A Good Week for PMs

The price of crude oil finished the week about where it began, but precious metals had a fine week. Make that five fine weeks in a row - going all the way back to the big sell off during the first week of the year.

You'd never know it from reading the mainstream financial media, but gold has slowly climbed back to within shouting distance of the $700 mark (it would have to be a very loud shout).

A few Federal Reserve Presidents have noticed and they're starting up with their inflation hawk talk once again - the talk of IMF gold sales didn't have the intended effect, apparently.
The gold miners just can't do much in the new year - while the price of gold has now risen almost five percent, the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX) is up half of one percent.

Oil ended slightly higher than where it began the week but other energy commodities were on the move - always volatile natural gas rose five percent while gasoline and heating oil climbed just over two percent.
The big oil companies moved lower along with the broad equity markets.
The dollar continues to tread water at around 85 on the U.S. Dollar Index. There's a big G7 meeting this weekend where the U.S. is going to tell the Europeans that the Yen is fairly valued - the finance ministers on 'the continent' disagree.

How many years has Japan had short-term interest rates below one percent? With a budget deficit greater than their GDP?
The model portfolio at the companion website Iacono Research is now firmly in positive territory in the new year with a +2.7 percent year-to-date gain.

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