Below is some interesting research by Doug Peta of BCA Research regarding the Fed Funds Rate Cycle, and what that research - as well as our own in-house research - could mean for gold to help you understand the positivity we see for the precious metal looking towards 2015.

As the protracted correction and consolidation in precious metals continues, what better time to brush up on the history of the gold standard to give proper context to gold’s demand today and potential role in a future currency to replace the dollar.

A change in monetary, fiscal, and regulatory policy is necessary to beat back the forces of recession and deflation. If the messages of falling gold prices and falling interest rates are not enough to gain the attention of policy makers, I suspect that the specter of future falling stock prices throughout the world will be. That is what is in store for us if the recessionary/deflationary bias in the world economy that gold and bonds are signaling, reasserts itself.

Silver has now dropped to $19 and is down 3.1% for the year. Unfortunately, the pain is probably not over - yet.

TIPS are telling us that the market is quite pessimistic about the prospects for real growth, but not concerned at all about the outlook for inflation.

If you want to make money long-term, you have to bet against the prevailing consensus of most financial experts. I have never seen such an overwhelming bullish consensus as there is today that the economy is going to do great, that gold is a sell, and that the stock market is going to go higher, and if you want to build speculative wealth, you have to bet against that.

Obtaining a second passport and an offshore bank account are crucial parts of an overall diversification strategy, but they are not the only ones. Capturing international opportunities for your investment portfolio also has an important role and one of the easiest ways to do this is to own foreign currencies. Below are my 10 favorite reasons for doing so.

Are we near the end of one of history's great stock market rallies? I don't think so. Yes, prices are in the upper half of their long-term trends, but it's not what you might call "scary-overvalued." There is still plenty of room on the upside before historical precedents are violated. Let me explain further.

Gold peaked in 2011, bottomed in June and December of 2013, and should rally for several, and probably many, years into the future. Here's why.

Jim Rickards explains in his new book "The Death of Money - The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System" why a US dollar collapse could be coming and why gold would probably emerge at the heart of a new global monetary system as the only money that you can really trust.