Where is the Stock Market and the U.S. Economy Heading?

Inline with its plan announced last June, Iran is actively raising its gold reserves to protect from falling US dollar. This is not a secret, what is, according to Zero Hedge is the amount. Report says the amount equals to 300 tons, challenging the UK holding at 310 tons, and is greater than Spain’s.

Iran and other nations with large dollar currency reserves are diversifying and increasing their gold reserves. Market observers believe Tehran has been one of the biggest buyers of bullion over the past decade after China, Russia and India, and is among the 20 largest holders of gold reserves. China imports 245 tonnes of silver in Feb and Qatar is interested in buying Silver.

The spike in oil prices in reaction to the turmoil in Libya is taking the market and especially the emerging market down. Stocks in Asian countries like China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore are losing more than 3% and the outlook remains gloomy.

President Obama is calling for increased investment (read spending) on R&D and infrastructure. He will go into more details on Tuesday’s State of the Union address. But republicans and some economists quickly opposed his plans for handling the recovery of the fragile economy.

Peter Schiff, an investment broker and author, called Obama “clueless”:

Last week the British pound fell 3.0% against the US dollar. Some say it was because of UK bank exposure to Spain, which Moody’s warned could be downgraded. Others blamed the UK’s close economic link and heavy debt exposure to Ireland, which Moody’s did actually downgrade last week by 5-levels to Baa1. This low grade is barely above junk status.

The American Dream is a short cartoon that argues the Fed and the central banks are evil and that they are to blame for taking away the American dreams. The movie shows some facts and goes on explaining the banking system and how it moved away from a banking system backed by gold to fiat currency and reviews some historical events.

The conspiracy theory presented in this movie, however, is up for debate.

With U.S. companies adding 297,000 jobs last month, it looks like the American economy is ready to join the global party. This is great for the dollar and not good for gold.

Mike Norman (Norman): Hi everybody, and welcome to HardAssetsInvestor.com. I’m Mike Norman, your host. My guest today is Frances Newton, CEO of Frances Insight, independent trader and analyst. Frances, thank you very much for coming on the show; I really appreciate it.