Gold has big year in 2020 and outlook for this year robust. Learn about monetary expansion and gold future prices.Read More

The gold futures price reached US$1,767/ounce this week before retreating, which was the second time it has surpassed US$1,760 in the past two months, marking some of gold's highest levels in several years.Read More

The Pipeline From Hell: There's No Good Reason to Build Keystone XL … No lasting jobs, no cheaper gas, and a chance to kill off one-fourth of U.S. farmland and maybe the planet. Why are both parties going all out to get such a crappy deal? The Senate will vote Tuesday on whether to authorize the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Republican-led House approved the initiative Fr...Read More

EU finance chief to announce capital market plan in 2015 … The EU's new financial services commissioner will set out his plans for a pan-European capital market by the middle of next year, aiming to reduce companies' reliance on banks and help revive the bloc's fragile economy. Jonathan Hill said on Thursday (7 November) he was seeking to create an integrated market for raising m...Read More

Fortune Investors buzz for marijuana-related businesses … Marijuana-related businesses are like most others: They need money to get off the ground, pay the bills and expand. Until recently, money from legitimate sources was tough to come by. But with more states legalizing pot, big investors are starting to open their wallets and fork over piles of cash. On Wednesday, a medical marijuana con...Read More

California County Quietly Votes For Independence From State and Federal Laws … Mendocino County, in the pristine northern lands of California, where the magnificent ancient coastal Redwood trees meet the inland California Oaks, has voted itself into the constitution writing (righting) business. … By a significant margin, they became the first county in California, and only the second c...Read More

Colombia Takes First Step To Regulate Marijuana Use … The regulation of the use of marijuana for medical purposes was approved in the first debate of a Senate committee in Colombia on Tuesday. With a vote of 13 to two, members of a committee of Colombia's Senate approved legalizing marijuana for medical and therapeutic use in a country in which this drug is the most vastly consumed by th...Read More

Surprise! There may be a way to fix Washington … U.S. President Obama hosts a luncheon for bi-partisan Congressional leaders in the Old Family Dining Room at the White House in Washington. The morning after the midterm elections, one of the best places to go for hope that the 114th Congress might actually get something done was a think tank not far from the Capitol called the Bipartisan Poli...Read More

For Gold Miners, Another Terrible Run … For years, the gold mining sector has been the worst investment sector imaginable. There was a while in 2014 when it seemed like the gold mining sector might avoid another disastrous 12-month stretch, but that seems unlikely after what has taken place in financial markets in the last few weeks. – ForbesDominant Social Theme: Gold and gold miners...Read More

Mark Carney: No more bank bail-outs … Financial Stability Board, chaired by Bank of England Governor, unveils proposals for ending 'Too Big To Fail' banks … Mark Carney has pledged that taxpayer money should never again be used to prop up banks. The Governor of the bank of England, in his position as chairman of the international Financial Stability Board (FSB), has unveiled pr...Read More

Catalonia's Vote Was a Success. Now Negotiate … Catalonia's independence vote on Sunday was encouraging – not in creating momentum for the region that wants to break off from Spain, but in laying a foundation for political agreement on how best to decide the question. Perhaps for the first time, the national government in Madrid made the smart choice, allowing the nonbinding &q...Read More

With Fear of Being Sidelined, Tea Party Sees the Republican Rise as New Threat … As most Republicans were taking a victory lap the morning after the elections, a group of conservatives huddled anxiously in a conference room not far from Capitol Hill and agreed that now is the time for confrontation, not compromise and conciliation. Despite Republicans' ascension to Senate control and an...Read More

The Marlboro of marijuana … The legal cannabis industry is run by minnows. As liberalisation spreads, that may not last … Colorado's pot industry expects to rack up sales of $1 billion this year. Across America the market is reckoned to be worth about 40 times that much. Most of it is still illegal, of course. But slowly, entrepreneurs are prising it out of the hands of crime gangs...Read More

Apparently, Europe's economic malaise has got nothing to do with the euro … Believe it if you will; Europe's economic malaise has got nothing to do with the euro … Hard to believe, perhaps, but this was the suggestion put to me at the CityUK annual dinner this week by someone with a lifetime of public service now turned, as many top civil servants eventually do, to more lucrati...Read More

Here's the big news from Tuesday's election: Faced with gridlock in Washington, more and more voters are turning to states and municipalities to do the work that the nation's capital seems increasingly unable to do. – Michael Bloomberg/Bloomberg editorialDominant Social Theme: This election shows us how deeply the American people are involved in their political system. More than...Read More

The day after: Obama, GOP in new political dynamic … A weakened President Barack Obama and emboldened Republican leaders in Congress began adjusting to a new political dynamic Wednesday after voters coast to coast used the midterm elections to sharpen the dividing lines in an already divided government … The election results were resounding: The GOP won control of the Senate and streng...Read More

Fed's Fisher Tells Congress Don't Mess With Central Bank … Senate Republicans should resist the temptation to erode Federal Reserve independence after victory in mid-term elections, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said. "Think about this: Here's a Congress that can't even get its own budget together. Do you want them running the central bank?" Fisher, a former d...Read More

GOP Senate Takeover Would Put Fed Under Microscope … A Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate on Election Day would promise increased political turbulence for the Federal Reserve. Financial executives say a GOP-led Senate would ratchet up congressional scrutiny of the central bank's interest- rate policies as well as its regulatory duties as overseer of the nation's largest financial...Read More

Judge Could Smash Marijuana Law… A judge in California is examining the legality of America's marijuana laws; she may be on the verge of throwing the entire system into chaos … Three states, one district, and two cities will vote on various aspects of the nation's drug laws on Tuesday but the most crucial marijuana decision being weighed in the coming days will be made by just...Read More

History will surely see QE as a major mistake … QE has boosted equity prices, while hammering ordinary savers and pensioners while handing a massive wealth transfer to bailed-out banks. The world's most important central bank has fired $3,700bn from its monetary bazooka … "The final word on quantitative easing will have to wait for historians," wrote Ambrose Evans-Pritcha...Read More

Capitalism through the ages … A grand tour … Experts look back at the economic system that dominates the Western world … The editors define capitalist systems as having secure contracts, property rights and markets with flexible prices, and surviving long enough to make big investments worthwhile. The story of such systems begins early. Through most of pre-industrial history Malt...Read More

Half a Century of Evidence to Fear the Fed … The hottest game in financial markets is trying to guess when the Federal Reserve will finally raise its benchmark interest rate. Fed officials have said that their main concern is over how much slack, or spare capacity, exists in the economy, because workers will become emboldened to ask for higher wages – and employers will come under pres...Read More