Total market cap of gold equities

http://goldstocksdaily.com/2010/07/19/total-market-cap-of-all-gold-companies-262-1-billion/

It only takes a few big funds and central bankers from emerging countries (Russia, China, India, Brazil) to move the gold needle quickly and violently. Why? Because all the gold mining companies in the world are worth less than ExxonMobil.

The market capitalization for all gold mining companies globally is $262 billion. Exxon alone is worth $274 billion. The aggregate S & P 500 market cap is $10 trillion. When pension funds, mutual funds, banks, hedge funds, and investors rush into gold and gold equities, there will be trillions of dollars chasing companies worth $262 billion. It doesn't take a wild imagination to expect the prices of gold and gold equities to soar as a result.

Russell Index Reconstitution

On average, when companies are added to the Russell indices, the share prices allegedly increase 47%, as indexed mutual funds have to buy them for their funds. And share prices for companies that fall out of the index fall 27%. I have yet to substantiate these claims, although they seem plausible.

http://www.russell.com/indexes/membership/Reconstitution/Reconstitution_changes.aspx

Inclusion into the Russell indices are predicated on the objective criteria of market capitalization, so there's no room for manipulation. Companies who get included naturally experience a rise in share prices, and it becomes self-fulfilling as index funds buying in increase more buying pressure. As an aside, it's somewhat comforting to see a handful of companies I own be included in the index.

The economy, the dollar, and Wall Street bonuses

Jim Rogers told a crowd in Hong Kong that holding U.S. government bonds is a "big mistake" and will "end badly."

"If I were you, I would be worried about the U.S. dollar," said Rogers. "The Americans are printing U.S. dollars. The Americans are going to do whatever they can to revive their economy, even if it means destroying the U.S. dollar." Rogers favors holding agriculture, power generation, Chinese stocks, and the yen.

According to analyst Porter Stansberry:

While Americans are right to worry about the stability of the dollar, at least we don't have to worry about our currency disappearing overnight.

Over in Euroland, spreads on different European government debts are widening sharply, revealing the markets believe the euro will come unraveled as countries exit the currency union. Bonds issued from Greece are now trading at nearly 300 basis points over similar German bonds – the widest spreads between euro-member government bonds since the currency was introduced in 1999.

Less than four months ago, the 10 largest U.S. banks by asset size had a combined market capitalization of $722.73 billion, according to American Banker. As of January 20, it stood at just $237.83 billion, a drop of approximately two-thirds.

I wonder which of those numbers is closer to the real intrinsic value of those banks? It's probably good for the banks and the people who run them that nobody knows exactly what they own or has any clue what it's all worth.

At the end of 2007, the five largest U.S. securities firms paid their employees $66 billion in bonuses. All of it came from "profits" that we've since learned were horrendous losses. With the writeoffs from just these five firms now totaling much more than $100 billion, at what point do you begin to judge what these people did as not merely reckless and negligent, but calculating and criminal?

They had to have known by at least the end of 2007 that most of their mortgage securities were cooked. And yet, they took the biggest bonuses in the history of Wall Street, leaving taxpayers to pick up the mess

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