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marți, 7 ianuarie 2014

From Keywords to Concepts: The Smart SEO's System for Themed Keyword Research

Posted: 06 Jan 2014 03:02 PM PST

If Google's Penguin update and Knowledge Graph have taught us anything, it's that concepts have become more important than individual keywords for search marketing.

Many people in the SEO space mistakenly assume that because Google withholds keyword referral data in the form of (not provided), keywords no longer matter.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Every search begins with keywords. Over 5 billion Google searches a day. Consider the following:

Google's entire business is based on selling keywords â€" over 40 billion dollars a year, most of it from keyword sales through advertising.
(not provided) affects only post-click analytics. It doesn't influence the pre-click keywords users type into search boxes.
Keywords and their meaning remain the primary input search engines use to deliver answers to users (while other inputs such as location data and app integration are on the rise).

Marketers who invest in smart keyword research will continue to have a huge advantage over the competition.

The trick today is turning those keywords into concepts.

From single keywords to themed concepts

When most of us first learned SEO, we learned to research one keyword at a time. We optimized our page for that keyword by placing it in the title tag, in the headline, a few times in the body, and maybe the alt text of a photo.

If we were really fancy we'd optimize a page for two keywords. Oh dear.

In truth, optimizing pages with a single keyword mentality hasn't worked well for a long time.

Content today has to be about something.

The difference today from years past is the shift from individual keywords to concepts. Concepts relate to search marketing in three primary ways:

1. What the user intends

Search engines try to better understand what the user asks by relating that question to concepts. If I search for "movie about tiger on boat" Google will likely understand that I am asking about the movie Life of Pi, not about pages optimized for those specific keywords.

2. What your content is about

Search engines read the keywords on your pages to try and figure out what those pages are conceptually about.

3. Relating concepts to one another

The Knowledge Graph shows us how Google relates concepts to each other. In the case of Life of Pi, this may be showing how the film relates to ratings, reviews, actors, writers, and the cast.

Keyword targeting: the dumb, hard way

In the post How to Rank: 25 Step Master SEO Blueprint, I first addressed the concept of themed keyword research. The guide lists the biggest mistakes people make when choosing keywords. Here's what we want to avoid:

Choosing keywords that are too broad
Keywords with too much competition
Keywords without enough trafficâ€¨
Keywords that don't convert
Trying to rank for one keyword at a time

Instead, let's take the opposite approach.

The basic idea is that we're going to focus our content around ideas instead of keywords, and thus give us the potential to rank for 100s or 1000s of keywords at a time.

The smart system of themed keyword research

Let's explore a new way of thinking about keywords. It requires discarding some of our old ideas and taking advantage of how Google may likely decide what our content is about.

To accomplish this, we'll leverage some obvious truths about search traffic.

Truth #1: Over 70% of the traffic you earn for any given page will come from keywords you didn't try to optimize for.

If you've ever seen a keyword report in your analytics platform or Google Webmaster Tools, you know this is true.

What are these keywords? They may be synonyms, thematically related, or closely related ideas that search engines thought best matched your content. Sometimes they are way off base, but we won't concern ourselves with those.

With this in mind, optimizing for a only a single keyword means ignoring the majority of your potential traffic.

Truth #2: Ranking number one is not a requirement for earning thousands of visits.

Given what we know about point #1, it's often better to rank in position 2 or lower for hundreds or thousands of long tail keywords than it is to rank number one for a single keyword.

Truth #3: The best keyword tools in the world will only show you a fraction of the keywords you can potentially rank for.

Have you ever compared your long tail keyword data with data from Google's own Keyword Planner?

Most of those keywords will show little potential search traffic or won't even register, but you know this isn't true because these are the same keywords that brought you traffic.

Relying on keyword research tools alone wont bring you to your full ranking potential. You need content that fully explores your themed concepts.

Truth #4: Search engines sell keywords grouped into concepts and themes.

We can learn from this strategy.

When you purchase keywords through AdWords, Google suggests keywords to you in tightly grouped themes and ideas. In fact, they do everything they can to discourage you from bidding on individual keywords.

Of course, this is one way for Google to make more money, but it's also because Google knows that concepts are often a better indicator of searcher intent than individual keywords.

Part of this is due to the fact that 15% of all Google searches, or over half a billion per day, have never been seen by before.

Now let's put these ideas into action.

Step 1: Gather your keyword seeds

Folks talk about different processes of keyword research depending on whether you are going after

Traffic: good for pure pageviews and ad-based revenue sites, or
Conversions: for example, when you sell goods or services or need brand awareness

Most of the time, you already have a good idea of what your keyword topic broadly covers, especially if you're working with an established business or website.

For our purposes, let's explore ideas around the keyword "seo tools" â€" a term near and dear to our hearts here at Moz. In reality, this is an extremely competitive keyword, and for your own research you'd likely want to begin with a longer-tail, less competitive term.

Brainstorming

There are literally hundreds of keyword research tools out there to experiment with, but a few SEO favorites include:

In the end, you will likely rely heavily on Google AdWords Keyword Planner, but you never want to rely on it as your sole tool. It's best to explore and play around with many tools to discover new ideas.

Here are keyword suggestions from Grepwords.

There are no rules except to have fun and try to discover new keywords you haven't considered before.

Step 2: Get specific with modifiers

This is basic stuff, but it bears emphasizing: The more specific your keywords, the easier it typically is to rank for those keywords.

Sure, it would be great to rank for the keyword "SEO tools" itself, but most people aren't searching that way. Instead, they are likely looking for something more specific.

Common keyword modifiers include:

Time and Date: "SEO Tools 2014"
Quality and/or Price: "Free SEO Tools", "Fastest SEO Tools"
Intent: "Buy SEO Tools", "Find SEO Tools"
Location: "SEO Tools Online", "Canadian SEO Tools"

Your chosen keyword research tools will uncover these and many more qualifiers, but you'll want to include them in your searches as well.

Case Study: the $70,000 keyword modifier

Seasonal keywords are often super-effective. I discovered this myself a few years ago as an independent SEO with the keyword "IRA contribution limits." The keyword had good volume but was super-competitive, so I knew I was never going to rank for it.

Using Google Trends, I found that usage for this keyword spiked at certain times of the year, and that in fact people were looking for information for a specific year, i.e. "IRA contribution limits 2012."

Using Google Trends is a great way to validate any keyword idea, as it will often reveal hidden patterns and insight not present in other tools.

Armed with the new knowledge, I found many more date-specific keywords themed around this topic and built an entire domain around them. Although it took a lot of hard work, the site eventually drew tons of seasonal traffic and I was able to sell the site with a significant profit.

It's a good idea to validate all your important keyword ideas through Google Trends, as it will often reveal patterns and insights not present in other keyword research tools.

Step 3: Using Google AdWords Keyword Planner

For small and medium-sized research jobs, nothing beats going directly to Google's AdWords Keyword Tool for relevant suggestions and search volume. (For larger and enterprise-type projects, see the alternatives at the end of the post.)

This is basic stuff, but you'll want to search for New Keyword and Adgroup Ideas and head straight to the to the Keyword Ideas tab. For a more complete guide to using the planner, Kristi Hines wrote a great guide here.

Hint: While most seasoned SEOs skip over the Ad Groups tab, there's a wealth of ideas there tightly grouped into themed keywords â€" exactly what we are looking for!

Traditionally, marketers use Google's keyword tool because of search volume and competition scores, but most web marketers underplay one of the most powerful features of this tool: the ability to sort keyword suggestions by relevance.

This gives us a huge advantage in creating themed keyword lists, and helps us create more targeted content.

Because the top suggestions often contain your core keywords, it's helpful to use negative keywords to discover more variation.

Step 4: Defining the concepts further

Now that you have your basic keyword idea, the next step is creating your keyword theme by finding keywords that are conceptually related.

There are several ways to do this. For our example of "SEO tools" let's try the popular methods to build out our themed list.

Google's Related Searches

At the bottom of most Google results is a section called Related Searches. This is a gold mine of conceptually related concepts.

By clicking through the results and then examining those related searches (and repeating this process over and over) you can quickly find many long-tail opportunities much easier than using Google's AdWords Keyword Planner.

Google Trends

At the bottom of each trends report is a "Related Searches" section that can be used to discover conceptually related queries.

Wikistalker

This cool tool introduced to me by Peter Bray "illustrates the relations between different things by visualizing the semantic relevance between the inter-connected structure of their Wikipedia entry articles."

So if we search Wikistalker for "Search Engine Optimization" it shows us the following Wikipedia articles with the highest semantic relevance.

Internet Marketing: 85% relevant
Google Webmaster Tools: 70% relevant
Marketing: 59% relevant

Other tools

In fact, many other keyword research tools like Deeperweb Search, SEMRush, YouTube Analytics or WordStream can help you discover related keyword phrases.

Step 5: Empathy, your secret keyword weapon

Ask yourself what a visitor wants to find on this page.

As Rand explains in this excellent Whiteboard Friday, putting yourself in the visitor's shoes and anticipating their needs provides a wealth of conceptually related keyword ideas.

Searchers of "SEO tools" are usually asking a number of similar questions:

How much does it cost? Free, plans and pricing, free trial
What kinds of tools are there? Link building, crawling, and indexing
Who are the tools for? Agency software, small business
How good are the tools? Best, endorsed by, customer review

By answering as many searcher questions as we can, we continue to build our themed keyword concept.

Step 6: Can you rank? Getting strategic with competition

In this case, it's much better to go straight to the search engine results page (SERP). This was covered in How to Rank, so let me plagiarize myself by repeating the important points here.

You have two basic methods of ranking the competition:

Automated tools like Moz's Keyword Difficulty Tool
Eyeballing the SERPs

If you have a paid subscription to Moz, or even a free trial, the Keyword Difficulty Tool calculates â€" on a 100-point scale â€" a difficulty score for each individual keyword phrase you enter.

If you run a full report you can break down the SERP for each keyword and judge the individual strengths of each URL that ranks. You can even add your own URL to see how you stack up.

Keyword phrases in the 60-100 range are typically very competitive, while keywords in the 30-40 range might be considered low to moderately difficult.

Manual method: the eyeball check

Even without automated tools, the best way to size up the competition is to simply look at the top results currently ranking.

Run a non-personalized search query for your keywords. Examine the top few results and ask yourself the following questions (SEO toolbars like the MozBar or SEOquake can help speed up the process):

Are the first few results optimized for the keyword?
Is the keyword in the title tag? In the URL? On the page?
What's the Page and/or Domain Authority of the URL?
What's the inbound anchor text?
Can you build links and/or mentions around this keyword?
Can you deliver a higher quality resource for this keyword than the top ranking sites?

The last question is the most important: can you deliver higher quality content for this keyword than the competition?

The answer must be yes if you expect to deserve to rank.

Step 7: Pulling it all together

By this point, you've probably analyzed hundreds or thousands of keywords and organized them into themed, related groups.

You've found keywords that relate to your business or website, around which you can create shareable content, with a high enough search volume, and that you believe you can rank for.

Often, the keywords that you choose depend as much on your business or website as they do on the competition. We chose the keywords above not only because they relate to our primary keyword, but also because they relate to our business. Google may rank keywords based on relevance, but only you can decide if those keywords relate to your audience, product, and brand.

In the case of our "SEO Tools" example, our themed keyword list might look like this.

Free SEO Tools
Best SEO Software
Keyword Research
Search Engine Optimization
Link Building Toolset
Best SEO Tools in 2013
Online Marketing
SEO for Google
Best SEO Tools for Agencies

Remember, we started with a very broad keyword. In practice, your final keyword will be much more tightly focused.

We'll now use this list for creating content around our keyword theme. In a future post, we'll discuss integrating these concepts for optimal on-page SEO.

Tips for scaling and large sites

The above method works if you're building out keyword lists for small to medium sites, but scaling this process for large and enterprise sites requires a different, more mathematical approach.

If you want to research tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of keywords at a time, I highly recommend the looking into the following resources:

Grepwords â€" Keyword Suggestion API with search volume
SEOGadget for Excel â€" Link Research and Keyword Data. Integrates with Grepwords and SEMRush
How to do Keyword Research for SEO â€" Written by Nick Eubanks, this $37 guide is well worth the money and offers a number of tips and tricks.

Conclusion

The above method is only one method of keyword research. There are hundreds more and you'll likely invent your own method.

Regardless of the method you use, thinking about keywords in terms of concepts and themes represents a hugely important step in content development.

What are your favorite keyword tips to organize content around concepts?

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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Bouncing Off: 10 On-Site Distrust Factors To Avoid In 2014

Posted: 07 Jan 2014 01:30 AM PST

Side-stepping search engine ranking factors for a minute, remembering the human element of websites is the key to creating a website that works for 2014 and beyond. It's important to consider the elements below when beginning an on-site refresh, as they can have a big effect on the trust levels of the visitor. Here are my 10 most hated on-site distrust factors, which can and should be banished with very little effort:

1. Stock images

You can spot these a mile off. While a headset hottie image has become a standard feature of contact form pages these days, they give me the feeling that the website in question has been designed in five minutes, using a stock library of about 10 images. Images of company employees, buildings and products will make your website appear a lot more genuine. The same applies to blurry, out-of-date images and irrelevant 1990s GIFs.

2. Out-dated information

If your About Us page makes a reference to winning the 2003 Great Yorkshire Show award for Best Cheese, or your footer bar says ©1997-2005, it might seem like you haven't updated your website for quite a while! Make sure you refresh your static pages once a year to check all the information is up-to-date and on brand.

3. Irregular blog posts

Once a month is better than 8 times in 2 months, which is better than nothing for 9 months. Posting regular, relevant updates tells the visitor that your website is up-to-date and checked regularly. It enables you to go above and beyond talking about the products or services you offer. It's also a great place to add extra content and keep regular clients up to date on company issues. It can also demonstrate expertise and, most importantly, personality (remember this Archers blog post?) Blog posts are also a great place to provide useful links and resources for your readers.

4. Published by 'Admin'

Put a name to your blog posts, create a by-line with an image and proper author bio. Even if you can’t think of anything professional to write, a personalised bio will communicate that the writer is a real person and not just any old employee.

5. Crazy linking

Such as mega anchor text footer links or broken links. This makes a site seem unloved and out of date.

6. A generic 404 page

Have a little personality! Make sure your 404 page is helpful and friendly and takes a user back to somewhere appropriate. Don’t abandon your users in a jargon filled page.

7. No physical address or off-line contact method

This rings alarms bells for many people; they won't trust you when they don't know who they're dealing with. Ensure you include a physical address, embed a map or even add an image of your premises.

8. Messages vanishing into thin-air

Make sure you have a contact confirmation page. You don’t want potential clients wondering if their message has disappeared into thin air. If you've got an old contact form installed on your site, it's probably worth updating to one of the newer versions that have greater functionality and customisation to make the form applicable to your business. Having a standard form template can make your website seem generic and irrelevant to your customers.

9. No 'About us' page

This makes me think a company has something to hide. Write a little bit about your company, organisation or aim, how long it’s been going and encourage users to contact you. Be welcoming and friendly.

10. Other big warning signs

Lorum Ipsum (or Bacon Ipsum for that matter)
Broken social media widgets!! (these make me sad)
Links to Social Media profiles you don't maintain! Last tweet November 2012? Don't link to it!
Embeds that don't work (YouTube vids, maps, etc.)

So that’s my 10 most hated on-site elements. If you think there’s something missing from my list, or completely disagree with me about any of these, comment below or tweet me @alex_cestrian.

Image of Tigger via Tiggrrrr42

The post Bouncing Off: 10 On-Site Distrust Factors To Avoid In 2014 appeared first on White Noise.

Seth's Blog : How to draw an owl

How to draw an owl

The problem with most business and leadership advice is that it's a little like this:

The two circles aren't the point. Getting the two circles right is a good idea, but lots of people manage that part. No, the difficult part is learning to see what an owl looks like. Drawing an owl involves thousands of small decisions, each based on the answer to just one question, "what does the owl look like?" If you can't see it (in your mind, not with your eyes), you can't draw it.

There are hundreds of thousands of bullet points and rules of thumb about how to lead people, how to start and run a company, how to market, how to sell and how to do work that matters. Most of them involve drawing two circles. (HT to Stefano for the owl).

Before any of these step by step approaches work, it helps a lot to learn to see. When someone does this job well, what does it look like? When you've created a relationship that works, what does it feel like?

Incubator programs and coaching work their best not when they teach people which circles to draw, but when they engage in interactive learning after you've gone ahead and drawn your circle. The iterative process of drawing and erasing and drawing some more is how we learn to see the world.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 6 ianuarie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Saxo Bank Outrageous Predictions for 2014 Steen Jakobsen - My Comments

Posted: 06 Jan 2014 04:12 PM PST

Saxo Bank's Outrageous Predictions for 2014 came out last month, but given that Steen Jakobsen, Chief Economist for Saxo Bank will be speaking at Wine Country Conference II on May 1-2, a review of Saxo Bank's predictions is in order.

EU wealth tax heralds return of Soviet-style economy: In 2014, deflation and a lack of growth will create panic among policymakers, leading the EU Commission to table a working group that will focus on different wealth taxes for anyone with savings in excess of USD or EUR 100,000. The initiative will be in the name of removing inequality and will see the richest 1 percent pay a "fairer" share to ease society's burden. The obvious trade is to buy hard assets and sell inflated intangible assets. We would buy the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD:arcx), looking for it to go as high as 180, and sell an equal-weighted basket of Hermes International (HRMS:xpar), LVMH (MC:xpar) and Sotheby's (BID:xnys), expecting the basket to go from index 100 to 50.
Anti-EU alliance will become the largest group in parliament: Following the May elections, a pan-European, anti-EU alliance, whose members will include the UK Independence Party, euro-currency sceptic Alternative for Germany, the National Front in France and Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, will become the largest group in parliament with a majority of more than 275 seats. Sweeping the traditional political groups out of power, the new European Parliament chooses an anti-EU chairman and the European heads of state and government fail to pick a president of the EC, sending Europe back into political and economic turmoil. One trade would be to long German Bunds versus short Spanish Bonos – looking for a 300-basis-point spread again.
Tech's 'Fat Five' wake up to a nasty hangover in 2014: We like technology stocks in general as they are the main driver of the necessary productivity growth the economy needs to create long-term increases in wealth per capita. However, a small group of technology stocks trade at a huge premium of about 700 percent above market valuation, almost defying the "Newtonian laws" of financial markets. These stocks are what we call the "Fat Five" of the technology sector – Amazon, Netflix, Twitter, Pandora Media and Yelp. These stocks have very inflated valuations based on a skewed valuation premium on growth that has evolved in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Investors have trouble finding good growth scenarios, so when some suddenly drop by the neighbourhood, they get bid up to levels that present very poor risk/reward ratios. It is like a new bubble within an old bubble. To trade this, we would create a synthetic equal-weighted index of the Fat Five, starting at 100 on the last trading day of 2013. Ou Outrageous Prediction is that this index will go to 50 during 2014.
Desperate BoJ to delete government debt after USDJPY goes below 80: In 2014, the global recovery runs out of gas, sending risk assets down and forcing investors back into the yen. USDJPY goes below 80 in a déjà vu of 2011, forcing a desperate Bank of Japan (BoJ) to delete its government debt securities in a final bid to escape the deflation trap the country has been in for the past two decades. As nobody knows the outcome of this accounting manoeuvre inside the government sector, the decision will see a nerve-wracking journey into complete uncertainty and potentially a disaster with unknown side effects. Sounds crazy right? Well, these days, everything is possible in the name of a crisis. In the inner circles of central banks, a neat and untested trick in which one simply deletes its holdings of a government's debt is beginning to gain traction. For Japan, it would mean that about 15 percent of government debt would just disappear. It's a simple accounting trick that effectively equates to "now you see it, now you don't".
US deflation: coming to a town near you: Indicators may suggest that the US economy is stronger, but the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) remains hesitant and with good reason. The fragility of the housing market has been underlined by the modest increase in yields in mid-2013. Te trade for this would be to go long on 10-year US government bonds, which we see at 1.5 percent in 2014.
Quantitative easing goes all-in on mortgages: A quick glance and you would think that the US economy is about to pick up speed, but this is merely an illusion fuelled by the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) third round of quantitative easing, which amounts to USD 85 billion per month. These purchases have pushed interest expenses down and sent risky assets to the moon, hence creating an artificial sense of improvement in the economy. Grave challenges remain, however, with private sector deleveraging ongoing, a housing market that struggles whenever rates rise, continuous declines in public sector spending and weak private sector employment; all of which the FOMC is keenly aware. Housing, in particular, is on life support and the FOMC will therefore go all-in on mortgages in 2014. This will transform QE3 to a 100 percent mortgage bond purchase programme and increase – forget talk of tapering – the scope of the programme to more than USD 100bn per month. Renewed weakness in the housing market will send the Vanguard REIT ETF down substantially, touching USD 30, the lowest level since 2009.
Brent crude drops to USD 80/barrel as producers fail to respond: With non-Opec supply expected to rise by more than 1.5 million barrels per day and the potential for another two million arising as disruptions in Libya and sanctions against Iran ease, the global market will become awash with oil. Hedge funds will react to the altered dynamics by building a major short position in the market for the first time in years. This will help to drive Brent crude oil down to USD 80/barrel, especially as almost all producers, which are in desperate need of high oil prices, will only react slowly.
Germany in recession: The German economy has outperformed the rest of the euro area in the four years following the global recession, but this outperformance will end in 2014 and consensus, which expects growth of 1.7 percent, will be deeply disappointed.
CAC 40 drops 40% on French malaise: The quantitative easing-driven equity bubble spills into 2014, but then equities hit a wall and tumble sharply on the realisation that the only driver for the market is the greater fool theory. Meanwhile, the malaise in France only deepens under the mismanagement of the François Hollande government as the president and his team fail to come up with answers for the country's lack of competitiveness or to provide any spark for growth. Housing prices, which never really corrected after the crisis, finally make like their Dutch counterparts did in 2012 and execute a swan dive, pummelling consumption and confidence. The CAC 40 Index falls by more than 40 percent from its 2013 highs by the end of the year as investors head for the exits.
'Fragile Five' to fall 25% against the USD: The normalisation of global rates, which is expected to be started by tapering of quantitative easing in the US, will lead to higher marginal costs of capital from rising interest rates. This will leave countries with expanding current account deficits exposed to a deteriorating risk appetite on the part of global investors, which could ultimately force a move lower in their currencies, especially against the US dollar. We have put five countries into this category − Brazil, India, South Africa, Indonesia and Turkey. The "Fragile Five" have seen dramatic growth over the past decade, which has attracted billions of dollars in foreign direct investment (FDI). But as the flow of cheap and easy money begins to dry out, these countries will find themselves exposed as their current account deficits climb.

Please take a look at the above link which has more information as well as related videos for most of the predictions.

My Comments

The only one I find outrageous is #4: A strongly strengthening Yen.

In regards to #1, I rather doubt an EU imposed wealth-tax is on the horizon because Germany would nix the idea. Selective countries, especially France, could try it though.

Nonetheless, I like the way Saxo Bank chose to play that theme, buying GLD with a possible upside to 180 which would put the price of gold at about $1800 an ounce.

All of the rest of Saxo's "outrageous" calls are possible, if not likely. I certainly expect emerging markets and their respective currencies to tumble in conjunction with a China slowdown.

I expect a recession in Germany. Italy and France are powder kegs of eurosceptic politics.

In my reflections on 2013, I called for "Peak Merkel" (see Reflections on 2013; What's Important, What's Not? What's Ahead?)

I appreciate the fact that Saxo Bank put trading suggestions on most of its predictions. That's not easy to do.

Steen Jakobsen is not afraid to speak his mind about trading ideas and back them up with sound logic that many would say is "unconventional thinking".

I am very pleased that he is speaking at this year's conference.

Wine Country Conference II

The second annual Wine Country Conference will be held May 1st & 2nd, 2014.

We have an exciting lineup of speakers for this year's conference.

John Hussman: Founder of Hussman Funds, Director of the John P. Hussman Foundation which is dedicated to providing life-changing assistance through medical research
Steen Jakobsen: Chief Economist of Saxo Bank
Stephanie Pomboy: Founder of MacroMavens macroeconomic research
David Stockman: Ronald Reagan's budget director, best-selling author, former Managing Director of The Blackstone Group
Mebane Faber: Co-founder and the Chief Investment Officer of Cambria Investment Management
Jim Bruce: Producer, Director, and Writer of Money For Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve
Chris Martenson: Reknown speaker and founder of Peak Prosperity
Mike "Mish" Shedlock: Investment advisor for Sitka Pacific and Founder of Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

In addition, we expect confirmation from a number of other highly respected fund managers and speakers. This year's event is two days and will include additional "break-out" groups.

For speaker bios, please check out Wine Country Conference Speakers.

This Year's Cause: Autism

$100,000 of the money raised last year came from a generous matching grant from the John P. Hussman Foundation.

Some of us in the industry who have done well are making an effort to give something back. John Hussman is at the very top of that list.

One of John's kids has severe autism. This year, all net proceeds will go to support autism programs.

Conference Details

For further details about the 2014 conference, please see Wine Country Conference May 1st & 2nd, 2014

Nothing Like It!

This event is not just another "come and hear someone talk" kind of thing. Attendees and their significant others can expect an educational, fun, and relaxed time.

Last conference, we arranged wine tours. They were a big hit. We will do so again. One of the wine estates we visited had a Bocce Ball court. On a couple of miracle shots, I won both games I played.

Stay an extra day and golf or travel. I did. The conference hotel is a fun place in and of itself.

Unlike many other conferences, you will have easy access to speakers.

Want to chat with me, Steen, John, or anyone else at the conference? You will have an easy chance.

Not only do we have an excellent lineup of speakers, you will have an opportunity to meet with them, have intimate discussions on important investment topics, with a lot of fun on the side, including wine tours and great wine.

There's nothing like it in the investment business. And your money goes to a great cause! What can be better?

Register Now for Discount

We extended our $200 "early bird" discount through January 10, for those who register early. There will be no further extensions. Please Register Now!

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Gold Flash Crash - Manipulation or Something Else?

Posted: 06 Jan 2014 10:58 AM PST

Around 10:14 AM Eastern, gold plunged in a 10-minute window on heavy volume. Price quickly recovered amid speculation as to precisely what happened.

MarketWatch reports Gold market 'flash crash' explanations vary from 'fat finger' to 'price manipulation'

Gold futures suffered a sudden, brief drop in prices early Monday on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, with market watchers blaming the move on everything from a "fat finger" to trader liquidation to price manipulation.

According to Nanex, a trade of about 4,200 contracts sent February gold GCG4 -0.07% tumbling by $30 an ounce on heavy volume at around 10:14 a.m. Eastern and triggered a 10-second trading halt. Prices fell from about $1,245 to around $1,215 an ounce in just moments. The crash came about 14 minutes after the release of U.S. factory orders and ISM services index data.

Phil Flynn, a senior analyst at Price Futures Group, at first said the drop looked like it was due to a "fat finger," then added there was speculation over a broker liquidating positions.

Mark O'Byrne, executive director at GoldCore, said the "flash crash today had the hallmarks of price manipulation." Still, "as ever, it is nearly impossible to tell and could have been a fat finger trade or a large fund or bank liquidating a gold position."

Meanwhile, Ross Norman, chief executive officer at Sharps Pixley, said that the move "looks to be shorts defending their substantial positions." But "some of us have doubts, which makes gold a steal at these prices," he said. "In fact, [it's] the cheapest insurance in town against economic difficulties."

Now the real question is whether the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and exchange "will investigate and try to actually enforce its regulations," said Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter.

"Apparently there was no investigation into the mid-April episode where gold contracts were dumped simultaneously to push the price through sell stops. Either position limits were ignored by the exchange in this instance, or there was collusion involved — either of which should have been investigated and exposed," he said.

"I'm afraid that today's spike downward is further evidence that the current regulatory regime isn't working," said Lundin.

Flash Crash Chart

Heavy Volume Surge

Note the heavy volume surge right at 10:14. Barchart shows close to 25,000 contracts traded in a 10 minute window.

One-Way Manipulation Highly Unlikely

In general, traders scream "manipulation" every time trades go against them. Perhaps some of them are. But traders never complain when trades spike heavily in their favor. Perhaps some of those are manipulation as well.

I assure you that manipulation is not a one way street. That said, manipulation in any direction is not a welcome thing.

In general, manipulations occur at illiquid times, such as the middle of the night when trading is thin. Someone wanting to force the price of gold lower (or higher) would likely try at that time. Thus, I tend to discount direct manipulation.

Main Lesson

Whether fat-finger, manipulation, or computer initiated, those with stops near $1215 had them taken out (regardless of why the flash happened).

It's increasingly difficult to trade with stops when this kind of action routinely happens. That's the main lesson here, and no one commentated on it.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com