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When Did Housing Bubble Burst

Gold since the beginning of recorded time has been viewed as the one true currency. Ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians, Persians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans all had gold as the one true currency in their monetary systems. While fiat money systems have come and gone gold has stood the test of time. Even Christopher Columbus was seeking to trade for gold when he founded the new world. Why was gold so heavily sought after? What is so special about this metal that men are willing to die for it and economies collapse when they leave it as the standard.

In 2000 when the technology bubble burst and the birth of a new bear market began gold was trading under $300 an ounce. The Federal Reserve Bank, then lead by Alan Greenspan, began to lower interest rates and gold began to rise. Even as the stock market seemed to recover in 2003 gold continued to move higher trading around $400 an ounce. As the housing market boom began gold just kept moving higher and has never stopped. It seems gold was signaling to world that another bubble and bust was in the making. In 2007, when the next great phase or perhaps the second bear campaign was beginning gold traded at just over 1000 an ounce. This metal or so called currency was up over 300 percent since Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan began lowering the Fed funds rate to 1 percent and giving birth to the housing boom. Could another bubble be in the making? Could this be a repeat of the recent past (2000-2007) as the current Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke has lowered rates to zero and gold has soared to new all-time highs trading at $1049 an ounce as of the close on October 9th 2009? This time, however, the housing market has not reacted as it did in 2002-2003 and the unemployment picture is much different this time around as well.

Where does the U.S. Dollar fit into this picture? The dollar has steadily declined since the 2000 stock market bust. It is now very close to it's 2008 low again when oil traded as high as $147 a barrel. Currently oil is traded around $72 a barrel and has been very volatile since it's recent peak of $89 a barrel. Is it possible that the market is still fighting a deflationary picture? Everywhere we turn we hear about the inflationary scenario being painted in the media. Perhaps the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve bank would actually prefer inflation and are actually trying to create it. If inflation takes over then the Federal Reserve Bank could simply raise interest rates to solve the problem. Can the world survive another dose of the same remedy that Alan Greenspan prescribed in 2001? What if this is not even the same illness?

What if this is a fight against deflation? Japan is still fighting deflation from the late 1980's. At the peak of the Japanese economy the Nikkei stock market index was trading near 40,000 and today it is at 10,000. It was even lower before the recent global coordinated stimulus plan and has never even retraced 50 percent of what it lost since the late 80's decline. Please understand that that was 20 years ago since their deflationary economic spiral began. The one thing that probably saved the Japanese people from a much worst personal economic environment was that they had a high savings rate and very low debt. This is something that the people in the United States do not have. They simply have the opposite. They have very little savings and are drowning in debt. On top of that they have a government that tells them to go out and spend too.

So while we hear about the great recovery that is taking place all over the world our friend gold is telling us a different story. Yes, gold could be due for a pullback in the near term as it is getting very crowded with speculators at it's new all-time trading high price. However, it is signaling the warning signs of something that is not healthy with this new stimulus, bailout, or whatever else you want to title it. Whether it is inflation or deflation that is on the horizon gold is telling us to watch out.

Nicholas Santiago,
Chief Market Strategist
www.InTheMoneyStocks.com

About the Author:

Nicholas Santiago started trading in 1991. In 1997, he became a licensed Series 7 and 63 registered representative. He managed money for a large, affluent private client group. After applying his knowledge to his client base, he decided it was time to begin teaching those interested in learning his methods. He is an expert in Technical Analysis. He has become an accomplished technician in the studies of Elliot Wave, Gann Theory, Dow Theory and Cycle Theory. In 2007, he partnered with Gareth Soloway to form InTheMoneyStocks.Com and realize his dream of educating others about the truth of the markets.

Source - What Are The New Highs For Gold Telling Us?

What did I do First? Real Estate Investing Flipping Houses Wholesaling

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Japan Housing Bubble Chart

The reaction of mainstream analysts to the events of last spring and summer was as amusing as it was predictable. As soon as commodity and metals prices weakened, they were out in droves, tut tutting and warning the great unwashed that we had seen the top of the cycle. They patiently explained to those too dim to

understand their market insights (which included us, I suppose) that the "abnormal" commodity markets were coming to an end and the "bubble" had burst.

It is to laugh. These articles did not surprise me. Many of the best known market strategists and market generalists have not understood this cycle from day one. Anyone who makes even a cursory study of commodity markets could see that there was something very different about the current cycle. The opinion of many commentators and business journalists is that most commodities, but especially metals and energy have not been acting in a "predictable" fashion. Their definition of predictable is a short cycle that passes through phases of under production, shortage, price increases, production scale up, oversupply and price collapse.

This cycle is not different from all others; it's just different from the garden variety economic boom and bust cycle. It actually looks pretty normal so far compared to past secular commodity bull markets. Those don't come along very often. There have only been a couple true secular commodity cycles in the past century prior to this one. So generalists can be forgiven for gloating about the demise of the "old economy sector", even if its based on an ignorance of the data.

The generalist view was based solely on the strength and speed of the up move this spring. They believe that it had to be a bubble because things moved too fast. There is some truth to this view. The momentum buying -and selling- they exhibited was scary. Scary enough in fact that i think it influenced the world's major central banks. There were real concerns about inflation and the economies of both Europe and Japan were accelerating quicker than expected. I think central bankers were also worried about markets getting carried away by speculative money their loose monetary policies created. In response, central bankers sucked an enormous amount of liquidity out of the system in the second quarter. That led to a lot of trades, especially leveraged hedge fund trades, getting unwound. That is where most of the selling came from in commodities and emerging markets. Keep in mind that in most commodity and futures markets the speculative money far outweighs the trades of "real" suppliers and buyers. It always has and it always will. That didn't make the nose dives less real or painful. Nor does it mean that buyers won't use the price cuts to advantage. It does mean the price drops were driven at least as much by trading considerations as by supply and demand. They were trades. There have been no mountains of copper or nickel or lakes of crude oil appearing in front of NYMEX or the London Metal Exchange. Where inventories changed at all in the past two months is has been to the downside. The cycle is intact and supply still needs to catch up to demand in most metals. As long as synchronized growth in North America, Europe, Japan and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) continues, the balance between supply and demand will be tight. This did not change just because traders saw bearish chart signals. It's worth noting that metals that do not have developed forward markets and that are not "traded" like tungsten, uranium and molybdenum did not see much of a down move in this period.

Some commodities may not exceed their May highs but most will. Oil already did thanks to political tensions and the start of hurricane season. Nickel already has thanks to tight supply and zinc probably will for the same reasons. Copper may not, but it will also not see prices anything like old cycle lows for a very long time, if ever. Silver, as we predicted, fell harder once an expected "ETF Lift-off' didn't materialize but it has bounced and started climbing. Gold has too. We still have inflation concerns. I'm very concerned about just how much drag the US housing market creates. Remember though, that one of the lasting changes from this cycles is that the US will be less dominant in most markets. It actually already is, but it will take time for traders to accept that. If the US can hold to a slower growth track without over shooting rates, the rest of the world can take up the slack and keep this party going for a while. If the Fed really is done the Euro and Yen in particular will keep gaining. This will add to the upward pressure on metals prices - especially gold and silver.

About the Author:

Place_foot of stockhideout.com Penny Stocks and Canadian Stocks Stock Message Board

Source - Gold Penny Stocks and Gold Canadian Stocks

Fine, Totally Fine - Japanese comedy - trailer NYAFF 2008

Housing Bubble Cartoons

Question: This is a bit of a long shot but does anyone remember the name of this kids programme?

It was about 1989 (ish) and it was about a little mouse type of thing who had a wizard friend who used to make dreams for all the kids in the village, and the dreams used to be kept in bubbles on shelves and then sent out at night to all the children in the world. There was a baddie on it too though who used to make nightmares and sometimes he'd swap the dreams for the nightmares and this little wizard helper would have to get to the nightmare and change it to a dream before it reached the kids! In the beginning and end credits the little character would float along a rainbow in one of the dream bubbles and it would pop just in time for him to fall at the door of the wizards house??? Oh it was in cartoon form by the way??? Please help its bugging me!!

Answer: I have spent ages trying, all I get is rubbish about the meaning of dreams, rainbows and how to get rid of mice.

CONFESSION 12: Confessions of an Independent Filmmake