Another major bearish factor for the gold and silver markets in recent weeks has been rallying stock markets worldwide, which shows investor risk appetite is on the upswing at the expense of demand for safe-haven assets like gold and to a lesser degree silver.

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As the recovery slows, a growing number of people worry about a descent into competitive depreciation, as countries try to grab a bigger share of global demand at others' expense, a trend that could fuel protectionism.

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The federal mandate transformed a voluntary expense into a compulsory one, increasing demand exponentially.

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Employees are an expense item, one that becomes increasingly burdensome when demand dries up.

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Siemens, a German engineering giant and a leading maker of such devices, has seen demand for superconducting MRI machines grow at the expense of the non-superconducting sort.

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In the medium-term if global growth stalls and oil prices decline due to reduced industrial demand, this will likely help truck sales at the expense of car sales.

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In other words, just like consumers buy something for themselves on Amazon and check to have it ship to them immediately, users inside an organizations now want IT-related things on-demand and will whip out their personal credit card and expense it.

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All is at a delicate equilibrium, until the owner feels compelled to give in to a firmly worded request from the retailer for an additional discount, or a demand to air-freight, at manufacturer's expense, some boxes of shirts that suffered a two-week production delay and now won't be accepted by the retailer if they're any later than they already are.

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