Recap of day 18 (updated)

Good evening, readers. I'm going to post a recap of our investments' performance today, and then I'll be back a little later to discuss some of the day's important financial events, since there were so many!

(Updated):

So we had quite an interesting day today. Silver, continued to show why it's the investment of right now, reaching yet another 31-year high today, closing at $37.67 after coming within a few cents of $38.00 during intraday trading and picking up another 0.5% on the day. Gold, ever the steady tortoise, is gradually climbing up back towards it's all-time closing high, set on 3/23.

If I had to make a few prediction about what the precious metals markets will look like over the coming week, I'd wager that the combination of continuing middle east instability and concomitant surges in crude oil and the broadening realization that you can't pump trillions of dollars of liquidity into the market without the inevitable bout of crippling inflation, we'll see a new all-time high in gold, possibly even surpassing the tremendous psychological milestone of $1450. Silver will blow through $38.00 and land somewhere just under $40.00, before dropping back down to the levels we've seen in the past few days. A double-barrel shot of $1450 gold and $40 silver will provide tremendous momentum to precious metals prices going into the 2nd quarter of this year, sending a loud message that the almost mind-boggling performance of these two assets over the past 3 years will continue unabated.

Speaking of mind-boggling, I have to briefly mention this story from earlier today. The CEO of Wal-Mart, the big-box discount retailer du millénium, is warning U.S. consumers that they face "serious" inflation in the upcoming months.
 

[...]inflation is "going to be serious," Wal-Mart U.S. CEO Bill Simon said during a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board. "We're seeing cost increases starting to come through at a pretty rapid rate."

Along with steep increases in raw material costs, John Long, a retail strategist at Kurt Salmon, says labor costs in China and fuel costs for transportation are weighing heavily on retailers. He predicts prices will start increasing at all retailers in June.

That's all for tonight, thanks for reading,

Baxter

The numbers:

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Day 18
Results upon NY close of trading -- March 31, 2011:

• Gold closed at $1,431.80 per oz, up $8.00 and 0.56% from yesterday. Silver closed at $37.67 per oz, up $0.19 and 0.51% from yesterday.
• VFINX closed at $122.12 per share, down $0.22 and 0.18% from yesterday.

Investment #1, Precious Metals:

• Percent return for the day: 0.53%
• Profit for the day: $517.96
• Total percent return: -2.4%
• Total profit: $-2,367.76

Total investment value: $97,554.02

Investment #2, Vanguard 500 Index:

• Percent return for the day: -0.18%
• Profit for the day: $-183.48
• Total percent return: 1.9%
• Total profit: $1,893.18

Total investment value: $101,847.88

Advantage: Vanguard 500 Index, by $4,294.06