It is hard to see how the twice-daily gold fix can survive.

The most common of all misconceptions today is that a weakening currency is fundamental to a healthy economy, or put another way, a strong currency is economically destructive.

Technical analysis is a tool for idle investors unwilling or unable to understand true value.

This week started with a severe markdown in gold and silver prices when markets opened in the Far East on Monday morning, taking gold down $12 to $1278 and silver only 12 cents to $19.03.

The credit cycle that normally drives advanced economies through boom and bust is turning out to be different this time round.

Many decades of Keynesian-inspired economic and monetary corruption have left advanced economies with a legacy of debt and low savings.

It wasn’t meant to be like this: six years of global money-printing should have guaranteed economic recovery.

The ability of western central banks to bail out bullion banks in the future is compromised by the emptiness of their vaults.

Analysis of the detail discovered in historic information in the context of China’s gold strategy has allowed me for the first time to make reasonable estimates of vaulted gold, comprised of gold accounts at commercial banks, mine output and scrap.

The story that commodities are at the centre of China’s shadow banking system has gained prominence in recent weeks.

If a senior Russian politician cares to have another conversation with China over maximising turmoil on Wall Street, driving up the gold price is the obvious financial weapon of choice.

According to Garet Garrett in his book “A Bubble that Broke the World” Cheops employed 100,000 men for twenty years to build his great pyramid, “and all he had for 600,000,000 days of human labour was a frozen asset.”