I’ve been listening to The Financial Sense Newshour with Jim Puplava for about two years now. The host is unabashed about his bullishness on gold, but he backs it with logical arguments, and it’s been difficult to argue with his stance that gold is going to keep going up until we see some new form of non-fiat currency.

It wasn’t until this week, though, that I heard Mr. Puplava actually give a price target on the metal:

“We aren’t even close to where I see the price of gold and silver going. We’re probably in the second phase of this bull market. Wait until we get to the third phase of this bull market where I think you’re going to see prices closer to $10,000. I know people probably think I’m nuts saying that, but I can make all kinds of fundamental reasons why we think that’s where we’re eventually going to end up.”

Mr. Puplava attributes the rise in gold to one thing: money-printing at, not just the Federal Reserve, but by central banks and governments around the world.

“The debt issue, as Reinhart and Rogoff have told us in This Time Is Different, it takes about 10 years to work those things off.

“We’re only four years into a 10-year debt cycle work-off. So we have another six years to go, and does anyone believe that governments are going to stop printing money? I mean just take a look at what they’re talking about bailing out, back-stopping, quantitative easing, they have all kinds of fancy names for it, but we all know what happens when they do this kind of thing.”

It turns out Jim Puplava’s not the only one who thinks we could see gold at $10,000 an ounce. Nick Barisheff (the CEO of Bullion Management Group Inc.) is actually working on a book titled “$10,000 Gold – Why it will get there sooner than you may expect.”

“Unless current monetary policy is drastically changed, it will almost certainly rise to $10,000 an ounce and beyond,” Barisheff writes (per ResourceInvestor).

He believes three facts are contributing to gold’s ongoing march toward five digits:

• The loss of purchasing power of global currencies
• The inflationary effects of money creation
• Irreversible trends (an aging population, peak oil and outsourcing) will continue to cause gold to rise

Barisheff goes onto point out what I think most outsiders fail to miss when they’re thinking about gold: it doesn’t rise in value. It’s only going up in price because the value of our dollars, euros and yen are falling.

And, if you fall in their camp, you’ll probably come to the same conclusion they have: the fiat currency system that President Nixon implemented in 1971 is on the verge of collapse. And until we get a new currency, gold, silver and other hard assets will be the only vehicles we’ll have to protect the assets we’ve a worked a lifetime to accumulate.

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Recently, I blogged about why the U.S. government has a vested interest in keeping gold prices low (see my post What is gold price suppression? for more). Today, I offer up four signs that gold price suppression is actually happening:

1) Swiss miss? One of the strangest impacts of the news that Switzerland was pegging its currency to the Euro was the downward pressure it put on the price of gold. Before the news, the Swiss franc was generally regarded as one of the last strong currencies in the world, and the fact that it would no longer serve as a safe haven should have pushed gold up according to Hinde Capital CEO Ben Davies.

“Why was (gold) selling off just ahead of a really bullish announcement?” Hinde asked in an interview with King World News. “You have to believe that there was some coordinated action. When I say that, the central banks will all have been in on knowing ahead of time that the Swiss were going to announce this. So there was central bank selling because they really didn’t want the price of gold to skyrocket on what is incredibly bullish news for gold.”

Even Goldman Sachs’ head gold trader Zak Dhabalia was perplexed. “The immediate aftermath was in complete contradiction to prior recent episodes of intervention and what anyone would have expected,” he said (per Fool.com). “Instead of spurring a further gold price rally on the basis that it was one of the few remaining safe haven ‘currencies’ we saw a USD$50 collapse in minutes.”

2) Collusion among central banks. GATA.org is one of the most forceful advocates for transparency in the gold markets. And they’ve been trying for years to draw attention to comments by William S. White, former head of the monetary and economic department at the Bank for International Settlements. At a convention of central bankers in Basel, Switzerland, in 2005, White declared that a major purpose for cooperation between central banks is “the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices – especially gold and foreign exchange.” GATA’s went as far as taking out a $264,000 full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal re-printing White’s comments (along with a few others).

3) Gold margin requirements. I constantly go back and forth on whether or not the COMEX is attempting to manipulate commodity prices by raising and lowering gold and silver margin requirements. On the one hand, the COMEX exists to make money for its parent company, the CME Group. When prices get too volatile the CME Group tries to shake out weak hands (and protect itself from losses) by raising margin requirements.

On the week of Sept. 19, though, news leaked out that the COMEX would be raising margin requirements on gold at the close of trading on Sept. 23. This information got out even after gold prices were already falling rapidly (and the rumors likely accelerated those losses dramatically). Having followed the gold and silver markets closely for four years, this is the first time I’ve heard of the COMEX “leaking” news about margin requirements. Granted, it could have been an accidental leak by a rogue insider, but the whole thing feels fishy – particularly since it helped contribute to one of the biggest sell-offs in gold since 1987.

4) The Chinese have figured us out. It’s interesting that gold price suppression gets sneers in the U.S., but the U.S. embassy in Beijing was alarmed enough by a newspaper editorial in China to forward it to the U.S. State Department. That happened in 2009 (according to a cable leaked by Wikileaks). The Embassy forwarded on the following snippets from the editorial that ran in a State-sponsored newspaper in China:

“The U.S. and Europe have always suppressed the rising price of gold. They intend to weaken gold’s function as an international reserve currency. They don’t want to see other countries turning to gold reserves instead of the U.S. dollar or Euro. Therefore, suppressing the price of gold is very beneficial for the U.S. in maintaining the U.S. dollar’s role as the international reserve currency.”

It’s important to remember why central banks want gold prices suppressed: they need investors to maintain their faith in fiat currencies. Without that faith, an economy collapses, and few things erode faith in fiat currencies like a rapidly rising gold price.

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Despite a two-day rally in stocks and precious metals, I’m still bearish in the near-term (see my post 8 signs we’re headed for a bear market in stocks for more). One of the biggest indicators that we’re in for a rough patch is the rapid climb in the volatility index (the so-called “fear gauge” for the stock market). The VIX spiked early in August and it’s yet to taper off:

Typically, gold and silver act like hedges against market uncertainty, but the recent turmoil in stocks has me feeling like this isn’t typical market uncertainty. It feels like it could be something worse.

And when things really go south in the markets, there is no true hedge outside of cash. We learned that in 2008 when gold slumped 30 percent from $1,010 to $700 an ounce and silver shed nearly 60 percent from $21 to $9 an ounce.

Of course, history might not repeat itself (despite warnings of a recession from the ECRI). And there are quite a few investors who are still bullish in the near-term for gold and silver prices.

MF Global’s Tom Pawlicki is calling for gold to advance to $1,700 and silver to move toward $33 an ounce in the short-term (per Barron’s). Technical traders argue gold’s still in a four-week-old downtrend (per Kitco). If gold closes both $1,535, expect more selling. If it closes above $1,705, it could be time to get bullish.

For silver, bulls are looking for a close above $33.58 and bears are looking for a close below $26.15 (again per Kitco).

Today’s non-farm payroll report could determine the direction for gold and silver prices for the rest of the month. “Many think (the jobs number) could dash recession expectations or rekindle widespread macro economic uncertainty,” the CME Group said in a statement yesterday (per IBTimes).

It’s clear we seem to be at a turning point in the markets. And that’s evidenced by lower silver price predictions from leading analysts. TD Securities expects silver to average $36.11 per ounce this year and $39 an ounce in 2012 (per ResourceInvestingNews). That’s roughly in line with predictions from Credit Suisse. They expect silver to rise to $33.70 in 2012 and taper off to $30.60 an ounce in 2013. Credit Suisse also points out that another silver price sprint to $50 an ounce appears to be “increasingly unlikely.”

Natixis Commodity Markets sees silver averaging a ho-hum $27.50 an ounce in 2012 on decreased industrial demand, and gold at $1,450 an ounce.

The only thing that has me feeling like we might be near a bottom in silver prices is the fact that no one’s making bold predictions of $100 silver or $250 silver like they were this spring. That only happens when prices are in a strong uptrend, and the lack of bold predictions and media coverage could be the perfect buying opportunity as the precious metals consolidate.

“It would be quite conceivable to see silver test the strong support area at $20, but that gift would really be too much,” writes Warren Bevan at Goldseek. “Already, with this nice decline refiners are struggling or simply can’t keep up with demand.”

Indeed, the only place we’ve really seen increased demand for precious metals is in the physical coin and bar market. Those are investors who are in for the long-haul, though, and that doesn’t necessarily bode well for the short-run.

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A few weeks ago, I might have argued that gold price suppression is a myth. The more I learn about it, though, the scarier I find the concept.

Gold price suppression refers to coordinated efforts to lower the price of gold. On the face of it, that sounds like a meaningless goal. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll see there’s a whole lot at stake; namely, the future of the U.S. economy.

If governments, institutions and individuals lose faith in the dollar as a reserve currency, the Greenback’s value will plummet. It will be much harder for the U.S. to borrow money, and government services will have to be slashed. With 48.5% of the U.S. living in a household that receives some form of government benefits (per the Wall Street Journal), slashing benefits could collapse the U.S. economy.

Here’s what really changed my mind about gold price suppression: a single diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks (click here to see the gold price suppression cable from Wikileaks). In it, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing wrote to the U.S. State Department, warning that the Chinese government was proactively dumping dollars in favor of gold reserves in an attempt to undermine the dollar and raise the clout of the Chinese Yuan.

The cable highlighted an article titled “China increases its gold reserves in order to kill two birds with one stone” from a State-sponsored newspaper in China. It was apparently alarming enough for the U.S. Embassy to send it straight to the State Department. Here’s an excerpt from the story:

“The U.S. and Europe have always suppressed the rising price of gold. They intend to weaken gold’s function as an international reserve currency. They don’t want to see other countries turning to gold reserves instead of the U.S. dollar or Euro. Therefore, suppressing the price of gold is very beneficial for the U.S. in maintaining the U.S. dollar’s role as the international reserve currency.

China’s increased gold reserves will thus act as a model and lead other countries towards reserving more gold. Large gold reserves are also beneficial in promoting the internationalization of the RMB.“

Of course, right now, the yuan is tightly controlled by the Chinese government. It’s difficult for retail investors to even invest in the yuan (see our post How to buy Chinese Yuan for more), but China’s showing signs of loosening that control.

It’s not in their interest to de-couple the yuan and dollar yet, since tying it to the Greenback keeps Chinese exports cheap. It is interesting, though, that China’s could be building up enormous leverage over the U.S.

“When they [China] want the dollar to fall, they will let it,” Mark Weisbrot, the co-director of Washington’s Centre for Economic and Policy Research, told Al Jazeera recently.

In the meantime, China’s accumulating gold, even while they realize that the U.S. could be working to suppress gold prices. Should the U.S. economy continue to stagnate, suppressing gold prices looks like a losing battle.

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Stocks are flirting with a 20 percent decline from market highs in April. A 20 percent decline is the generally-accepted definition of a bear market, and it looks more and more like we’re headed for the dreaded bear country. Here are 8 key signs that we’re a long way from a recovery:

1) The ECRI. There’s just one institution that can legitimately claim to have “never been wrong” at predicting a recession. That’s the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI), and last Friday they sounded the warning bell. “Early last week, ECRI notified clients that the U.S. economy is indeed tipping into a new recession,” the company wrote on its Web site, “and there’s nothing that policy makers can do to head it off.”

If the ECRI is right this time, they’re predicting the official unemployment numbers could rise from 9 percent as high as 15 percent. That would put the “unofficial” unemployment numbers closer to 25 percent.

2) “Close to faltering.” Even Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged widespread weakness yesterday when he warned the U.S. economy is “close to faltering.”

“Recent indicators, including new claims for unemployment insurance and surveys of hiring plans, point to the likelihood of more sluggish job growth in the period ahead,” Bernanke told Congress. He hinted that the Fed is prepared to take more action if things worsen. The markets liked that, but it’s a clear indication that we’re far from out of the woods.

3) Manufacturing contraction. For the first time in two years, the Global Manufacturing PMI dipped below 50 – the cut-off line that differentiates growth from contraction. The measure hit 49.9 in August – a low we haven’t seen since June 2009. Things are even worse in Europe where the manufacturing index fell below 50 for the second month in a row.

4) Death to the Hang Seng? Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index, which includes shares of many of China’s largest companies, sealed up its worst quarter in a decade when the market closed on Friday (per BusinessWeek). All told, the index shed 22 percent in three months. Hang Seng shares haven’t seen losses that steep since September 2001.

5) European contagion. Goldman Sachs slashed their forecasts for U.S. growth in the first quarter of 2012 to a paltry 0.5 percent. “The European crisis threatens U.S. economic growth via tighter financial conditions, reduced credit availability and weaker growth of U.S. exports to the region,” Goldman economist Andrew Tilton said (per the Financial Post). “This impact is likely to slow the U.S. economy to the edge of recession by early 2012.” Late last week, Goldman also published a report arguing that developed markets don’t just face a downturn but rather have a 40 percent chance of economic stagnation for the next five years.

6) Greek debt default looms. Yes, the EU’s frantically trying to find some way to stop Greece from defaulting on its debt, but the long-term picture for the country doesn’t look good. If they don’t get a bailout by November, Greece will have to start defaulting on pensions, salaries and bonds (per CBS). Even if they do get a bailout, it’s unclear how the government will be able to manage a debt load that stands at 150 percent of GDP. Recently, investors grew so pessimistic on three-year Greek bonds, the interest rates rose above 100 percent.

7) Class warfare. Doom and gloom newsletter writers have been talking for years about the coming civil unrest in the U.S. It’s something I’ve started realizing doesn’t just happen in other countries. Protests in Greece and Italy are so common they rarely make the international news. And now, Wall Street’s dealing with its own set of protestors. In a matter of weeks, Occupy Wall Street has spread from New York to Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston. Now, several unions are getting in on the act, too (per CNN). High unemployment and a lack of opportunities leads to civil unrest – no matter where you live.

8) Down with bonds. Moody’s downgraded Italy’s government bonds yesterday from Aa2 to A2 (per the Financial Post). Funding’s getting harder and harder to get for the weakest European governments, and that means they’re going to be forced to slash their spending. That doesn’t bode well for consumer-driven economies abroad or at home.

Official government numbers may not show that we’re in a recession yet, but the signs are clear. In the words of ECRI co-founder Laksman Achuthan, “you haven’t seen anything yet.”

“A new recession isn’t simply a statistical event,” Achuthan writes. “It’s a vicious cycle that, once started, must run its course. Under certain circumstances, a drop in sales, for instance, lowers production, which results in declining employment and income, which in turn weakens sales further, all the while spreading like wildfire from industry to industry, region to region, and indicator to indicator. That’s what a recession is all about.”

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Photo credit: svilen001.

By now, most silver investors have heard about the lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM). A class action suit’s been pending against the bank since 2010, when a large group of investors accused JPM of taking out enormous short positions in the silver futures market. The move was allegedly a bid to manipulate silver prices (see our post Silver price manipulation case narrows in on JPMorgan; drops HSBC for more).

Interestingly, there are rumors floating around the Web that some silver coin sellers could be doing their own form of silver price manipulation: namely, refusing to sell coins in the face of lower silver prices.

“I visited three very reputable distributors today – AMPEX, Gainesville and Northwest Territorial Mint – and all three of these dealers were mysteriously out of stock on one-ounce silver coins,” writes George Maniere at Market Oracle. “I can only conclude that they are willing to sit on them until the price of silver goes back up.”

Even the U.S. Mint got in the action, halting orders for sets of un-circulated American Silver Eagles (see our post Expect volatility on the path to higher silver prices in 2012 for more) because they can’t stock the necessary blanks to make the coins.

Everything’s in flux right now. We’re going through what the Financial Times calls “the biggest swings in precious metals since the collapse of Lehman.” According to the same article, though, gold and silver coin sales hit all-time sales records on Thursday (Oct. 22), Friday (Oct. 23) and Monday (Oct. 26).

That left the shelves at silver coin dealers empty. Demand for industrial precious metals may be falling, but it’s actually rising in the physical markets on bargain-hunting. That means a whole lot of investors see the recent drop in gold and silver prices for what it is: a rough patch in a decade-long bull market for precious metals.

“Buying in the retail market … it’s just huge right now,” Jim Puplava, the host of Financial Sense Newshour, said on Saturday. “They drive the price down, and it’s like Nordstrom is having a 20-30 percent off sale.”

While it may seem strange that coin dealers run out silver as soon as prices dip, it’s probably not manipulation and refusal to sell silver coins, but rather that a tidal wave of buyers have moved in to capitalize on lower prices. Even the popular Sprott Physical Silver Trust ETV (NYSE:PSLV) announced a week ago that it’d run out of silver and needed to replenish its supply.

“I think investors are really smart,” Kathy Derbes of KDerbes Precious Metals LLC told Mr. Puplava. “They know what’s going on. They understand that these price breaks – particularly this time around – are not telling us anything about the fundamentals of gold and silver. In fact, I think the reasons for owning it have gotten a lot stronger.”

Derbes adds that current orders for her clients have a two to three week delay before they’re shipped, and she doesn’t expect that to change. If anything, the delay could increase.

“We’re probably in the beginning stages of what could be shortages,” she said. “We have to remember that it’s a market that can’t be printed into existence like all the paper currencies. We have to wait for the mints to catch up.”

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The only thing that’s certain in the silver market now is uncertainty. Even after a 40 percent plunge two weeks ago, silver prices have struggled to recover, and the upcoming week doesn’t exactly have investors feeling bullish.

Many analysts are actually calling for further weakness in silver prices on decreased industrial demand. CommodityOnline warns prices could fall as low as $23 an ounce in the near-term.

It’s difficult to downplay the severity and threat Greece’s financial crisis poses for the rest of the world. Consider this: Greece’s debt now stands at 150 percent of the country’s GDP. Investors are so negative on the government’s ability to pay back that debt that the interest rate on three-year bonds there recently climbed above 100 percent (per CommodityOnline).

If the problem were isolated to Greece alone, it might not be such a big deal, but many of the holders of Greek debt are intimately tied to economies in bordering countries. BNP Paribus, Societie General and Commerzbank hold some $14.5 billion in Greek debt. The IMF, EU Loans and European Central Bank hold an additional $150 billion in Greek debt (again per CommodityOnline).

Rest assured that should the Greek government default on that debt, reverberations will take down other countries or financial institutions. That’s left investors fleeing the Euro not for gold or silver (as we’d like to see), but rather for the dollar.

Couple the strengthening Greenback with fears of a global slowdown, and the silver bears are starting to make a very compelling argument indeed. If we are on the cusp of another recession, silver and copper will be the metals that are hit the hardest (owing to significant price influence from the industrial sector).

We only have to look back to 2008 to find evidence that when investors start raising cash, precious metals don’t automatically shoot higher. Between March 2008 and the end of the year, the silver price fell nearly 50 percent from $21 an ounce to $10.50 an ounce. During roughly the same period, the S&P 500 lost more than 10 percent in one of the most brutal sell-offs in decades.

Still, you hear precious metals referred to as a safe haven investment. That’s true to some extent, but when there’s blood in the streets, don’t count on metals to rise. They’re going to fall alongside of every other major asset class. Metals only become a safe haven when inflation is rising. And you can’t get inflation if everyone’s raising cash because they’re nervous about what’s going on in Europe (and China).

“If the economy continues to weaken silver could fall as far as $21.00 an ounce,” writes George Maniere at MarketOracle.

Bearish predictions like this have me re-thinking my decision last week to go long the ProShares Ultra Silver ETF (NYSE:AGQ). AGQ is a leveraged bet that the price of silver will go up. I’m starting to consider betting against the S&P instead by buying shares in ProShares UltraPro Short S&P 500 ETF (NYSE:SPXU).

I don’t say all this because I’m bearish on silver prices in the long run. I’m absolutely not. Instead, I’m afraid we could be in for a genuine market rout that’s akin to 2008′s Great Recession. I lost more money than I care to admit then by sticking to the “buy-and-hold” mantra. I don’t plan to repeat the mistake, and the recent surge in the value of the dollar is evidence that other investors feel the same.

I’ll leave you with just this warning: don’t blindly buy silver on recent weakness. Sit in cash and wait until precious metals decide which way they’re heading. Silver will have it’s day in the sun again, just don’t expect it until we know for sure we’re not on the brink of the dreaded double-dip.

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Social games maker Zynga is one of dozens of highly-anticipated planned Tech IPOs in 2012.

The tech IPO pipeline is officially clogged. Renaissance Capital claims there are 330 IPOs (across all industries) in the IPO pipeline looking to raise $180 billion. Renaissance predicts that capital raised from 2011 IPOs could fall 36 percent shy of last year’s $39 billion. Should the market recover, 2012′s IPO market will be massive, and there are lots of great tech companies eager to raise capital. Here’s our unofficial 2012 tech IPO calendar…

360Buy.com IPO (Jingdong Mall). One of the largest business-to-consumer sites in China, 360Buy.com often draws comparisons to Amazon. Revenue was expected to hit $4.4 billion in 2011. Expect that keep climbing as online sales in China rose 77 percent in China last year. See our post 3 reasons to invest in the 360Buy.com IPO (Jingdong Mall) for more.

58.com IPO. China’s largest Craigslist-like online classifieds site, 58.com filed for an IPO on June 20,2011. The site makes money by charging a small fraction of its posters for premium-placement on the site.

Angie’s List IPO ($75 million+). Angie’s List lets paying subscribers read reviews of local businesses and contractors. The company’s something of an anomaly in the fast-paced world of tech start-ups as it’s now in its 16th year of operation. During that time, Angie’s List has accumulated a database of more than 2.2 million reviews (per CNN) and has more than 800,000 paying members.

Alibaba’s HiChina IPO ($200 million+). A subsidiary of Alibaba.com Ltd., HiChina Group Ltd.’s something like GoDaddy.com. The company offers domain names, hosting accounts and website building tools for small businesses in China. An IPO will help finance expansion into new businesses including email and website design (per WSJ).

Bazaarvoice IPO ($85 million+). You’ve probably seen or used Bazaarvoice’s software without realizing it. The company sells its code to online retailers (like Best Buy and Macy’s), so those retailers can pull in online reviews of the products they sell. Bazaarvoice is expected to generate $64.5 million+ in revenue this year, and CEO Brett Hurt claims the company could stop expanding now and immediately become profitable.

Brightcove IPO ($50 million+). Brightcove offers a cloud-based video serving platform for paying customers. All told, they serve up some 700 million video streams a month (second only to YouTube) for more than 3,300 clients (per GigaOm). Unfortunately, the business doesn’t reap a huge amount of revenue. Brightcove will likely book somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million in revenue this year.

Eloqua IPO ($100 million+). Eloqua makes it easier for large Web sites to run and analyze marketing campaigns. Specifically, the company’s analytics software allows businesses to predict how much revenue marketing campaigns will generate.

Facebook IPO. Now boasting more than 800 million registered users, Facebook’s IPO will rank among the largest IPOs of all time. The latest media reports peg Facebook’s IPO date as sometime late in 2012. Interestingly, though, SEC rules will require the company to start making public its revenue, profits and losses in April 2012 (since the company’s total number of shareholders now exceeds 500).

Gilt Groupe IPO. A flash-sales site that offers temporary discounts on luxury goods, one of Gilt Groupe’s smaller competitors (HauteLook) was recently acquired by Nordstrom, Inc. (NYSE:JWN) for $180 million. Contrast that with the much larger Gilt Groupe where revenue alone is expected to hit $500 million this year.

Groupon, Inc. IPO ($750 million+). A series of pre-IPO missteps may push Groupon’s IPO to 2012. The Chicago-based daily deals email marketing company generated $688 million in revenue during the first half of 2011. See our post 3 reasons NOT to invest in Groupon’s IPO for more.

Guidewire IPO ($100 million+). A 10-year-old company that develops technology for the insurance industry, Guidewire’s services help streamline claims by processing them online. The company generated revenue of $144.7 million in 2010. That was good for net income of $15.5 million. Guidewire will IPO under ticker symbol GWRE.

Jive Software IPO ($100 million+). Jive creates social networking software for corporations. And it counts some major companies among its clients – including Nike, Cisco and Toshiba. Revenue from each of their customers averages a whopping $7,874 a month (per OregonLive). See our post 3 reasons to buy shares in a Jive IPO (Jive Software) for more.

LivingSocial IPO ($1 billion+). In light of the recent turmoil in financial markets, LivingSocial has temporarily shelved IPO plans. The company is instead fishing around for private equity (per Bloomberg). The daily deals site faces a lot of competition in Groupon and Google, which recently purchased restaurant-review company Zagat and German daily-deals site DailyDeal.de.

MobiTV IPO ($75 million+). A video provider for mobile phones, MobiTV has contracts with all the major telecoms: AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. Their software gives mobile users the ability to download video or watch it on-demand via their phones. Of course, the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile could drive down revenue at the company. An IPO could help them expand internationally. See our post 3 reasons NOT to invest in the MobiTV IPO for more.

Qunar.com IPO. A China-based travel search site, Qunar’s majority-owned by China’s largest search engine, Baidu.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIDU). Qunar’s already a Top 100 site in China, and I expect the backing from Baidu will cement Qunar’s position as the leading travel site in China. See our post Qunar IPO: 5 reasons to invest in China’s travel site for more.

SecondMarket IPO. The rumors haven’t started flying about a SecondMarket IPO yet, but the company did start listing its own shares on its Web site. SecondMarket provides a marketplace for high-net-worth individuals and institutions to invest in private companies.

Trulia IPO. An online real estate search and marketing company akin to Zillow Inc. (NASDAQ:Z), Trulia announced IPO plans in February 2011. The site’s been doubling revenues year over year and has an estimated value of $700 million (per Inman).

Twitter IPO. Look for a Twitter IPO late in 2012 or early 2013. The ubiquitous micro-blogging site now claims 100 million active users. Questions remain about the company’s business model, but Twitter’s reach offers some tantalizing possibilities. See our post Twitter’s secret key to making money for more.

Vancl IPO ($1 billion+). An online-only clothing retailer in China, Vancl’s advertising campaigns blanket the Internet behind the Great Firewall. It seems to be working, too, as the company targets price-conscious consumers. Vancl comes from good pedigree, with the company’s founder, Chen Nian, having sold his last venture, Joyo.com, to Amazon. Joyo has since morphed into Amazon.cn.

Yelp IPO. Yelp provides local reviews for businesses and restaurants. According to CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, the company gets 63 million unique monthly visitors who add more than 1 million new reviews to the site every month. Yelp’s been particularly successful with its apps. The right partnerships could drive revenue growth for the company moving forward.

Zynga IPO ($1 billion+). Zynga, which makes social-networking games for Facebook, iPhones and Androids, is tentatively planning to IPO in November 2011. Don’t be surprised if Zynga’s IPO date gets pushed back to 2012, though. The company’s has perhaps the best financials of all the company’s on the list. As of March, the company held nearly $1 billion in cash and was generating cash flow of $104 million per quarter (per Fortune). See our post 8 facts about Zynga before the IPO for more.

Interesting 2012 non-tech IPOs: U.K. soccer team Manchester United.

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With mainland China locking down exports of rare earth metals, rare earth mining companies on the other side of the Great Wall are scrambling to go into production. Analysts argue that the relatively small size of the rare earth metals market outside of China (which currently controls as much as 95 percent of the world’s supply of rare earths) will only support the emergence of a five or six new mines. The first major rare earth producers to emerge, then, will likely dominate the market outside China for decades to come.

There are a handful of leaders: Avalon Rare Metals (AMEX:AVL), Iluka Resources (PINK:ILKAF), Kenmare Resources (PINK:KMRPF) and Lynas Corp. (PINK:KMRPF). But beyond them, there’s a scrum of juniors furiously trying to get feasibility studies underway. The best finds will likely get gobbled up, or, perhaps, go to production on their own one day. Here’s a comprehensive list of the leading rare earth stocks and their year-to-date performance (in an admittedly crummy market):

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You know things are going bad in the silver market when the U.S. Mint suspends sales of silver coins. The Mint announced on Monday that it was halting incoming orders for uncirculated American Silver Eagles sets so it can re-price the collector coins (per MineWeb). The move came on the heels of a 30 percent plunge in silver prices last week.

It was a perfect storm for precious metals last week. The CME Group announced new margin requirements for gold and silver on Friday, fears of a Greek debt default and a rally in the dollar all converged to push silver down from $40 to $28 an ounce in the span of five days.

It’s safe to say investors panicked, and – in their panic – showed yet again a preference for sitting on the sidelines in cash. That’s telling, as much of the investment demand for silver has been driven by fears of inflation and a debased dollar.

But what happens when every currency in the world is getting debased and commodities are falling, too? Investors don’t have much of a choice but to sell and wait for sunnier days. And some think it could be a while before we see sunnier days.

Even Eric Sprott – a billionaire hedge fund manager and founder of the Sprott Physical Silver Trust (NYSE:PSLV) and the Sprott Physical Gold Trust (NYSE:PHYS) – sounds nervous. In a recent interview with the Financial Post, he cited the fact that consumers just don’t have any cash to spend.

His evidence? Comments from Wal-Mart’s CEO Mike Duke who claims Wal-Mart shoppers are “running out of money” faster than they were a year ago. Duke cites Wal-Mart sales numbers that show customers are shopping at the first of the month (right when they get paid). After the first, sales drop precipitously.

“People’s incomes haven’t been going up, but their costs have,” Sprott told the Post. “It’s palpable what’s happening, and it’s not good.”

That’s not to say that Sprott’s advocating investors turn away from silver.

“Gold was the investment of the [past] decade, and I think silver will be the investment of this decade, so we’re trying to position ourselves to take advantage of that,” Sprott said in an interview with the Globe and Mail on Sept. 13.

He also argues that a Greek debt default would ultimately be a boon for gold and silver prices as it would lead to yet more currency debasement in Europe.

Where does that leave us in the short-term then? One of the few analysts who has went on record in recent days with an actual short-term price target for silver is Chris Thompson from Haywood Securities.

Thompson expects the gold-to-silver ratio to tighten this year, and he believes that will push silver prices up to $38 per ounce by the end of the year.

“Nonetheless, we caution that more sharp declines in silver prices, similar to that recently experienced, should not be ruled out, considering the volatile nature of silver prices and the relative ease with which ETF investors can exit the market,” Thompson says (per MineWeb).

As I said earlier in the week (see my post Silver prices setting up for “trade of a lifetime”?), I went long on the ProShares Ultra Silver ETF (NYSE:AGQ) on Monday. The paper-based silver ETF seeks to produce 200 percent of the daily returns for the price of silver.

Yes, there could be extreme volatility in the months to come, but the ultimate driver for the price of silver (currency debasement) hasn’t changed. And that means my outlook for silver prices hasn’t either.

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