Veteran commodity expert Don Coxe’s father administered a lot of anesthetic while serving in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps on Italian battlefields during World War II. If the injuries of either Canadian or German soldiers were severe enough, the only option was to give them heroin. Doctors had two jobs – deciding what was the right amount and knowing the right time to start withdrawing it.

Gold has much to celebrate.  Not only did it just hit new all-time nominal highs, its secular bull was born exactly 10 years ago this week!  It’s enough to bring a tear to the eye of the bold contrarian investors who’ve been riding this mighty bull market for an entire decade.  Much has changed since I first started recommending physical gold coins as long-term investments in May 2001, when gold traded at $264.

month ago, Zero Hedge first reported that Bill Gross had taken the stunning decision to bring his Treasury exposure from 12% to 0%: a move which many interpreted as just business, and not personal: after all Pimco had previously telegraphed its disgust with US paper, and was merely mitigating its exposure. This time, in another Zero Hedge first, we discover that it is no longer business for Bill – it has now become personal (and with an attendant cost of carry).

The Bottom Line
Optimal opportunities to introduce new equity and ETF positions with favourable seasonal characteristics have now passed. Additional intermediate upside potential remains in most markets and sectors until at least the beginning of May and perhaps longer. Stick with favoured equity and ETF positions for now.

In 2008, a spike in food prices resulted in food riots around the world. The recession brought prices down while record crops allowed some stockpiles to be rebuilt and gave us a respite from the turmoil.

Unfortunately 2010 was a disaster for crops and their stockpiles. Severe droughts, record heat waves and fires combined with floods to cut crop outputs and global grain stockpiles, at the end of the 2010/11 season, were at a three-year low of 341 million tonnes.