With the fast-rising prices for silver and gold that have set new all-time highs this past week of April 2011, many investors must be wondering, what does one do to take advantage of this situation?

It does seem to the author that there is a distinct lack of media attention covering the precious metal rise. As always, there seems to be an equal number of bears calling the rise in prices a bubble and signalling danger versus an equal number of bulls calling for a further rise to $50 USD and beyond, based upon currency debasement. For myself, I see further gains based upon supply and demand factors of the emerging markets growth, and I will watch with interest.

As for a prediction for the silver price, based upon a quick look at the charts and the application of some Elliott Wave's principles, I call for silver to rise to

First and foremost, and as reported by Reuters last night, “Gaddafi ‘accepts peace roadmap’: South Africa's Zuma,” and I hope this is the real deal. But the writing has been plastered on the wall. Instability has a way to propel oil and precious metals higher, and the current geopolitical landscape is fertile ground for conspiracy theories, apocalyptic dreams, and allodoxaphobia when views are a bit off the beaten track.

As a side note, the various spellings of the name Gaddafi is due to a lack of a "universally accepted authority for transliterating Arabic names," according to the The Christian Science Monitor.

We find ourselves in the midst of uncommon times, and currency games keep most of us off balance, with the European Central Bank and Federal Reserve playing ping-pong with each other, while the rest of the World simply observes and acquires uncomfortable neck pain. Portugal’s expected bailout didn’t affect

Silver has had a phenomenal run over the last year more than doubling in price. However, I think that it is overextended and is likely to suffer a correction of at around 20%

By Matt Carr

"I bought it very early, I sold it very early. Other than that, it was perfect."

That was Warren Buffett in 2006, admitting to a gaffe on his part. In 1997, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)(BRK.B) purchased 129,710,000 ounces of silver for delivery in early 1998 at roughly $680 million.

Silver was cheap. But the price rose quickly – from $4.00 to $7.81 – before falling back down just as quickly.

The "Oracle of Omaha" made a costly mistake though. He liquidated his position shortly after buying in. If Buffett had held on to that massive silver position, it’d be worth close to $5 billion today. (Ouch.)

Well, at least Buffett can still say he was right. He correctly predicted that silver was going higher. And those silver prices of the late 1990s have since been blown away. Silver screamed past $10 and $20 per ounce in the

By Brad Zigler

Years ago, when I was a young pup on the trading floor, a battle-scarred old-school trader told me, "Spreads are for ...." Well, I can't tell you exactly what he said. Let's just say he thought spread trading was wimpish.

We've often illustrated spread trades as a way to achieve nuance in the binary world of trading. Buying or selling futures outright casts you as either a bull or bear, concerned only about a rise or fall in the absolute price of a commodity. Trading spreads means you care more about the relationship between the position's contracts. (Gee, put that way, it's surprising "Dear Abby" doesn't opine on spreads.)

Take gold and silver as an example. You could have bought December gold or silver futures at the beginning of February and watched the metals' prices rise 10 percent and 42 percent, respectively. With present margin rates —

At thesilvershortage.com we have been riding the bull market in silver and silver mining stocks for almost four months now. During that time it has become more difficult to find value in the sector

Vanadium, a gray metal mainly used as an additive to steel, could see a jump in demand as new technologies emerge in energy storage. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Jonathan Lee, a battery materials and technology analyst with Toronto-based Byron Capital Markets, talks about which vanadium producers are ready to grapple with the prospect of increasing demand from the adaption of "green" uses.

The Gold Report: What are some development stories in the vanadium space that you're covering?

Jonathan Lee: Largo Resources Ltd. (LGORF.PK) is one of the most advanced of all the juniors. At a 1.34% grade, Largo has the highest grade deposit of vanadium that is known right now. We currently have a Strong Buy on Largo Resources.

TGR: And that's the Maracas project in Brazil?

JL: It is in Brazil. That deposit is one of the highest grade deposits in the world at about

U.S. gold rose to a record high for a fourth straight session on Friday, its longest string of record highs since January 7. The metal’s rise was impressive. Gold rose $16.60, or 1.14%, to close at $1474.50 an ounce. Gold prices hit an intraday low of $1456.30 and a high of $1474.90 an ounce. Silver futures prices for June delivery, now the most active contrast, rose $1.31, or 3.31%, to close at $40.91 an ounce on the Comex in New York. Silver prices hit an intraday low of $39.49 and a high of $40.91. Both gold and silver made record highs and 31 year highs in Friday’s session.

The U.S. dollar was steeply lower on Friday. The U.S. dollar index was down 0.72, or 0.96%, to close at 74.86. The U.S. dollar index hit an intraday low of 74.84 and a high of 75.61. The U.S. dollar index is still

For over a year now, I’ve casually mentioned that the leadership in the West, including the United States and Europe, is not just unwilling to take the steps needed to nurse the economy back to health, but that they’re increasingly incapable of understanding what needs to be done.

But as I’ve noted, the amounts of money being quibbled over are pretty insignificant. You can do the math for yourself. The total outstanding federal deficit is now over $14 trillion. Divide $33 billion or $40 billion by $14 trillion and you get 0.0023 or 0.0028. Multiply those decimals by 100 to get the percentage. So $33 billion and $40 billion amounts to 0.23% and 0.28% of the total federal deficit. Even with these cuts, the deficit will grow because they’re not even close to the amount of spending reduction we need to actually put the Fed back in the black.

These

Purchasing commodity producing equities has been extremely profitable for most investors over the past year as a weak dollar and supply issues have driven up everything from soft commodities to industrial and precious metals. The sharp gains have also carried over to the dynamic rare earth metal market where fears over Chinese export limits as well as the metals’ critical nature to a variety of 21^st century technologies dominate the price movements of this group of elements.

In fact, according to Metal-Pages, from October 2009 through December 2010, prices for rare earths have risen by approximately 780% on average. Meanwhile, in the same period, prices for some of the most common rare earths (cerium oxide, lanthanum oxide, neodymium oxide, and rare earth carbonate) have risen by more than 1,000% on average.

Thanks to this surge, interest in this much talked about but little understood corner of the market has gained