Spot gold hit a six-year high late last week. It is the first time since April 2013 prices soared so high – peaking at a value of $1,5334.31 an ounce. Due to this price bump, US gold futures rose by roughly 1.3% to $1,537 an ounce. Despite the positive momentum, these high levels could not be sustained over the weekend.

Several factors drive the current and future value of gold and silver. Weakness in the Argentine Peso, civil unrest in Hong Kong, and the US-China trade war has forced investors to seek safehaven. Read More

Top Federal Reserve policymakers might cut interset rates if trade tensions continue to get worse.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell and his No. 2, Richard Clarida are watching disputes between the US and its trading partners. The next meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee takes place June 18-19, with Clarida noting that the Fed “can’t be handcuffed” by market pricing. Read More

(GoldSilverBitcoin) – Everex, formerly Midas Reserv, is making waves in the crypto-cash industry thanks to its contributions in cash-transfer technologies. Based on the Ethereum blockchain, Everex’s central product, Cryptocash, allows individuals to transfer cash across borders instantly in form of national currency on a blockchain. Applicable to remittance and cash transfers, Cryptocash is a digitized form of cash backed by national currencies thanks to Everex’s partner institutions. Read More

(Gold Silver Bitcoin) President Trump warned last week of a  “major, major conflict with North Korea”. He said he’d rather do things diplomatically, though it’d prove “very difficult.”

Trump has made no secret about tensions between North Korea and the US. “There is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely,” the president said. “We’d love to solve things diplomatically, but it’s very difficult.”

Trump noted that he was confident in Chinese President Xi Jinping and his attempts to influence the North. The pair met in Florida earlier this month to discuss the situation in the Korean Peninsula.

“I believe he is trying very hard. He certainly doesn’t want to see turmoil and death,” Trump told Reuters. “He doesn’t want to see it. He is a good man. He is a very good man and I got to know him very well. With that being said, he loves China and he loves the people of China. I know he would like to be able to do something, perhaps it’s possible that he can’t.”

White House officials on Wednesday describe North Korea as an “urgent” threat to national security and a “top foreign policy priority.”

Military action by the US would likely snowball into a massive strike from the North on South Korea. North Korea could also attack Japan.

“My problem is that I have established a very good personal relationship with President Xi,” the president said. “I really feel that he is doing everything in his power to help us with a big situation. So I wouldn’t want to be causing difficulty right now for him. So I would certainly want to speak to him first.”

Russia blocked a Security Council statement proposed by the U.S. on Wednesday to condemn North Korea’s missile tests. China supported the measure.

“Russia is slowing this down, and it is not clear why,” the diplomat told CBS News. “The U.S. wanted to get the message out.” North Korea’s failed missile test launch on Sunday added to geopolitical tensions escalating between President Donald Trump and Pyongyang.

By Wednesday, the world learned that military aircraft headed for Australia were not on their way to North Korea, as President Trump had intonated.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that Washington would work with its allies and China but that United States would meet any attack with an “overwhelming response”.

The first of 1250 US Marines have begun to make landfall  “stand ready to fight” against North Korea.

“I think that the commitment that we’ve taken to put a task force here with a conversation to get larger over the years says that we do think this is an important region,” Lieut. Colonel Middleton said.

“We are seeing once again a little bit of a flight to safety as a result of the news over the weekend of North Korea’s attempted missile test. That’s resulting in a little bit of a weakness in the U.S. dollar,” said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington.

The U.S. military intercepted two Russian bombers in international airspace off Alaska’s coast. A pair of F-22 Raptor aircraft intercepted the Russian TU-95 Bear bombers on Monday, according to Navy Commander Gary Ross, a Pentagon spokesman said. He called the intercept “safe and professional.”

On Tuesday, at an annual military parade in Tehran, Iran put on display new S-300 air defense missile system, as well as other weapons seen under banners calling for “Death to Israel” in Persian.

President Hassan Rouhani said at the ceremony that Iranian military was “avoiding tensions and encounters” but that it had to “remain vigilant in the face of plots hatched by the others and increase deterrent power.”

Gold has held firm in recent weeks, thanks to tensions surrounding North Korea other geopolitical uncertainty including the upcoming French presidential election. Still, it endured its worst gain in a month on Wednesday, falling 0.8 percent.

Poor U.S. economic data and a lack of confidence for the Trump administration on tax cuts have led to the expectation of faster inflation.

Economic turbulence, extended by President Trump, contributed to safe-haven bids for gold. Unrest in other parts of the world, like Syria and North Korea, also contributed to gold’s higher price.

Gold climbed on Friday, ensuring a monthly gain of more than 1%, as data showing weak U.S. economic growth weighed on the dollar.

The ICE U.S. Dollar Index, which helps measure the dollar, had fallen 0.1% and trading about 1.6% lower for the month.

Exchange-traded funds SPDR Gold Trust increased 0.2%, climing for the month 1.6%. iShares Silver Trust fell 0.2%, down 5.3% for the month. The VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF increased 2.5% Friday,  its monthly loss 1.9%.

Donald Trump wants a golden carriage procession down the London Mall during his planned UK visit in October in what police believe will likely be the most extensive public order operation in years.

“If he is in a golden coach being dragged up the Mall by a couple of horses, the risk factor is dramatically increased,” said a source.

Hundreds of heavily-armed security agents travel with Trump,along with plain-clothed police officers, positioned snipers and firearms officers in the crowds.

The source added: “There may well be protections in that coach such as bulletproof glass, but they are limited. In particular it is very flimsy.”

Image: Shutterstock, The Sun

When a tank collector bought a new tank for £30,000 trade-in, he found more than £2million of gold bullion hidden in the tank’s fuel tank. And then, the police took the precious metals.

Nick Mead found five gold bars while restoring the Russian T54/69 he recently added to his collection of 150 military vehicles.

The 55-year old and his mechanic friend Todd Chamberlain filmed the finding of the gold in case they found munitions and needed to show it to bomb disposal crews. They found instead gold bars weighing up to 12 pounds or 5 kilograms each. The bars are altogether worth more than £2million, reports The Sun. But, the tank collector is no longer in possession of that ancient money.

He said: “We didn’t know what to do. You can’t exactly take five gold bullion bars down to Cash Converters without questions being asked, so we called the police.”

Mr. Mead owns Tanks-a-Lot, where customers can drive any of his tanks on his farm located in Helmdon, Northants in the United Kingdom. He gave up an Army lorry and an Abbot self-propelled gun to procure the T54/69 in the £30,000 after seeing the tank advertised on eBay.

They had found machine gun ammunition before finding the gold. They think the gold was looted by Iraqi soldiers in Kuwait during the Gulf War where-after the tank was captured and shipped to Britain.

Nick said: “They must have cut a hole in the fuel tank and rammed it full of gold bars.”

Two officers took away the bars and gave them a receipt.

Nick said: “Even if I don’t get any of the gold back I will still have my beautiful tank.”

A Northamptonshire Police spokesman did not comment to press.

El Salvador will prohibit gold and other metal mining after lawmakers overwhelmingly voted on Wednesday for the ban. Environmental activists say the country is the first in the world to ban metal mining.

Related: How to Start Your Own Gold Dealer Website

El Salvador’s delicate environment was cited as being unable to sustain metal mining operations, and legislators from many parties approved the ban, supported by the popular Roman Catholic Church. Proponents said a ban would proect the country’s supply of clean water.

“Today in El Salvador, water won out over gold,” tweeted Johnny Wright Sol, a legislator from the center-right Arena party.

Around the world, some bans on cyanide use to extract gold from low-grade ore exist, and Costa Rica has a national ban on open-pit gold mining.

Researchers believe they have discovered a way to add gold and silver to nail polish to create a durable, tined and perhaps even antibacterial nail coloring, extending the precious metals’ ancient uses for fashion in the form of jewelry.

Related: World’s Second Largest Gold Coin Stolen From Berlin Museum

The research, published in the ACS’ journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, highlights how modern techniques depend on pigment powders and additives. Scientists, investigating nano-particles in polishes, discovered they can make nail polish more durable, in the case of silver nanoparticles, treating fungal toenail infections.

To break silver, gold and platinum alloy, they shot lasers into gold in short bursts for periods of fifteen minutes. They learned that this resulted in colored, transparent polishes with a metallic sheen. Researchers used laser ablation to create a master batch of metal nanoparticles in ethyl acetate, a polish thinner, which could then be added to individual bottles of polish.

For the fourth straight year, gold investment will increase in 2017. Global political and economic factors have driven to increased gold demand despite the fact that the yellow metal has yet to reach once more its highs of fall 2011.

“There has been a return of opportunistic generalist investors who had exited gold in late 2011 and early 2012,” New York-based CPM Group said in its Gold Yearbook 2017.

Related: How to Start Your Own Gold Dealer Website

CPM projects investment in gold bullion to be 17.6 million ounces in 2017. 2016 saw 17.4 million ounces of gold bullion purchased, which was the highest since 2012 – just after the peak – when 29.2 million ounces were purchased.

CPM, which reseraches commodities, conjectured global gold coin demand to be 7.5 million ounces in 2017, an increase over 2016’s 7 million ounces – also, the highest since 2013.

“Most long-term gold investors do not seem to expect the world’s financial and political systems to collapse. Rather, they see them as facing major structural problems that will not be easily resolved or repaired in any short period of time,” CPM said. “In the near- to medium- term as it is becoming clearer to (shorter-term investors) that, while there may not be a collapse in the financial system, clearly the present interest rate environment, global economic growth profile, levels of unemployment and underemployment, and political turmoil globally are all factors that warrant owning at least some gold as a portfolio diversifier.”

CPM, furthermore, cited convoluted policies from Trump’s administration for more sideways precious metals prices in 2017.

Thieves in Berlin stole the world’s second-largest gold coin from a Berlin museum using a rope, a foldout ladder and a wheelbarrow. The heist took place right by Angela Merkel’s inner-city apartment, to boot. 

Related: The IMF Says Donald Trump is Good for the American Economy

The Big Maple Leaf coin is one of five such gold commemorative coins made by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007. They weigh 100kg, and their diameter is 53cm and a thickness of 3cm. Its value is estimated at nearly €3.8m (£3.3m).

The coin was on loan to the Bode Museum from a private collection of a German property investor. The coin was at one time the heaviest on the planet. The “Australian Kangaroo One Tonne” gold coin in 2011.  The Big Maple Leaf has been on display at the museum since 2010, encased in a bullet proof cabinet at the museum on Berlin’s museum island, located along the Spree river in the Mitte district. On the walls outside the museum in neo-baroque design advertised its current show Muse macht Moneten (or “Be creative and get rich”).

Between 3:20am and 3:45am, two thieves entered the museum via the third-floor window at the back of the 113-year-old building.  The placed a ladder on elevated tracks on S1 railway between the last train on Sunday and Monday morning.

The window led the thieves into the security guards’ changing room. They smashed their way into the bulletproof cabinet with a tool like a sledgehammer and used the same route to get out with the coin. The thieves used a wheelbarrow to push the coin 100 meters along the tracks and across a bridge over the river to Monbijou Park, where they dropped the coin while abseiling down to the ground.

They then entered their getaway car. A burnt-out Mercedes found in a parking garage might be related to the theft, but police had yet to confirm this.

A member of Bode Museum’s security staff noticed at 4am. Police are unsure how such a high-end heist could be pulled off so easily.

“Some elements of this story raise questions, and we are currently asking those questions,” police spokesperson Winfried Wenzel said.

Angela Merkel’s apartment is only a “stone’s throw” from the window through which the thieves entered. CCTV cameras and the security system may have been disabled.  Police were using footage from nearby stations and municipal buildings.

Many believe the coin has already been melted down, an act police call “hardly insurmountable in technical and logistical terms”.

The gold, at melt value, is currently worth  $4,300,000.

Images: Royal Canadian Mint, Express

(GoldSilverBitcoin) – 11 people were killed in accidents in two neighboring gold mines in central China’s Henan province on Friday.

The thick smoke engulfed a pit at the Qinling gold mine, run by the China National Gold Group in Lingbao City. Twelve workers and six management staff were trapped inside, as reported by Xinhua on Saturday.

Related: How to Start Your Own Gold Dealer Website

Seven bodies were retrieved by rescue workers on Friday night. Ten people were taken to hospital and are recovering. One failed to respond to treatment. Another body was retrieved on Saturday afternoon.

In a neighboring gold mine on Friday afternoon, a similar accident took place, reported by Xinhua based on reports by the provincial work safety administration.

Six workers were trapped and four had been rescued. The other two were found dead later in the evening.

“Industrial accidents are common in China,” reports Ryan Woo for Reuters. “Anger over lax standards is rising after 30 years of breakneck economic growth marred by incidents from mining disasters to factory fires. Earlier on Saturday, an operation platform collapsed at a power plant in southern China, killing nine people.”

A-Mark Precious Metals CEO Gregory N. Roberts sold 3,300 shares of the company’s stock on Thursday. Sold at $17.66, the overall sale totaled $58, 094.96. A-Mark Precious Metals Inc sales, which trade 0.35% during midday trading Thursday, reached $17.45.

Related: Spanish Government Limits Cash Withdrawal 1,000 Euros

Overall, 23,027 shares of the company traded hands, and the company’s 50 day moving average ended the day at $19.22. It’s 200-day moving average is $17.67. A-Mark Precious Metals Inc’s twelve month low of $14.02 and 12-month high of $22.00.

A-Mark’s market capitalization is $122.69 million. A-Mark’s net margin is 0.10%.

The Idaho House of Representatives voted by a 56-13 margin last week to cease Idaho taxation on precious metals, including gold and silver coins and bars.

Related: China and Russia are Stockpiling Gold

Bill Sponsor Representative Mike Moyle (R) and the entire Republican caucus voted in favor of the measure. Now the Republican-controlled Idaho Senate must also vote in favor of the bill and Governor Butch Otter (R) must sign the bill.

HB 206, backed by the Sound Money Defense, Idaho Freedom Foundation, Money Metals Exchange and grassroots activists builds on Idaho’s sales tax exemption on precious metals to end income taxation on the sales of “precious metals bullion” and “monetized bullion.”

Representative Ron Nate (R), said from the House floor: “According to the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 10, there is only one thing that a state can declare as currency if they think that our federal currency is going out of whack and some might argue that they think our federal currency is going out of whack already. If we are not going to allow people to declare capital losses on their Federal Reserve Notes or their dollar holdings, it would also be unfair to tax people for their gold and silver holdings. Gold and silver is an alternative to holding Federal Reserve Notes and it is the ONLY alternative that the U.S. Constitution says that the state can allow as another currency. It’s unfair to tax it just as [it’s unfair] to tax losses on Federal Reserve Notes.”

Taxpayers who sell their precious metals might be on the hook for capital gain taxes. “Policies that discourage precious metals ownership reduce the likelihood that Gem State citizens will take prudent steps to insulate themselves from the inflation and financial turmoil caused by the Federal Reserve System,” said Stefan Gleason, director of the Sound Money Defense League. “Precious metals bullion is already exempt from Idaho’s sales tax. HB 206 removes the final disincentive in Idaho tax law that stands against ownership of the monetary metals.”

Utah and Oklahoma have enacted similar income tax measures. Arizona is considering similar legislation, and states like Tennessee, Maine, and Alabama seek to remove precious metals from the sales tax.

Image: Shutterstock

A Colorado man has people in the Northern part of the state rushing to find the cash and gold he stashes around the area per a treasure hunt he conducts on social media.

Related: Treasure Hunter Who Stole Gold Bars Arrested in Florida 

The man, who wants to only go by Matt, started a Facebook page last month called ‘Northern Colorado Treasure Hunters.’

He now has 4,000 followers. That might have something to do with his giving away gold.

“Quite honestly, it was just an idea I had. I started the page and it went from there, just snow balled out of control. It’s been fun,” Matt said.

During the week, Matt stashes either cash or gold somewhere in northern Colorado. After snapping a photo, and posting it on social media, people then must look for clues in markings and landmarks to track down the prize. This has led to people getting outside in parks and fields trying to find the hidden treasures.

“We try to do it every time. I have their text alerts so as soon as it hits, I get it,” Courtney Beers said.

“It’s a fun thing to be able to do as a family, especially with the weather being so nice,” Rebecca Garcia said.

Matt hopes to attract business as sponsors so he can offer bigger prizes.

“I plan on doing it for a long time,” Matt said. “It gets people out and about. They have fun and it gives families something to do. And there is incentive at the end of the tunnel. That’s what I like about it. To watch everyone get hyped up about it and run around the parks.” The activities have indeed brought families together.

“It’s just something to do with the kids and they like looking for things, kind of like Easter,” Colton Phelps said.

“I think it’s awesome. I think it’s a lot of fun. Gives people an excuse to get out and go find stuff, see new places,” Cameron Espinoza said.

Juan Pablo Granda was employed by NTR Metals to go into the Latin America jungle and buy gold. U.S. investigators eventually caught on that this practice could have been abetting cocaine traffickers turn their money into cash. NTR made efforts to evaluate their business practices, hiring Jones Day to review its business practices. Granda said he would help.

Related: NTR’s “Modern-day Pablo Escobar” Will Fight Laundering Case

When NTR flew him home last week, he didn’t exect to be fired. But that’s what happened. Then his mother called from the home they shared in Miami.

“Listen, I’ve got all these FBI agents here, they might want to arrest you,” she said. “So he got into his car and went to mom’s house and they arrested him.”

The 35-year old was arrested for conspiracy to commit money laundering per the network in which NTR helped launder international drug dealer funds.  Granda was denied bail on Monday.

“The scope of this is enormous, and right in the middle of it is Mr. Granda,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Maderal told the judge.

Maderal says Granda has handled over $200 million in gold, and earned tens of thousands of dollars in kickbacks. NTR bought Peruvian gold from illegal mines, and thus supported human trafficking, forced labor and environmental destruction. NTR’s Miami office laundered billions for Peruvian narco-terrorists.

“Gold smuggling goes hand-in-hand with narcotics trafficking,” Maderal said.

U.S. Customers records show NTR likely began purchasing illegally mined gold in Peru starting in 2012, as Bloomberg reports.

The complaint, which suggests NTR imported $3.6 billion worth from 2012 to 2015, says the wholesale gold distributor started “smuggling illegal gold through a shifting array of Latin American countries.”