominating energy exporter by the end of the decade which would enable the country to regain the upper trading hand vs China and other countries who are dependent on oil imports.  I also believe that Biotech could deliver a game changing surprise by way of a cure for a major disease that could tremendously boost the cash flow (wealth) of the nation.

New innovation had better come sooner rather than later. It is clear to me that the approach of higher taxes, spending cuts and ever increasing debt only puts the country deeper into the hole and comes up woefully short. Right now, the outlook for the economy looks very bad, but a real Next Big Thing could come to the rescue.

Yes, history does rhyme and not all history lessons have bad outcomes. The bozos in Washington have no solutions. It’s the innovators across the fruited plain who will come up with the solutions, not the political tripe.  

–

12/5/12

Jim Kingsland is off today due to illness. If you haven’t, please be sure to watch this video.

Gold may be weak again due to year end selling pressure, but its bull market remains intact.

Goldcore has graciously given CAMI permission to put its educational video about gold on the CAMI site.

This is definitely worth a watch. If the pace is too fast, use the players pause button to read the information more slowly. If the music is not your style, turn the volume down. I like both the pace and the music. This is a well done presentation!

Best,
Jim K

12/3/12

First things first. Our sympathies to the family and friends of Johnathan Auerbach. From the NY Times:

JONATHAN L. AUERBACH

AUERBACH–Jonathan L., beloved husband and father, international businessman and avid supporter of the arts, died November 29 in New York City. He was 70 years old. Jonathan is survived by his wife, Annie Luce, and his four children, Gabrielle, Jake, Nick and Sasha, his father Joseph Auerbach, and sister Hope Pym. He was a founder and managing director of Auerbach Grayson& Company, which provides international securities research, execution and settlement for U.S.institutions. The firm, which he started in 1993, was the capstone of a career in international securities trading and marketing that spanned more than 40 years. Jonathan was a graduate of Yale University. After his graduation from Yale he served in the U.S. Army. A multifaceted person with wide-ranging interests, Jonathan was involved in art, theater, film, environmental advocacy and vintage car road rallies. In May this year he took part in the Trans-America Rally in his 1951 Chrysler New Yorker, navigated by his son Jake, and they drove over 4000 miles from New York City to Vancouver. He also competed in several motoring events and rallies outside of Trans-America including the Mount Washington ‘Climb to the Clouds’ and the New Jersey ‘Vintage Grand Prix.’ He served in leadership roles at the Shakespeare GlobeCenter in the United States and the GlobeCenter in London, which he helped found. He produced the acclaimed underground film “Vortex,” which was selected for the New York Film Festival and other major festivals, and appeared in the film Belladonna, which premiered at the Whitney Biennale. Jonathan was also committed to providing opportunities for young people. He combined this passion with his love of international business by establishing a number of internship programs that gave students the opportunity to participate in the development of capital markets in emerging countries. He also started a scholarship fund at his alma mater, Noble and Greenough School, in Dedham, MA, to provide assistance primarily for students from emerging markets. He also served as a trustee of the Dwight School. Jonathan had a deep affinity forAfrica as a developing nation. His friendship with conservationist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Wangari Maathai inspired him to support the Green Belt Movement with a reforestation project in the Machakos District of Kenya. Memorial service to take place in January.

Published in The New York Times on December 2, 2012

 A Sandy thought: Over 300k cars lost in the hurricane. Expect better sales numbers in the near term for autos.

Wall Street

No one in the fiscal cliff saga lobbed any nuclear bombs on the Sunday tv talk show circuit. Yes, the treasury secretary seems very confident that the republicans will go along with tax increase. The republican rhetoric presented a countenance of surly defiance. At at the end of the day both parties feed themselves from the same financial trough and are likely not to allow the country to go over the cliff (read 11^th hr agreement) because it would hurt the DC elite as much as the pesky people of the country.

The prevailing winds in Washington are also starting to give a whiff of the pungent odor of taking the debt ceiling responsibility away from Congress to the relief of those sissy’s in Washington. Why have limits? We are in the realm of relativism – do whatever you want. This would fit perfectly into society.

I see market upside potential if they get through the fiscal cliff and the separate issue of the debt ceiling.

Though one should be aware of technicals. The Three Peaks and  a Dome chart pattern is showing up again. In this environment, it is not advisable to married to any direction (long, short) and instead to be nimble. Hedging, very important.

 Gold

People are buying gold: Last 30 days have seen the largest physical gold sales on record. Interesting.. http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2012/11-2/20121201_Gold.png …

Oopps: Austrian central bank inadvertently reveals that they are leasing out most of their goldhttp://goo.gl/2Ptzr

The active contract for Gold at the COMEX is now the February contract as of today.

U.S. Gold Coins Set For Strongest November Sales In 14 Years http://bit.ly/YpyPAG

How Gold Fields Got Rid Of 90% Of Its South African Workers Without Firing Anyone http://bit.ly/YpA6rA

11/23/12

Tis the season! Thus far not too much Black Friday mayhem, or at least no trampling deaths reported.

Still… WATCH: People fight over phones on Black Friday | National News http://radio.woai.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=104668&article=10591459.  The video could be used as evidence that Darwin was wrong and that devolution is occurring, at least among the surplus population witnessed in that video. LOL.

That video shows utter chaos and if you watch carefully there was no police intervention. At my local Wal Mart and in a nearby Target I’m told the police were on hand and things went relatively smoothly (here in upstate NY).

As I mentioned earlier in the week, a good showing of retail sales numbers from Black Friday weekend will be a sentiment booster and would be helpful to a Santa rally effort. We shall see. What one observer told me of a midnight opening at a nearby Target (here in lovely upstate NY) is that there was an initial burst of activity from the long line that formed ahead of time. People weren’t there to browse. They bought what they wanted to buy and left.  The busiest part of the store was the electronics department, but I am told even that department quieted down within an hour.

Wall Street’s is in happy mode for now thanks in part to some dollar index weakness.

Wall Street closes at 1 pm ET today.

Gold is up $4. RELATED:  Gold, Silver Advance on Investment Demand as Dollar Drops http://bloom.bg/Tf8NJh via @BloombergNews

Lots of headlines out of Europe. Bottom Line: Budget chiefs are deadlocked with the usual divisions between rich and poor countries. The EU apparently would like to spend larger amounts of money over the 7 year span of the budget. Merkel says it’s likely an accord won’t reached until early in 2013.

–

11/22/12

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for each of you, my dear readers.

Yesterday I commented about what has kept a lid on gold relative to predictions at the start of the year for $2,000 gold. To put what I wrote about yesterday more succinctly, gold slowed down a bit this year to consolidate 10 years worth of gains.  I have also felt that there has been a high drag coefficient placed on gold by the Powers That Be to keep gold rising more rapidly and betraying the financial paper system for what it is: a black hole that will consume itself. Thus far this year, gold is up another 10% so there has been no complete stop to gold.  

A New Gold Standard on the Horizon?

I am starting to come around to thinking that $2,000 gold may become an attainable target for the price bulls during the 1^st half of 2013. With new international banking regulations on the way (through the Basel Committee for Bank Supervision)  with the coming new year, gold’s standing in banking will be catapulted to a Tier 1 asset, or cash equivalent from a Tier 3 assets. This means that banks can lend 100% against their gold reserves versus 50% which has made gold useless to banks.

While short of an all out gold standard, this is a leap towards it. For the gold-killjoys out there who will have to admit that gold does have use (including Warren Buffett), they will refer to it (and actually have to refer to it) as a re-monitization of the “barbarous relic” known to them as gold. For those of us who have always seen gold’s full potential and have understood its past, it’s only natural that a sworn enemy to gold (eg. the banking system) would have to come crawling back to gold. LOL. I find that so funny and soooo sumptuosly ironic. But I shall contain myself.

I have written about this before and I am a bit surprised that gold is not above present levels given that  demand for gold would likely increase with the new banking rules a little more than a month away.

Banks need a new form of “good” collateral and gold is it. Gold is gold. It can’t be replicated, it is uniberally recognized as a store of value. Banks also need to strengthen their balance sheets. Gold would work in favor of banks by backstopping equity capital, debt, etc.  

Let’s also not forget that by going Tier 1, gold would be viewed as a stalwart safe haven agent vs U.S. treasurys which back investors into a negative yield dimension.

Still there are unanswered questions, but we will know more soon enough. My top question – are the banks accumulating gold now at relatively low prices under the radar?

–

11/21/12

Frustrated Wall Street Bears

Yesterday had to be a big disappointment for the Wall Street bears. Ben Bernanke admitted that none of his Fed magic will come to the rescue in the fiscal cliff saga. The market became unhinged for a time on Tuesday before climbing back to a finishing close only 7 points below where it had left off at the close on Monday following a 200 point rise. This remains the stock market the bears are, at least for now, incapable of killing even with a bevy of worries. To add insult to injury to the bears, seasonality may play a helpful role in pushing stocks a bit higher this week.

Technically, the stock market is above the 200 day moving average – a positive.

Psychologically, Wall Street attracts money flow to this day as investors in the worldwide investing asylum see Wall Street as a little less insane than other market venues.

I don’t write these things as a bullish treatise because I am not all that bullish, but it does no good to fight the prevailing winds. The trend is your friend, even if that trend has recently been both up and down.

I see what happens on Wall Street as important and related to all over markets.  A complete loss of confidence on Wall Street would signal the potential for declines in other asset classes. Wall Street staying near or close to present levels of its key indices is an important barometer to gauge whether the Powers That Be are losing their control. Propping the stock market ought to be one of the easier things for the PTB to do. IF the stock market were to suffer a crash, that would be attention grabbing and a bad sign, but so far the PTB has kept the bears to a dull growl. The recent downdraft looks to be a combination of macro worries and a simple controlled release of hot air in the stock market balloon. If this changes, then it will be time to have a different sort of conversation. I am in the camp expecting to see Wall Street grind higher, with the usual bumps, for the rest of the year – though I could change my mind tomorrow should circumstances unexpectedly change.

GOLD COMMENT

At the beginning of the year I declined to jump on the $2k gold bandwagon. This game is serious business involving worldwide central banks and governments and not merely a proposition of pithy little predictions about where said asset will be priced. Until everyone is on the same page with respect to coming to terms with dying fiat currency (the end of dollar hegemony), or even a return to the gold standard, the gold bulls will be fighting formidable foes in the form of the establishment that benefits from paper currency. Granted, there are extremely encouraging signs for gold  as it is returning to financial dominance in the form of its increased use as collateral and its soon to be reclassification as a banking Tier 1 asset, but I am still not expecting $2,000+ gold to come without a fight. $2k and up will be a sort of Rubicon that once crossed will mark an acceleration to paper money collapse.  The timing of this is unknown, but I would bet it will happen within my lifetime, and who knows how long that will be if I am subject to collapsing on the floor in supermarkets at the ripe old age of 48!

While I realize the hedge funds have been lining up shorts in the paper markets, I see a gradual move higher for gold the rest of this year. For gold to rally over $200 an ounce to make it $2000 this year? That seems iffy. A series of unfortunate events will have to happen for that to occur, imho. Not Impossible, but very iffy at this point.

Anyway, my whole “thing” with gold is to buy physical gold and not as a price gamble, but as a financial insurance hedge. Unless you are buying thousands of ounces of gold at a time, it’s not worth it to trade a lot of bullion coins to capitalize on price movement. That’s what paper gold plays are for. No sales pitch here: but this remains an outstanding time to buy $20 U.S. pre 1933 gold pieces with very little premium over melt.

Most U.S. markets will be closed tomorrow, but open for business on Friday. FOREX is tradable through the week.  

Have a Thanksgiving!