Hi GWR, Mark O'Byrne is supporting Embry's claims from earlier today...

All the best - VHF

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Gold Investments Market Update − Premiums Soaring for Physical Bullion as Delayed Deliveries and Shortages Intensify Internationally

Tue, Oct 21 2008, 15:47 GMT
by Mark O'Byrne

Gold and Silver Investments Limited

COMEX gold continues to surprise to the downside despite the incredibly strong fundamentals of gold bullion itself with increasing shortages, delayed deliveries and premiums soaring for physical bullion in Asia, Europe, the US and internationally. Premiums have soared on smaller bullion products (from 1 ozt to 5 kilo gold bars) and look set to soon rise on the larger 100 and 400 ozt London Good Delivery gold bars.

Large investors and bullion dealers are now looking to take delivery of the December gold contract and there is likely to be a significant number of longs who stand for delivery leading to COMEX warehouses being depleted and the increasingly ridiculous COMEX price then surging in value.

The possible default of COMEX is even being considered by some astute observers. It is estimated that COMEX only have enough gold to deliver on some 10% of the outstanding contracts. October is not a delivery month so the December contract is being targeted. Some large money interests also realise the potential for sizeable profits from taking delivery of large gold and silver bars and melting them down into smaller bullion products for sale at far higher premiums. The COMEX December Gold option expiry is November 20 and there may be fireworks in the gold market soon after the election on November 4th in anticipation of far higher prices due to the incredibly strong supply and demand fundamentals.

Bernanke's proposed stimulus package shows that his helicopters are well and truly dumping dollars on America like confetti at a ticker tape parade. While this may be bullish for stock markets in the short and medium term it is likely to have serious ramifications for the dollar and the global monetary system in the coming months.

The public finances of the US are in a mess and deteriorating fast and now the country is formally committed to "unlimited" creation of dollars and the national debt is rising at an annual rate of 75 percent. This will result in far higher gold prices in all fiat currencies in the coming months.

While cash has been king in recent weeks, with government money printing and digital money creation out of control, it may well become trash in the coming months as the inflationary consequences of the US Federal Reserve and Treasury's huge gamble with the global monetary system is realised.

The humongous bailouts of hundreds of banks internationally will likely ultimately result in massive government deficits and bankruptcies for some western national governments.

All this in conjunction with the global derivatives market worth more than $516 trillion, (£303 trillion), roughly 10 times the value of every single person's, company's and country's economic output which has rightly been called a "ticking time-bomb" and "financial weapons of mass destruction" by the bizarrely bullish Buffet.