Quickie 2011 prediction recap

I’m behind in my work, my life and next years prediction so I’ll quickly gloss over my failure and hype my success(s) from last years predictions

Gold

I called for a high of $1800+ and floor of $1300, I have to say I’m pretty freaking close on this one, I made my minimum high and beat it by $100.30 and my kept above my low by $14.90

Silver

I was disappointed by silver this year missing my estimated high of $50 by a mere $1.30. The bigger surprise was how the corrections held and eliminated the entire gain for the year. Silver still has a strong story but far too many dealers and investors are hanging on to the belief that paper silver which is over leveraged and in all likely hood undeliverable for all but 1-2% of the contracts issued is the same as owning bullion.

Oil

I expected that false tales of growth, enthusiasm or shortages to pop oil to $120 early in the year and I was wrong. We did hit $120 late in the year with Brent but it has not held long enough to cause a recession, of course its kind of irrelevant because European austerity measures in response to their debt issues will eventually drag the world economy towards stagnation.

Housing

U.S house price declines continued in some regions but there has still been no fix for the electronic registry issues, no way to fast track foreclosure and no way for banks to clear inventory without taking huge loses and causing bank failures. All this adds up to an issue that can’t yet be settled, the rot continues. I was expecting an unconstitutional law to retroactively legalize the electron registry issues and enable quick seizures; this didn’t happen and with an election in 2012 cannot happen until 2013.

Unemployment and poverty

Food stamp use continue to grow as predicted to a whopping 46.3 million or 15% of the population but did not hit my expected 48 million goal.

U6 unemployment has dropped to near 15% which is way off my 19%, I don’t believe the government numbers but my prediction is way off as I can’t prove otherwise. I will note that John Williams alternative unemployment measure which used to mirror gov stats )just many points higher) deviated up from the government trend. Someone is wrong!

Canadian content

While cracks are appearing things have not deteriorated as quickly as I expected in Canada, Inflation was moderate at just below 3% largely because my expected peak in energy was late in the year and largely unaccounted for yet.

Housing is holding fast due to a lack of a U.S. style glut of homes and rampant speculation, but how long can this shortage prop up a clearly unaffordable market in Toronto and BC?

Unemployment is 7.5% trending up

I would say my Canadian expectations are about 6-8 months ahead of reality, the economy is slowing and Conservative austerity in all things not war related will begin to bite the job market hard soon.

As in most years I think my sense of the trend is accurate but my timing sucks.

I'll have my 2012 predictions out by early next week,, I promises not to look at the papers until then ;)