The Legendary Brent Cook chairs a legendary panel discussion. Difficulty: no Daniela Cambone.

First off, there are some problems with this video that make it nearly unwatchable:

1. Alex Letourneau does the interview instead of Daniela.

2. This time it doesn't happen in a bar.

So with that out of the way, here's the Legendary Cookie Monster, and Catherine McLeod Seltzer and Miles Thompson and Alex Davidson and no Daniela, not talking in a bar about "peak exploration":



Watch Cookie get his ass spanked on his "peak discovery" theory by both Davidson and McLeod.

I mean literally, they whoop him like a red-headed stepchild. Then they stomp a mudhole in his ass and walk it dry.

In all seriousness, Cookie should think about whether it's possible for the cost of mining an ounce of gold to go down over the next ten years, as EM currencies continue to drop and EMs scramble to keep mining companies in their countries.

Evening news

Here's some evening reading:


Calculated Risk - more employment graphs. Read 'em and weep.

Ritholtz - current bull market second-strongest since WWII. If you don't own it, you have to ask how you expect to be making money.

Calculated Risk - framing lumber prices. Confirmation that people are still building houses. Thus, again, I don't get where you're getting this "2014 top" bullshit from.

BI - why the Chinese market got ANNIHILATED. But seriously though, this is a Mamta Badkar story so you can take it seriously because she's not a toad like Joey the Weasel. Takeaways from the article: it's not just the crap trade numbers, there was also credit deterioration. And quote:

"If a default indeed occurs (especially on principal), we believe that the market will have reached the Bear Stearns stage (when the market started to seriously re-assess subprime debt risk)," wrote Bank of America's David Cui in a note to clients.

"We doubt that the financial system in China will experience a liquidity crunch immediately because of this default but we think the chain reaction will probably start."

Barclays' Jian Chang and Serena Zhou think the systemic risk from the default is small but "expect more but selective defaults, more risks to be exposed, and greater financial market volatilities this year."

Again, it's not the idea that a financial collapse is imminent, but that the cogs are now in motion.

I'd say that it's not whether there's actual "systemic risk"; the danger is the sudden urge to re-price the risk that's always been there. That was how mortgage-backed securities went kaboom. It'll be interesting to see how the Chinese government responds.

Mining.com - iron ore craters 8%. First copper, now iron? Gee... I wonder if gold's next?

IKN - and a jolly good morning to the rip-off artist at Haywood. For fuck's sake, guys! Anyone who reads his blog recognizes an IKN bar graph! They always use the exact same fonts and bar formats.

Though I can understand you not wanting to credit him. After all, he's the candirú of the junior mining scene whereas you're trying to pretend that Haywood has serious analysis.

Though I could also understand him retaliating by posting your weekly mailers for free on his blog, with sarcastic commentary added, until you do credit him. I mean, that's what I'd do. But maybe he's nicer than that.

Liz-Ann Sonders on Crimea

Here's a quote from Liz-Ann Sonders' market update:

I do just want to just say a couple of words about what seems to be rolling crises within the emerging markets, most recently what's happening in Russia and the Ukraine. And, again, the news is moving, so I hope I don't date myself by the time you read this. But, as of this point, Russian president Putin has retreated to some degree from military action. And I think it's a function of the fact that the market got absolutely crushed the first day of the real crisis. So that, obviously, impacts the elite. It impacts the economy. That doesn't tend to serve politicians well. The currency went into freefall. That's a recipe for a major inflation problem. Russia was facing not only sanctions across the board, but particularly upon the elite, and that hurts across the board[....]

Perceptive of her to note that Putin only stays in power as long as his cronies can make money off him.

Some Monday news

The US markets seem to be freaking out inconclusively, what with this being the five-year anniversary of the 666 bottom and the pussies' inability to just be thankful the market is still going up.

I am concerned that the metals are taking on the stench of dooooom.

Here's some newsreading:

Liz-Ann Sonders - market snapshot. She's doing video instead of old-fashioned typing now. Thankfully, you can still see the transcript and the slides. She goes into a lot of detail. You should pay attention to her.

Reformed Borker (Bork Bork Bork!) - on the Feb jobs report. He notes that college grads are essentially at full employment now, and points out that the increase in hourly earnings is very good for the US outlook. So why this pussy doesn't just shut up with his whining and buy SPY is beyond me.

Ritholtz - five years ago today I switched from bear to bull because the evidence told me to. Big Barry on his bottom-tick buy call from 2009. If only more people could get their heads out of their asses, look around them, and see the real world.

der Spargel - Europe stressed by upcoming stress tests. Maybe this'll cause some relative underperformance for core Europe over these next few weeks? And here's a funny quote:

"Supposedly, the ECB intends to fail 30 banks to establish credibility," says Dirk Becker, an analyst with Kepler Cheuvreux in Frankfurt. "If that is true, it could get dicey for German institutions as well, such as Commerzbank, HSH Nordbank or Nord/LB." The US investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) believes that 27 banks will fail, but that German institutions will be particularly hard hit. KBW forecasts that eight banks in Germany won't pass the test, almost as many as in Italy and Spain combined.

Oh dear! You mean the debt-hating superior German race actually has the shittiest, least-capitalized, most-dangerous banks in the Eurozone? Worse than Italy and Spain? Oh my!

BI - copper futures fall. You think this is only due to bad export data, huh? Well, we'll see how smart you look a month from now, cheese.

WSJ India Realtime - El Nino will hurt Indian monsoon. That's why I'm not very positive gold after the April/May election season. The prediction might change, but if not, you've got to remember that Indian peasants are the ones who buy gold. If India stops buying due to a drought, and China starts dumping due to collateral seizure, you goldbugs are going to get anally romanced.

FT beyond brics - Indian CEOs on the election. That's nice and all that you clowns have opinions, but I know that the election results are determined locally by which candidate can buy people the most motorbikes.

ZeroHedge - what ten-baggers (and hundred-baggers!) look like. IKN this weekend inventoried his reasons for thinking we've already had the bottom in the juniors scene. Well, here's another bottom indicator for you: Casey Research is writing articles for ZeroHedge again, trying to lure a new crop of fools into their subscription service by promising ten-baggers.

Marginal Revolution - your porn is not Canadian enough. Hey, dudes, we've got CanCon regulations, and you agreed to them when you applied to the CRTC for your broadcast license, so quit whining. Personally, I'd be very happy to subscribe to your channels if you showed 8 hours a day of Ariel Rebel videos. Look her up, she's a little sweetie.

And yes, Ariel, I'd love to promote you on my blog in return for a free membership to your site! Plus a big hug and kiss.

MISSISSIPPI FATTEST STATE, DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME WILL KILL YOU, THONG-WEARING THIEF STEALS BATMAN COSTUME: here's what you need to know

Here's your Joey The Weasel clickwhore headlines of the day. Maybe I'll make this a regular feature for every Sunday?

Fox News - Mississippi is a state of big fat fatties.

Chicago Tribune - daylight saving time will kill you and everyone you love.

New York Daily News - thong-wearing thief steals Batman costume.

This is why we buy gold, people!

A hilarious reading of "Fifty Shades of Grey"

I came across this video below after finding out that Millionaires count as "crunkcore". Huh? That's very sad.

Anyway, here is someone doing an utterly hilarious dramatic reading of a sex scene from Fifty Shades Darker or something, fuck I dunno.



It confuses me, because I thought it was supposed to be some sort of hardcore S&M novel series, and here they are in book two and there's boring old-fashioned oral sex going on.

That middle-aged soccer-mom women take this book seriously in any way suggests to me that they must never have had sex in their lives.

Some morning newsreading

Here's some stuff for the morning:


New Deal Democrat - Feb jobs report was surprisingly decent. Even then, he still worries too much. Grow some balls and buy the S&P, sissy!

Calculated Risk - commentary on the employment report. Bill McBride weighs in with his own opinions.

Reformed Borker (Bork Bork Bork!) - the 2007 top versus today. The breadth charts show there is no looming market top. Grow some fucking balls and buy the S&P, sissy!

BI - financials rally as tech takes a step back. Pretty obvious, really; everyone spent the last 6 months buying the QQQ, while financials fell behind. Now other sectors will play catch-up.

Calculated Risk - Fed flow of funds shows household net worth at record high. In case you have any clue how to interpret such a data point.

FT beyond brics - India elections: the market reacts. By going up because GS noted a Modi win is good for India. I'm still sure that you want to sell on the actual election results: India is still a pathetic third-world shithole. It should be a positive input for the gold price in the meantime, though: that is, if only Wall Street Whitey had a fucking clue what drives the gold price.

SCIENTISTS INVENT MACHINE THAT CAN GIVE A WOMAN AN ORGASM AT THE PUSH OF A BUTTON: here's what you need to know

The Daily Mail, your one-stop source for science news - scientists build orgasm machine for women that delivers a climax at the push of a button. Article helpfully includes illustrations of what an orgasm and a pushbutton might look like.

Anyway.

No, they're not referring to the ATM.

No men aren't now obsolete, but we'll probably be killing a lot more spiders.

Yes, you should buy stock in Realdoll.

Blah blah blah, various further one-line responses, everybody laughs, roll on snare drum, curtains.

IKN says copper's the big story today

IKN - screw the BLS, copper is the big story today. This chart looks like the gold chart during the ultimately failed battle for $1500. Take a look:

Multiple bangs against a support level, with lower and lower highs on each rebound and the price spending most of its time below the weekly SMA(50)? Sorry buddy, that doesn't look good.

If copper breaks below $3.10 this time, it might be the last time. The more times you've already banged against support, the weaker each recovery is, the more likely you punch through it the next time.

And when $3.10-$3.00 is broken, what will all the commodity speculators want to do with their copper positions? You think they'll hold them when the chart's broken?

Geez, I wonder if those Chinese copper stores being used as collateral for dodgy shadow banking loans have anything to do with this?

If so, a copper collapse below $3.10 might be a bad omen for gold.

Gold price goes clunk

That clunking noise you just heard was gold getting slammed down $15 instantaneously on a good jobs report.

Calculated Risk - February jobs report.

So I guess you can assume that the Wall Street bots have come back to the gold market, and they're trading instantaneously based on inputs that have utterly no bearing whatsoever on gold's physical supply/demand characteristics. Because America.

Let's see if this is enough to kill the junior miners:

You want to see GDXJ stay above $41.50 on the close.

The gold price is still in the same uptrend that it's been in, as long as it stays above $1330.

Friday videos: Kylie Minogue

Here's cute little Kylie doing her worldwide #1 hit:

It's been under an hour and I'm suddenly #1 on Google

Oh come on! The post is only an hour old. This was not supposed to happen!

I now appear ahead of the actual cruise in Google searches.

What's that? You're saying it's just because Google owns Blogger? You really saying that free-market capitalism is at fault here?

Communist.

And #1 in searches for doug casey cruise too.

Daniela Daniela Daniela! with Eric Coffin and Eric Fier at PDAC

So here's Daniela Cambone interviewing the always-rumpled Eric Coffin:





And here she is with Eric Fier from Silvercrest:





Take it away, Eric the orchestra conductor!