The elections must be over, because last year was the first year in my trading career that the price of crude oil was suppressed during the summer, when oil demand is at its peak, and is now rising steadily, knocking on the door of $100 once again. Is the anti-crude President, who screeches about "global warming" in his SOTU addresses and threatens to circumvent both Congress and the Constitution if they don't pander to his dictatorial wishes, still in office? Apparently so, because now that he has been "reselected", the fires of inflation are raging to fervent heat levels once again! Crude bottomed on December 12th, and has been rising steadily ever since!
from Zero Hedge:
Hard assets are gaining momentum once again as market participants digest the potential impact of central bank printing initiatives. After last year's record level of central bank intervention, 2013 is gearing up to be an even more prolific year on the money-printing front. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently unveiled Japan's tenth Quantitative Easing program to follow the country's current $224 billion stimulus announced on January 11th. The US Federal Reserve is steadily printing US$85 billion a month under its QE3 & QE4 programs, and reports indicate that the European Central Bank is close to launching its much-awaited Open Market Transaction (OMT) program to purchase European sovereign debt. It's a money-printing party and everyone's invited. Even the new Bank of England head, Mark Carney, has hinted of plans to launch more monetary stimulus. Professional investors have noticed and are expressing concern over the consequences of concerted currency devaluation and the continuation of zero-percent interest rates. Despite being long-time precious metals enthusiasts and active investors in gold and silver, we did not focus on "the other precious metals", platinum or palladium, until very recently.