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Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs has recently reiterated its negative view on gold, which it has held for the past year.

While I am in agreement with Goldman that the Fed will be the dominant force behind the price of gold, I believe the central bank will soon be back into the QE business, rather than raising interest rates and crushing the dollar price of gold . . . .

Silver is playing an important, if not critical role in the growing world of wearable technology.

At the new intersection where fashion and biometrics meet, silver provides the conduit in innovative athletic clothing that transmits sought-after biometric data, such as the wearer’s real time heartbeat, to a sensor that displays the data . . . .

One of the depressing factors with regard to the gold price so far this year has been the reported fall-off in Chinese gold demand, although by world standards it remains pretty healthy. But there are now signs that it is beginning to pick up again . . . .

Will Asia still want gold as it gets richer? I was in Malaysia last week, speaking at a gold conference. To give you an idea of how important gold is considered to be out there, the prime minister was delivering the keynote speech. Can you imagine David Cameron giving a keynote entitled ‘Gold: Sustaining Future Growth’ over here? It just wouldn’t happen. The episode has got me thinking about the vastly different attitudes to gold between East and West – and that’s what I want to look at today. . . .

The IMF’s latest international gold reserves data, updated yesterday, shows that in July, Russia raised its official gold reserves to 5.5 million ounces (1,104 tonnes). This confirms data released last week by the Central bank of the Russian Federation, which reported an increase of over 300,000 ounces from June’s 5.197 million ounces figure. IMF data is reported with a one month lag . . . .

Russia added about 9.4 metric tons of gold valued at $400 million to reserves in July as it expanded holdings for a fourth consecutive month to the highest in at least two decades.

Russia’s reserves, which overtook those of Switzerland and China this year, almost tripled since the end of 2005 . . . .

CME Group Inc. and Thomson Reuters Corp. will run the replacement for the 117-year-old silver-fixing benchmark that’s ending in August, the London Bullion Market Association said. Testing is set for early August with the new mechanism to go live on Aug. 15, the LBMA said today in an e-mailed statement . . . .

On August 5, 2014 at 12pm Noon EST, the U.S. Mint began to sell a Kennedy .999 Gold Half Dollar to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 John F. Kennedy Half Dollar. The morning of August 5, I was able to see the buyer’s line (which began forming at 2am) with over 800 people already in line. Many of the buyers in this line were bused in by large retail dealers who had been offered up to $500 to stand in this line and buy the one coin . . . .

Given the crisis in Ukraine and deteriorating ties with the West, Russia has been aggressively accumulating gold reserves. The IMF, in its recently released International Financial Statistics report, showed that the Russian central bank has hiked its gold holdings by 16.8 tonnes to 1,094.8 tonnes in June.

Indeed, most central banks are increasing their gold reserves, IMF data showed. Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Serbia, Greece and Equador have all reported higher gold reserves for June . . . .

I don’t want to say that mainstream analysts are stupid when it comes to China’s gold habits, but I did look up how to say that word in Chinese…