Pervan Says Silver, Palladium, Platinum `Look Cheap'

Pervan Says Silver, Palladium, Platinum `Look Cheap'

Credit-Card Consumer Protection Law May Reduce Purchasing Power

By Alexis Leondis

May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Jack Krupansky declared bankruptcy three and a half years ago. Now he worries the credit-card legislation Congress passed this week will make his banks, including Barclays Plc, penalize him as a riskier borrower.

“This legislation could boomerang and hurt the same people it’s designed to help during the credit crunch,” said Krupansky, 55, a freelance software developer in New York.

The “bill of rights” that U.S. President Barack Obama signed today is intended to protect cardholders from excessive fees and last-minute contract changes. It also may prompt banks to slash available credit by as much as $90 billion to avoid risk, said Robert Hammer, chief executive officer of R.K. Hammer Investment Bankers, an adviser to card companies.

That reduction could choke off a consumer-led recovery and hurt retailers struggling amid the longest recession since the 1930s, said Andrew Caplin, an economics professor at New York University. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of the U.S. economy.

“The bill may stop various forms of abuse, but it will also stop some various forms of credit,” Caplin said. “If the economic recovery is going to rely on consumer spending, it will be a long wait.”

In 2007, purchase volume on all U.S. consumer and commercial credit cards equaled $2.11 trillion, up 8.4 percent from 2006, according to the Nilson Report, the Carpinteria, California-based newsletter.

Cardholders Spend More

“When people walk into stores with credit cards instead of cash, 90 percent of them spend more,” Britt Beemer, founder of America’s Research Group, said in an interview. “Apparel, which is in the dumpster already, is going to be hurt the most. Nonessential, big-ticket items like TVs and electronics could certainly be impacted a lot.”

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Gold Climbs in New York as Dollar Pares Gains; Silver Advances

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Gold prices rose in New York, reversing an earlier loss, on increased demand for the metal as a store of value while the dollar pared gains. Silver advanced.

Investment in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest exchange- traded fund backed by bullion, climbed 1.9 percent to 1,118.76 metric tons as of May 22, the first gain in seven sessions, the company’s Web site shows. Gold assets held by Zuercher Kantonalbank’s exchange-traded fund jumped to a record 4.603 million ounces last week, the bank said today.

“Investors took advantage of intraday weakness by adding to their long positions,” Tom Pawlicki, an analyst at MF Global in Chicago, said by e-mail.

Gold futures for August delivery rose $4.50, or 0.5 percent, to $959.60 at 12:21 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Comex division. The metal fell as much as 0.7 percent earlier today. Futures for June delivery, the most-active contract until today, climbed $4.30, or 0.5 percent, to $957.60 an ounce on the Comex.

Bullion for immediate delivery in London climbed 0.6 percent, to $957.95 an ounce. The metal rose to $949.50 an ounce in London’s morning “fixing,” used by some mining companies to sell their output, from $945 in yesterday’s afternoon fixing.
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