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By Justin Spittler

Europe’s banking system is collapsing. Over the past year, shares of Deutsche Bank (DB), Germany’s biggest bank, have plunged 56%. Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse (CS) is down 62% over the same period. Yesterday, both stocks hit record lows.

Dozens of other European bank stocks have also crashed. The Euro STOXX Banks, which tracks 48 of Europe’s largest banks, is down 48% over the past year. This is a major issue. That’s because banks are the cornerstone of the financial system. They keep money flowing through the economy. If they’re struggling, it often means the economy is having major problems. Right now, European banks are flashing bright warning signs. That’s not just bad news for Europe—it’s also a serious threat to the rest of the world.

In today’s Dispatch, we’ll show you why Europe’s banking crisis could turn into a global banking crisis. You’ll also learn how to transform this threat into a chance to make big gains.

European banks are struggling to make money..…
Spanish banking giant BBVA’s (BBVA) profits fell 54% last quarter. First quarter profits at Deutsche Bank were down 58%. Swiss bank UBS’s (UBS) profits plunged 64%. European banks are hurting for a couple reasons. One, Europe is growing at the slowest pace in decades. Banks are making fewer loans as a result.

Two, negative interest rates are eating European banks alive. If you’ve been reading the Dispatch, you know negative rates are the latest radical government policy. They basically flip your bank account upside down. Instead of earning interest for keeping money in the bank, you pay the bank to hold your money.

Negative rates are clearly bad for savers. They’re also hurting Europe’s biggest banks. That’s because these huge institutions have to pay their “bank,” the European Central Bank (ECB). Today, European banks pay £4 for every £1,000 they store at the ECB for a year. That might not sound like a lot. But it adds up quick when you manage trillions of euros like these banks do.

Last week, investors got another reason to avoid European banks..…
On Thursday, Great Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU), which it’s been in since 1973.
The “Brexit,” as the media is calling it, blindsided investors. As we explained yesterday, the market was expecting Great Britain to stay in EU. The unexpected outcome triggered a global stock market crash.

U.S. stocks had their worst day since August. Japanese stocks had their worst day in five years. European stocks had their biggest decline since the 2008 financial crisis. Friday’s global selloff erased $2.1 trillion in value from global stocks. It was the global stock market’s worst day in history. The panic didn’t die down much over the weekend. By the end of Monday, another $930 billion had disappeared from the global stock market.

European bank stocks were hit the hardest..…
Deutsche Bank plunged 22% between Friday and Monday. Credit Suisse fell 23%. UBS fell 20%. Barclays (BCS) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) each plunged 37%. Both stocks are down more than 57% over the past year. These are gigantic moves in a matter of days. Remember, we’re not talking about small biotech stocks. These are some of the most important financial institutions on the planet.

Government officials are scrambling to contain the crisis..…
Today, the Bank of England (BoE) injected £3.1 billion into Britain’s banking system. It’s pledged to inject as much as £250 billion to stabilize its financial system. The BoE made its cash injection hours after the Bank of Japan (BOJ) pumped $1.5 billion into its banking system. As we’ll show you in a second, we don’t believe this will end well. That’s because this excessive money printing (sometimes called “quantitative easing”) doesn’t stimulate the economy like governments intend it to.

Credit Suisse says other central banks could soon print more money too. Bloomberg Business reported on Friday:

“Market liquidity and overall liquidity in the U.K. is drying up as we speak in a very rapid way,” said John Woods, chief investment officer for Asia-Pacific at Credit Suisse Private Banking, told Bloomberg TV in Hong Kong. “It’s highly likely that we see monetary easing in a coordinated response” from central banks across the world, he said.

Great Britain is headed for a recession..…
A recession is when an economy shrinks two quarters in a row. Goldman Sachs (GS) says Britain could be in a recession by early 2017. But here’s the thing. We don’t think the BoE will let this happen. That’s because central bankers will do anything, including using reckless, unproven monetary policies, to avoid a recession these days.

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s agrees with us. Reuters reported today:

“Brexit is likely to represent a drag of about 1.2 percent of GDP for the UK in 2017,” Jean-Michel Six, S&P’s chief economist for Europe, the Middle East and Africa told a conference call for investors on Tuesday. “We have a significant slowdown but growth remains positive although obviously in a much more disappointing way. That is because we anticipate a very strong monetary response on the part of the Bank of England, in the form of additional quantitative easing, in the form of a further cut in interest rates,” he added.

Bank of America (BAC) and Deutsche Bank also expect the BoE to fire up the printing press again. Bank of America says it could happen as soon as August.

QE won’t help Great Britain’s economy..…
As we told you above, QE doesn’t work. As regular readers know, the Federal Reserve pumped $3.5 trillion into the U.S financial system after the 2008 financial crisis. This massive money printing effort was supposed to juice the economy. But the U.S. is growing at its slowest pace since World War II. QE also failed to jumpstart Japan’s economy, which hasn’t grown in two decades. There’s no reason to think it will work this time.

If you’re nervous about the global financial system, we encourage you to take action today.…
The first thing you should do is own physical gold. Gold is real money. It’s held its value for thousands of years because it has a unique set of attributes: It’s easy to transport, easily divisible, and durable. You can take a gold coin anywhere in the world and folks will immediately recognize its value.

Unlike paper money, central bankers cannot create gold from nothing. It’s the ultimate antidote to crumbling paper currencies. That’s why the price of gold often soars when governments print money. This year, gold is up 24%. It’s trading at the highest price in two years. But it could go much higher as governments continue to run reckless monetary experiments.

If you want big profits from rising gold prices, own gold stocks..…
Dispatch readers know gold miners are leveraged to the price of gold. A small jump in the price of gold can cause gold stocks to surge. Gold’s 24% jump this year has caused GDX, a fund that tracks large gold stocks, to soar 96%. We believe this gold stock rally is just getting started. During the 2000 and 2003 gold bull market, the average gold stock gained 602%. The best ones soared 1,000% or more.

Nick Giambruno, editor of Crisis Investing, has recommended two gold stocks this year..…
He already closed out one of them for a quick double. It surged 103% in 14 months. Nick’s other gold stock is up 30% since March and is still dirt cheap at today’s levels. Nick currently rates this stock a “Buy”…and says it could soon start paying a double digit dividend yield if gold keeps rising.

You can learn more about Nick’s gold stock by taking advantage of our special 60%-off sale for Crisis Investing. If you sign up today, you’ll be enrolled in a trial membership, which gives you 90 days risk-free to decide if the service is for you. But we encourage you to act soon. This special offer ends soon, and we likely won’t open this offer again for a long time.

You can learn more about this incredible offer by watching this video presentation. You’ll also learn about an even bigger threat to your wealth than Europe’s banking crisis. As you’ll see, almost no one is talking about this coming crisis. Yet, it could cause millions of Americans to lose their entire life savings. By the end of this video, you’ll know how to protect yourself. And just as importantly, you’ll know how to profit from this coming crisis. Click here to watch this free video.

Chart of the Day

U.S. bank stocks are also headed lower. Today’s chart shows the performance of the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF) over the past year. XLF holds 94 major U.S. financial companies including behemoths JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Bank of America (BAC). You can see XLF is down 11% since last June. While that’s not as severe as the near 50% drop in European banks over the same period, it’s still a clear sign to stay away.

U.S. banks have many of the same problems as European banks. Like Europe, the U.S. economy is growing at the slowest pace in decades. And while the U.S. economy doesn’t have negative rates yet, Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said they aren’t “off the table” if the U.S. economy runs into trouble. The arrival of negative rates to the U.S. could tip bank stocks into a crisis, just like they have in Europe.

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By Jeff Thomas

For over a hundred years, it’s been theorised that author L. Frank Baum wrote his 1900 book, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”, as a fanciful way to explain the economic situation at the time and that the Yellow Brick Road was a reference to the path created by gold ownership. Whether or not the theory is correct, for many people today, “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” might serve as a mantra for alleviating economic woes.

What will happen is that one day, gold will suddenly be up $100 per ounce, then the next day, $200 per ounce. At first the pundits will be claiming that it’s an anomaly, but as it continues rising, a point will be reached when the average person says to himself, “This seems to be a trend. I’d better buy some gold.” 

Unfortunately, once the trend is underway, the price that day will have no bearing on whether gold is available. Your local coin shop may be sold out. If you go online, the mints may say that demand is exceeding supply. Large entities will be buying all they can get and the smaller buyers will be way down on the order list, unlikely to take delivery of even a single ounce.

These Are the Good Old Days

Gold has experienced a four year bear market and only recently has begun to rise again. But is it in reality a barbarous relic? Not by a long shot. For over 5,000 years, whenever people have experienced erratic economic periods, they’ve bought gold in order to stabilise their economic position. This has particularly been true whenever fiat currencies have been on the rise and were in danger of hyper-inflating, as in recent years. Most currencies are in decline against the U.S. dollar—a currency which, itself, is very much in danger of collapse in the not-too-distant future.

In the ’70s, I was buying gold in London, as it rose from $35. It reached a high of $850 in January, 1980, then crashed. When gold dropped below $400, I began buying Krugerrands. Sounds like a bargain, and yet, word on the street was that gold was headed further south. But I was buying long. I was not playing the market; I was building my economic insurance policy. I wasn’t too fussed over price fluctuations, as my gold holdings were meant to cover me if my other investments proved to be a mistake.

At present, gold is well above the high of 1989, but, if we adjust for inflation, we see that gold is actually a bargain at present. This excellent Casey Research chart from 2014 explains it better than mere words:

This tells us that $8,800 would not be an unreasonable level for gold today, if conditions were as dire as they were in 1980. However, conditions are far more dire—debt levels are far beyond any historical levels and markets are in a bubble, just waiting for the arrival of a pin.

A decade ago, when gold topped $700, I predicted $1,500 at some point and even my closest colleagues wondered what I’d been smoking. But it turned out that my prediction was, if anything, conservative. Over the last four years, some of the world’s most informed prognosticators—Eric Sprott, Peter Schiff, Jim Rickards, and Jim Sinclair—have all predicted gold to rise to between $5,000 and $7,000, and some have suggested numbers as high as $50,000. But this hasn’t happened. Are they wrong? No, it just hasn’t happened as of yet.

Conversely, Harry Dent has predicted a drop to $750. So, who’s right? Well, actually, they may all be right. After a crash in the markets, deflation is a certainty, as brokers and investors dump investments of every type in order to cover margin losses. This panic sell off will most assuredly include gold, even though the holders will not wish to sell their gold. This panic promises to create an immediate and possibly very dramatic downward spike in gold.

However, large numbers of long term investors already have their orders in for any price below $1,000. If the spike drops below that number, it will therefore be brief, as every ounce that hits the market at $999 is scooped up. In addition, the Federal Reserve will make good on its decades-long promise to roll the printing presses to counter any sudden deflation. That very act will light the fuse on the gold rocket and send it skyward.

Will the Sun Rise in the Morning or Set in the Evening?

The argument over whether gold will drop to $750 or rise to $5,000 is a pointless one. Any understanding of basic economics assures us that we shall see both sudden deflation and dramatic inflation. It’s as natural and inevitable as sunrise and sunset. (By the way, several of the above individuals have standing bets with each other as to the $750 number. The prize? An ounce of gold.)

But it matters little who will win the bets. What matters is the overview. Rickety economic times are now upon us and they will soon morph into crisis times. In such times, precious metals always return to centre stage, as paper currencies and electronic currencies return to their intrinsic worth of zero. Gold does not so much rise against fiat currencies, as fiat currencies collapse against gold.

Most assuredly, we shall see a dramatic rise in gold, but, just as in the ‘70s, the average person will fail to understand why and will simply chase the upward trend. When gold hits $2,000, but no one is willing to sell for under, say, $2,500, those who are chasing the trend will pay the $2,500 and that will become the new price across the board. Then it will leap higher—again and again, as monetary panic grips the investment world. The inflation-adjusted 1980 price of $8,800 should not be a surprise at all—in fact it would be low, as, in the coming years, conditions will be far more dire than in 1980. Gold may well blow through $10,000. Even the $50,000 figure is not impossible, as we shall be seeing a runaway bull market where those chasing the trend carry gold beyond any rational value.

But gold has an intrinsic value. 2,000 years ago, an ounce of gold could buy you a good suit of clothes. That’s still true today. A gold mania will fuel the gold price beyond anything logical, but a correction will be equally inevitable, dropping it to its intrinsic value. We shall see a gold rise for the record books. The wise investor should already have stocked up his supply of physical gold and gotten rid of gold ETFs. He should already have his seat belt fastened and ready for take off. We’re off to see the wizard.

Editor’s Note: Owning gold is the first step to protecting your wealth from stock market crashes, currency collapses or destructive government policies. But there are many other steps you can take to protect yourself during an economic collapse. We put together a free video to show you exactly how. 

Click here to watch this video now.

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Last night as I was going over my charts and running my end of the day analysis the charts jumped out at me with a trade setup and wanted to share my cycle chart for gold with you. The price chart of gold below is exactly what my cycle analysis told us to look for last week WELL ahead of the today’s news and its things play out I as I feel they will then we stand to make some pretty good money as gold falls in value during the month of April.

If you have been following my work for any length of time then you know big price movements in the market like today (Tuesday, March 29th) based around the FED news ARE NOT and SHOULD NOT be of any surprise. In fact, this charts told use about today’s pop 2 weeks ago and we have been waiting for it ever since. The news is simply the best way to get the masses on board with market moves and gets them on the wrong side of the market before it makes a big move in the other direction, most times… not always, though.

Take a look at this chart below. You’ll see two cycle indicators, one pink and one blue. The pink cycle line is a cluster of various cycles blended together which allows us to view the overall market trend of biased looking forward 5 – 30 days. The blue cycle line is a cluster of much shorter time frame cycles in this tells us when we should expect strong moves in the same direction of the pink cycles or counter trend pullbacks within the trend.

One quick point to note with cycle trading is that the height and depth of the cycle does not mean the price will rise or fall to those levels, it simply tells us if the market has an upward or downward bias. The current cycle analysis for gold along with the current price is telling us that today the short term cycle topped which is the blue line and our main trend cycle is already heading lower. The odds favor gold should roll over and make new multi-month Lows in August.

In short, we have been waiting for gold to have a technical breakdown and to retrace back up into a short term overbought condition. Today Tuesday, March 29 it looks as though we finally have the setup. Over the next 5 to 15 days I expect gold to drop along with silver and gold stocks. There are many ways to play this through inverse exchange traded funds or short selling gold, silver or gold stocks.

This year and 2017 I believe are going to be incredible years for both traders and investors. If treated correctly, it can be a life changing experience financially for some individuals. Join my pre-market video newsletter and start your day with a hot cup of coffee and my market forecast video.

Sign up right here > www.The Gold & Oil Guy.com

Chris Vermeulen