InvestorMind

If you think the drop in oil prices recently from around $114 in early May to around $100 a barrel today is a signal that we've seen the last of high oil prices, think again. The drop in oil prices was due to several factors. The increase in margin requirements for silver spooked investors and immediately sold oil. Also, the strengthening of the US Dollar has cause oil to get cheaper in US Dollar terms. However, we should not forget that oil is a commodity that is used up everyday. One of the biggest importer of oil is China. China's demand for oil has increased 400% in the last 20 years and it is estimated that China will use more oil than the US by 2020. What's triggering the demand for oil in China is the number of cars being bought by its citizens. The annual growth rate in demand for cars is between 30 to 40%. Only 10% of China's population own cars right now. That's a huge growth market. I found this chart showing a comparison of the demand for oil by

If you ever wanted to know why you should invest in gold and silver, this video by Mike Maloney is a good primer. It tells about the difference between currency and money, creation of fiat currency, fractional reserve banking and more. This video will help you understand why there is such big rush to get into gold and silver nowadays and makes a case for secular bull market in gold and siver.

An animated short about the history of one of the most sensational get-rich-quick schemes that took place in France over 200 years ago. With economist John Law at the helm, the plan was to open a bank and exchange bank notes for gold at wildly inflated share prices to mask the fact that the country's gold had been depleted in the building of Louis XIV's palace. When the inevitable rush to cash in the notes takes place, poor John Law is left broke and broken-hearted. This is pretty much how inflation, over printing of the money supply, manias and a bubble works.

Interview with Eric Sprott regarding the raid on silver prices in early May 2011.

If you've been keeping up with the silver prices, you may have noticed it went down a lot (23%) in the last two days alone. Silver hit a high of $47.015 on May 2nd and today, May 5, it's trading at around $36.35. If you're wondering why silver has gone down so much so fast, part of the reason was because of the announcement by the Commodity Exchange Inc (Comex) which is owned by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) to increase the margin requirements for silver futures effective at the end of today (Thursday) and another one due on Monday, May 9, 2011. They only announced the new margin requirement late Wednesday, May 4, 2011. This made a lot of investors withdraw from the market or sell some of their holdings to meet the new margin requirements. Another reason is the pullout of gold and silver by Hedge Fund manager George Soros . If someone is selling that much gold and silver, the prices is bound to go down. Whenever they report a fund manager do something like