Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Gold Ends 2008 Higher for US, UK and Euro Investors; Stocks Suffer Record Rout

London Gold Market Report
By: Adrian Ash, BullionVault

THE PRICE OF GOLD BULLION slipped into the New Year's shutdown on Wednesday, ending 2008 a little shy of 3% above the close of 2007 for US investors at $865 an ounce.

The last London Gold Fix of the year also pegged the Gold Price in Euros at €614 for French, German and Italian buyers – more than 7% higher from 12 months ago.

UK gold investors saw the price end 2008 at £596 per ounce, fully 40% better from New Year's Eve 2007.

"Thin market volumes limited any major moves on the upside," reports Manqoba Madinane for Standard Bank in Jo'burg, "which kept precious metals under pressure in aftermarket activity [late Tuesday].

"The US Dollar did not weaken as much as we may have anticipated following worse-than-expected consumer confidence data – which also weighed on precious metals. This may have been a result of increased investment flows into US equity markets, shielding the greenback from economic headwinds."

US stock futures pointed higher as the last session of 2008 drew near. European stock market also gained before the lunchtime close. But like the S&P on Wall Street, both London and Frankfurt shares finished the year more than 30% lower overall, suffering their worst ever 12-month loss.

"We're dealing with something that is really historic and we haven't had a playbook," says US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson in an interview with the Financial Times.

Ignoring his own role in creating the credit bubble when he led Goldman Sachs as the investment bank's CEO, "The reason it has been difficult is, first of all, these excesses have been building up for many, many years," Paulson goes on.

"Secondly, we had a hopelessly outdated global architecture and regulatory authorities in the US."

Now those "excesses" are to be compounded by record levels of government debt and all-time lows in global interest rates – apparent solutions which have so far failed to stem capital losses and dividend cuts for equity buyers.

The outlook for Gold in 2009, in contrast, continues to hold strong – if only because everything looks so weak in comparison.

Adrian Ash
BullionVault

Gold price chart, no delay | Gold investment – simple, safe & efficient

Formerly City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and head of editorial at the UK's leading financial advisory for private investors, Adrian Ash is the editor of Gold News and head of research at BullionVault – where you can Buy Gold Today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.

(c) BullionVault 2008

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The Intrinsic Value of Gold



It is said that gold is precious because it doesn't oxidize, it is relatively scarce, it is beautiful, and it is the only thing proven to hold its value over long periods. If gold is a good store of value, maintaining its purchasing power relative to other things over time (e.g., one ounce of gold buys about 20 barrels of oil on average), then it must have some intrinsic value around which its actual value fluctuates.

This chart is a crude attempt to find that intrinsic value, which I'm guessing is about $400/oz. give or take a bit. My rule of thumb for interpreting gold prices (which I don't try to predict) is that when gold trades above its intrinsic value, as it is now, that means that people are willing to pay a premium for its qualities. It's trading at a premium today because monetary policy is accommodative, and because geopolitical tensions (e.g., India/Pakistan, Israel/Hamas) are elevated. Gold tends to trade below its intrinsic value (e.g., in the 1950s and 60s) when monetary policy is tight and inflation risk and geopolitical risk is relatively low.

So if you are considering buying gold these days, you need to keep in mind that it is somewhat expensive. That's not to say it can't pay off, but there is a hurdle that needs to be overcome (i.e., fears of rising inflation and geopolitical disasters need to be realized) before gold prices can move higher. In addition, there is the issue of timing: over the next 10-20 years I would predict that gold will tend to drift back to its intrinsic value, thus rendering it a very poor investment—and don't forget that gold is one of the very few things that doesn't offer any yield. But that doesn't rule out gold going to $1500 should the Fed fail to withdraw in a timely fashion the massive amount of money it has supplied to the market in recent months.

Something to think about.

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Don't Miss the Coming Gold Bull

With the massive monetary expansion experienced in recent months and the promise for unprecedented levels of money and credit supply increase in coming months, the United States Federal Reserve looks on paper to be sending America straight into hyperinflation. Germany's post-World War I Weimar Republic, post-World War II Hungary, 2001 Argentina, and present day Zimbabwe are all analogous examples of massive debt monetization, which all led to hyperinflationary disaster. Never before has the entire world's economy been linked to one nation's, however, as is the case today with the United States.

In a case of economic mutually assured destruction, foreign creditor nations and their central banks can't afford to spark a run on the US Dollar, because it would kill their own export-based economies, as well as devalue their debt repayments and foreign exchange reserves. But the United States has been financing consumption through debt for decades and has resorted to monetary expansion to finance its debt and deficit spending, which is only going to increase with Barack Obama's infrastructure and social programs. The Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) itself amounts to $700B, all of which will essentially be "printed." Foreign demand for US debt is all but gone, as creditor nations are now attempting to unwind their USD positions. Huge creditor nations like China and Iran were net sellers of US Treasuries in recent months, attesting to the weakening of the American debt bubble. So where's all this excess liquidity go?

The answer is gold, and it is the only way to prevent the hyperinflationary scenarios referenced above from materializing in the United States.

The Fed has been on a money printing binge of unprecedented proportions, but has been able to thus far "trap" the excess liquidity from reaching the consumer level, which is what causes price inflation. It started a massive foreign currency sale this summer through the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) that led to a supply increase of Euros and suppression of dollar usage. It has been liquifying troubled banks by issuing them T-bills financed through monetization in exchange for toxic assets by utilizing reverse repurchase agreements. And it has used the recent deleveraging and commodity collapse (partially caused by credit defaults in many of the overleveraged institutions that were supporting the commodity bull) to supply the temporary demand for US Dollars and feeding its own foreign exchange reserves.

But the excess liquidity thus far is trapped in time-sensitive and manipulated instruments now, and without a demand for American debt, it has to go somewhere. As T-bills expire and the stock market descends further, actual currency is going to be released out of sequestration into the economy. The Fed cannot allow the market to breach below its November lows, unless it wants widespread insolvency in insurers and banks, which are legally required to halt operations in the event of insolvency. I've heard estimates of 7500 and 8000 in the Dow as being minimum support levels that, if broken for an extended time, would lead to economic collapse in America as financials would all go under. To prevent this and to finance Obama's deficit spending, actual dollars will have to be injected into the system and they will be.

Weakness in the dollar causes strength in gold, which is something the Fed (through America's banks) has been suppressing for years. COMEX shorts dominate this suppression of gold prices, but this act will be discontinued to prevent economic collapse. Allowing gold's price to rise to current fair levels (and then rise further to represent gold's rising fundamentals) will soak up much of the excess liquidity, preventing hyperinflationary price increases in consumer goods. Gold reached backwardation this month, signifying the big gold market manipulators are abandoning their short positions.

Ben Bernanke is a proponent of dollar devaluation against gold and is a staunch advocate of Frank D. Roosevelt's decision to do so in 1934 during the Great Depression. Dollar devaluation is one of the government's most prized tools, as it allows debts to be paid back in devalued nominal terms, transferring risk and purchasing power destruction to American taxpayers, who have no clue what is going on. Inflation is a tax on the people and with a fiat currency, a power-limitless Fed can (and has) tax the hell out of the American people.

The dollar, and fiat currency as a whole, faces collapse now, however, as the artificial wealth created and used in the past few decades is now showing its nature as being just that-- artificial. The global monetary system will have to return to some sort of precious metal backing, directly or indirectly, and surging gold prices is essential for this to occur.

Rising gold prices represents the excess liquidity being soaked up and also causes nominal equity values to rise without dramatic rises in consumer goods. Gold has little utility outside of store of value, which is why its price hasn't collapsed at nearly the same rate other commodities, like oil and natural gas, have. As crude and steel suffered demand destruction from consumers losing wealth quickly, gold was barely touched at all and in fact probably would have shown even more strength hadn't it been for the aforementioned manipulations of the Fed and the global deleveraging of financial institutions.

Creditor nations like China and Iran are buying as much gold as is possible without dramatically disturbing prices, and Iran has said it wants to convert the majority of its foreign exchange reserves into bullion. Gold-buying sentiment is getting stronger as the massive seigniorage of the Fed, and with gold shorts being abandoned by the Fed, the huge demand is finally going to surface into price expansion.

Technically, gold appears poised to break out of its countertrend down move in its primary bull, leading to much higher prices soon. It broke out of its 50DMA on strong volume recently and is approaching a 200DMA breakout. With backwardation occuring this month, all indicators point to gold surging in the coming months.

Gold and gold miner stocks are also looking quite bullish. I recommend Royal Gold (RGLD), which recently broke out of a great long-term base, as well as El Dorado Gold (EGO), Goldcorp (GG), Iamgold Corp (IAG), Barrick Gold (ABX), Randgold Resources (GOLD), Jaguar Mining (JAG), Anglogold Ashanti (AU), Agnico-Eagle Mines (AEM), and Newpont Mining (NEM) for the coming year. Also, look into buying the Ultrashort 30-year Treasury Bond ETF (TBT) as the US debt bubble collapses and debt monetization starts to show up in the Fed's balance sheets. I do suggest buying lots of bullion, however, as stock market returns are in nominal dollar-denominated terms.

The American total credit market debt to GDP ratio is at unprecedented highs, well above 350%, and this with ridiculously manipulated inflation numbers artificially deflated through hedonics. The government deficit could top $2 trillion next year. And the Fed is going to print money to pay for it all. The only way to prevent hyperinflation is to return to some sold of hard asset-backed monetary system and to allow gold's price to rise dramatically.

My prediction: gold breaks $2000/oz in 2009 and $10,000/oz by 2012.

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Portfolio Advice for 2009: Stick to Gold, Stay Away from Stocks

By Eric Roseman

Records were broken in 2008 - money-losing records from an investor’s perspective.

U.S. stocks will record their worst calendar year since 1931. As measured by the S&P 500 Index, the broader market tanked 40% this year while the Dow Jones Industrials fell 36%.

U.S. stocks are already “dead money” since 1996. They’ve shown no net gain at all - including dividends. The ongoing market environment is eerily similar to another period of dismal returns - from 1966 to 1982. During those 16 years, the Dow and S&P 500 Index posted zero profits. Adjusted for soaring inflation, the markets actually recorded a loss.

Global equities as measured by the MSCI World Index posted its worst year since inception in 1969. International equities fared even worse with European and Japanese stocks down more than 45% and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index clobbered - down 53% in 2008.

World Markets Got Trashed in 2008

Gold Stocks and Oil Chart

For stocks, the ongoing bear market has resulted in record mutual fund outflows as investors continue to dump their holdings and run for cover into money market funds.

Unfortunately, money market funds are now paying barely any yield at all since the Fed slashed interest rates to effectively 0% on December 16.

Only Treasury bonds, European and Japanese government bonds yielded a profit for investors in a wickedly harsh year for investors. As a currency investor, naturally you already know that the Japanese yen was also a winner against the dollar and euro as the “carry-trade” came to a crushing halt.

So Much for “Diversification”

With the exception of super-safe and low yielding U.S. Treasury bonds, yen and gold, the entire gamut of assets from stocks to non-Treasury bonds all plummeted in 2008.

Commodities, certain currencies, fine art and hedge funds all succumbed to brutal price declines. Overall, 2008 was the first losing year for U.S. and global stocks since 2002 and the worst period to be invested in financial and hard assets in more than 75 years.

Stop-losses rang out like pinball machines in 2008. Diversification across sectors, industries, countries and currencies proved futile. Almost everything was pummeled. By October 10, a panic gripped world markets as the threat of systemic collapse threatened the viability of the banking system.

Chaos to the Rescue

In late 2007, I introduced the TSI Chaos Portfolio to my Sovereign Society readers. It’s a U.S.-based portfolio of six equally-weighted investments, including short-term Treasury bonds, gold, Japanese yen and reverse-index funds that bet against the S&P 500 Index. Recently I added a seventh safe-haven - short-term German government bonds.

This cost-effective strategy dominated my recommendations in 2008 rising more than 17%, including dividends.

For growth investors, hedging your market exposure is vital in a secular bear market. I continue to like the TSI Chaos Portfolio in 2009 even though the stock market has probably suffered the bulk of its declines at this point.

Volatility will remain rampant in an uncertain economic environment marked by growing consumer credit woes, massive government bond issuance to support gargantuan fiscal spending plans and weak corporate earnings. Investors must hold downside market protection.

Short Most Commodities, But Stock Up on Gold/Silver

Starting in October 2007, I recommended my Commodity Trend Alert (CTA) subscribers begin to bet against oil and gas stocks as a way to hedge against the energy sector. At the time, oil prices were racing to US$100 a barrel and the oil stocks were in the midst of a multi-year bull market. We all know how that story fared in 2008.

Since peaking in July, the benchmark CRB Index has crashed more than 50% as the entire commodities complex continues to aggressively deflate in a rapidly slowing global economy.

To protect our natural resource exposure in CTA, I immediately issued a series of reverse-index purchases betting against commodities. We were most successful betting against industrial metals or base metals, as copper and other metals collapsed. That position, still open, has gained a cumulative 80% since August 2008.

And since September, CTA has been riding a broad commodity index to the basement as part of our reverse index strategy - up more than 60%. We also maintain hedges against gold, oil, gas and long-term Treasury bonds.

Gold has also been a strong performer compared to most other assets in 2008. Significantly, gold is the only asset that is completely outside the credit system and the only asset that has no liability.

In 2008, spot gold prices gained a modest 1% - not much in absolute terms but certainly impressive compared to other plunging assets. Silver, more of an industrial metal and therefore more vulnerable to broad economic trends, declined 18%.

Looking ahead to 2009, growth investors will only reluctantly return to stocks. Losses have been massive for investors since late 2007 as mutual fund redemptions hit records.

Stocks might indeed offer better values compared to mid-2007 after plummeting more than 40% from their highs. But domestic consumption in the United States, Japan and Europe is depressed and likely to remain under threat as unemployment rises and savings rates begin to rise again.

The correlation between a higher savings rate and corporate earnings is negative. It’s difficult to be bullish on earnings when the world’s largest economy will remain mired in a period of sluggish growth, debt retrenchment and rising job losses. The same is true for Japan and Germany - the second and third largest economies, respectively.

This is not the time to be aggressively buying stocks. Odds are prices will get cheaper again following any bear market rally. That’s certainly been the case every time stocks have rallied off their lows since October 2007.

Instead, make sure your portfolio includes gold, portfolio hedging strategies and income from high quality investment-grade corporate bonds in 2009.

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To buy Hallmarked 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Gold Bullion, Gold Ingots & 916 Gold Coins in Singapore or convert your 916 Physical Gold to physical 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Click on Buy Gold Bullion Bars to find out more. You may Sell Gold Bullion Bars to us too.
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Will the New GCC Single Currency Include Gold?

Gulf Cooperation Council leaders yesterday concluded their 29th annual summit meeting in Muscat, Oman with a final approval for the creation of a single currency for the six-nation economic bloc, still targeted for 2010.

Saudi Arabia is the largest economy in the GCC and boasts substantial gold reserves. But whether gold will be included in the currency basket has not yet been decided.

Golden opportunity

GCC assistant secretary-general Mohammad Al Mazroui told Gulf News: ‘We first have to decide on the location of the Central Bank, then the Central Bank and Monetary Council will have to decide on the gold reserves for the Central Bank’.

The creation of the GCC single currency - likely to be known as the Khaleeji which means Gulf in Arabic - is a major gold event for two reasons.

First, the breaking of their dollar pegs by the Gulf Arab nations is clearly dollar negative. Secondly, any inclusion of gold either as a part of the monetary basket, or in the reserves of the new GCC Central Bank will create additional demand for the precious metal.

2009 deadline

The project is gathering pace, and no lesser a figure than Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has directed that GCC economic integration committees speed up their work and complete the whole exercise by September 2009.

It is only a couple of months since a group of Saudi businessmen allegedly bought $3.5 billion worth of gold, believed to be the largest ever single transaction for the precious metal. Perhaps in 2009 it will be gold rather than local currencies which become of interest to speculators about monetary reform in the GCC.

Gulf countries are keen to break away from the link with the US dollar because it ties them to inappropriate monetary policies that exaggerate the boom-to-bust cycle in their economies.

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To buy Hallmarked 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Gold Bullion, Gold Ingots & 916 Gold Coins in Singapore or convert your 916 Physical Gold to physical 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Click on Buy Gold Bullion Bars to find out more. You may Sell Gold Bullion Bars to us too.
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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Gold Prices Could Double...or More than Double

Running into year-end 2008 with a hatful of fears, losses, hope and questions?

Here's another puzzler to ponder as the $3 trillion of tax-funded bailouts now promised worldwide slowly roasts every bond holder's goose over Christmas ...

As a proportion of global investable assets, gold hasn't been this strongly weighted for the last 15 years.

But seeing how this financial crisis is the ugliest since the Great Depression, World War I or perhaps even earlier (depending on which political hack, wonk or meddler you speak to), it could double yet again - if not rise more than tenfold.

Either that, or the value of paper assets - meaning stocks and bonds - could tumble in half. If not sink by more than nine-tenths.

Gold vs. Paper

Am I kidding? No more than anyone else.

Tessa Jowell, a UK minister, reckons this downturn is "deeper than any we have known." Mervyn King, head of the Bank of England, says it's the worst financial crisis since before the Great War.

And given that "when investor stress reaches extreme readings" people buy gold - as John Hathaway at Tocqueville Asset Management put it in a 2006 paper - then we should expect the valuation of all the gold in the world to rise accordingly.

People turn to this rock, after all, when paper's too scary to own. Have we reached an "extreme" amid this financial end of days ...?

First, let s try (if we can) to ignore the $596 trillion worth of "notional" value outstanding in credit, currency, stock-market and collateralized derivatives.

Let's also put the Western world's real estate markets to one side, as well. The idea that housing is a tradable asset only shows up every generation or so. In between, the slumps and dips just make bricks and mortar somewhere to live in - not retire on.

That leaves us, pretty much, with stocks and bonds. And as the good folk of World Financial Exchanges will show in their data just as soon as 2008 croaks out, last year's peak of $90 trillion is set to take a knock. By our reckoning here at BullionVault, in fact (and with thanks to the Bank for International Settlements' latest figures), that gross market capitalization will show a fall of one-quarter and more in global equities and tradable debt.

On the other side of the trade, in contrast, gold priced in dollars actually rose in 2008, notching up its seventh annual gain on the trot. (That's not to say it won't fall next year; for now, the gold price in 2009 is not our beef.) And with the total, above-ground stock of gold now standing around 165,500 tonnes (guesswork courtesy of GFMS, the World Gold Council and ourselves), that puts the notional value of all gold ever mined in the world at some $4.6 trillion.

Yes, that's a very rough guess fashioned without a sharp pair of scissors. And yes, it includes all central-bank gold hoards, jewelry, tooth fillings, mobile-phone chips and Goldschlager flakes ... as well as gold bullion bars, coins and exchange-traded holdings.

But comparing all the gold in the world against stocks and bonds shows a far less than "extreme reading" for investor stress. So far, at least.

Back in 1980, for instance - when the Iranian crisis and war in Afghanistan last sent gold to a nominal peak at $850 an ounce - "the $1.6 trillion invested in gold exceeded the market value of $1.4 trillion in US stocks," according to Peter Bernstein in his classic tome, "The Power of Gold."

U.S. equities today stand closer to $13 trillion. Every ounce of gold ever mined is worth barely one-third.

Put another way (and yes, the numbers are rough once again), "We calculate the market cap of all above ground gold, including central bank reserves, equals about 1.4% of global financial assets," wrote Tocqueville's John Hathaway almost three years ago.

"In 1934 and 1982, when investor stress reached extreme readings, that percentage was between 20% to 25%."

In short, the mass people choosing to buy gold today remains tiny compared with the value which the world still puts on paper. And it's only when paper collapses in value - an event you might expect during the worst post-World War II crisis - that gold is likely to hit its true peak for this investment cycle.

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To buy Hallmarked 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Gold Bullion, Gold Ingots & 916 Gold Coins in Singapore or convert your 916 Physical Gold to physical 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Click on Buy Gold Bullion Bars to find out more. You may Sell Gold Bullion Bars to us too.
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The Gold to Oil Ratio Does Matter

Seasonally, oil (USO) is extremely weak from October through December. In 2008 oil started October at about $100 and ended December around $40 or around a monstrous 60% decline. Oil is strongest seasonally from July through September with the strongest individual months being January and August. Oil’s 200dma sits right around $100, appears to have hit around its bottom and the 200dma is exerting a gravitational like effect pulling oil prices up.

By contrast gold’s 200dma is at about $860 per ounce. Gold (GLD) has recently passed through its strongest seasonal period from September to December. It maintains the uptrend from January to March, is asleep the rest of the year except for a strong rally in May. While seasonality is helpful, it does not etch the future in bullion and this year has been different.

The recent financial turmoil has caused tremendous technical damage to gold almost as if it was done intentionally to stunt its bull market during all of the financial carnage. GATA asserts that when the news is really bad gold goes down. Well, the last half of 2008, when gold should have performed well seasonally, it swooned from over $1,000 per ounce to the $680’s while Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ.PK) evaporated, Fannie (FNM) and Freddie (FRE) were nationalized and bailouts were served every night on the news. Such suppression has only wound the spring that much tighter.



It is important to keep in mind that both of these commodities are still in strong secular bull markets. The FRN$ is in a strong secular bear market as is the DOW and real estate. The Gold/Oil ratio is now about 23 barrels of oil per ounce of gold. The 200dma is about 9.5 and the historic average is around 15.

The extremes happened in 1974, 1986 and 1988 as the ratio approached 30 and 1977, 2001, 2008 at about 8 and 2006 at around 6. For these relative prices to return to more normal ratios something is going to give. Oil is either going to go up, gold is going to go down or to move into some sneaky calculus the rate of oil’s rise will be faster than gold’s. The silver (SLV) to oil ratio is not nearly as extreme as gold to oil but silver will most likely follow gold, either up or down, at a faster rate of change.

This is where geo-politics arrives. Are the oil producers willing to take so little value in exchange for their precious black gold? With Peak Oil (mp3) asserting itself the oil producers should hold the bargaining power. The latest IEA numbers indicate an extremely serious steeper than expected 9.1% decline rate. Yes, the Canadian Oil Trusts will rise in value as a safe, secure and stable source of oil. But perhaps the oil exporters should sit on their oil and let the importers roil and writhe in pain as E. M. Forster’s 1909 essay The Machine Stops is played out. After all, a barrel in the future will be worth more than a barrel today. Obviously, the collapse will not be televised.

At all times and in all circumstances gold remains money. It is the most powerful currency in the world. Oil is the world’s primary energy source which is why the gold to oil ratio is important. Gold is the most effective tool humans have to perform mental calculations of value. By analogy it is the tool used to determine how many calories an apple provides and how many calories it takes to collect and process the apple so it can be eaten.

Producing gold is essentially converting energy into bullion. How many calories go into producing a one ounce gold coin? In some cases to produce a single ounce hundreds of tons of rock are moved. Ultimately, money is about energy. To make it personal, how much value should you put on that nice steak dinner, bottle of water from Fiji or 3,000 mile Ceaser salad? Well, think through the supply chain and how much energy the good or service represents.

The world has a very serious problem. Because it has used a fiat currency with no definition or basis in reality for nearly 100 years and because oil production was constantly increasing during that time the effects of unwise capital investment were masked. Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI) calculations were not even performed. A fiat currency attempts to sustain the unsustainable while a commodity-based currency employs the strict laws of reality to ensure the unsustainable is not encouraged.

In other words, no one knew or calculated either how many calories the apple supplied or how many calories it took to procure and process the apple. The entire infrastructure of the entire world was built using mental calculations of value based on a derivative illusion. As natural and economic law assert reality and gold begins circulating as currency in ordinary daily transactions the distortions will be removed and the gross misallocations of capital will be revealed. I wonder what such a world will look like? Will The Machine Stop?

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To buy Hallmarked 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Gold Bullion, Gold Ingots & 916 Gold Coins in Singapore or convert your 916 Physical Gold to physical 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Click on Buy Gold Bullion Bars to find out more. You may Sell Gold Bullion Bars to us too.
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Manipulation in the Gold and Silver Markets

This article deals with the manipulation that has been occurring in the gold and silver markets, and offers a solution. While this scandal has been going on for many years, at last more and more people are becoming aware that it is going on.

One of the first people to document the ongoing attempts to suppress the gold price was Frank Veneroso.

Next was Bill Murphy of GATA.org. GATA continues to press the issue. GATA has discovered that the IMF instructed its member banks to treat gold that had been leased to bullion banks and sold into the market, as if it were still in the vault! Imagine if an entrepreneur was running his business in this underhanded manner – how long would the government allow that?

A few years ago John Embry, while he was Portfolio Manager at RBC Global Investment Fund - a multi-billion dollar resource fund at the Royal Bank - prepared a memo for the bank’s clients that detailed the manipulation in the gold market.

Ted Butler has written extensively on the manipulation in the silver market.

This is something I have observed first hand since I became interested in silver in the mid-1960’s. It seemed that every time silver reached a peak, an invisible hand came out of nowhere and knocked the price back down to the starting point again. I wrote an article about this titled: ‘Once upon a time, in Never-Never Land’.

Every time a geo-political event, or a serious economic happening, such as the collapse of Bear-Stearns, causes gold to rise, (as it would be expected to do since it has always been a ‘safe haven investment’), the price immediately gets trounced, and investors and producers accept this new price as ‘THE price’, since the new event has now been discounted.

Whenever common sense tells you something is happening that should cause a rise in the price of gold and silver, you can count on intervention to cap the price. As a result, millions of investors and mining companies have lost billions of dollars that they would have earned if these markets had been allowed to run their normal course.

The manipulation is obvious in the following charts:

Charts courtesy www.kitco.com

This chart shows steady buying interest that took price from the low at 955.00 on July 14th to 985.00 the next day. The buying took place in Asia, then Europe, and carried over for about an hour in New York, when suddenly, in the space of minutes, an unseen entity dumped gold in the form of futures contracts (green line), without any attempt to obtain the best price possible. In about 5 minutes the gold price was down by 15.00, and the rise was over, as price drifted sideways for the rest of the day.

It was discovered later that several large banks, suspected to be HSBC (HBC) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and possibly one other bank, had switched from being ‘net long’ 5,381 gold contracts at the beginning of July 2008, to being ‘net short’ 87,609 gold contracts by the end of July. That is a 94,000 contract ‘turnaround’ and smacks of blatant interference in the market place, since these banks do not produce gold, nor are they likely to be hedging against that much gold in the vaults, since they do not own physical gold. Such a dramatic switch without any change in fundamentals is beyond reason.

Featured is the daily gold chart from October 13th. The blue line shows steady demand followed by consolidation early Oct 14th as recorded via the red line. Then a mysterious seller showed up shortly after the COMEX began trading in New York, and in the space of minutes the price was knocked down by 30.00. This is totally illogical, since the seller has no interest in obtaining the best price. His only interest is to destroy the price.

“In 1980 we neglected to control the price of gold. That was a mistake.” Paul Volcker.

“Central banks are ready to lease gold, should the price rise.” Alan Greenspan during Congressional testimony July 24/1998).

Featured is the price action right after the COMEX began trading in New York on October 16th. Within a few minutes the price was knocked down by 35.00 (green line), after the price had established a solid trading range between 830.00 and 850.00 during the previous two days (red and blue lines). This illogical dumping of gold contracts caused margin related selling to bring the price down another 15.00 before bargain hunters were able to level the price around the 800.00 mark.

These are just some of the examples of ‘irrational behavior’ on the part of several large traders on the COMEX, whose actions are not being controlled by the people who oversee the COMEX. While this article deals primarily with gold, the same manipulation exists in the silver markets. To repeat an earlier comment, ‘millions of investors (including miners) have lost billions of dollars because of the manipulation’. The US government is able to interfere in the markets by way of the Exchange Stabilization Fund which is run by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. The size of the manipulation referred to in this article could not take place without the encouragement that is very likely provided by people who are highly placed in government.

Cause and effect

The effect of this manipulation in the gold and silver markets is an artificial low price. In view of the fact that bullish events are not being allowed to permit prices to rise, nevertheless these events will eventually have a positive effect on the price. The cause is real, but the effect is delayed. The steam in the kettle continues to boil, despite the lid being clamped down. The artificial low price stops the development of mining projects that would have been profitable at the higher price. The artificial low price also cuts into profit margins at every producing mine, making it more difficult to obtain funding for exploration to increase resources. Every mine in the world is at all times a ‘depleting asset’ and needs exploration to postpone the day when the last ounce is mined.

THE MANIPULATORS ONLY HAVE TWO WEAPONS.

The ammunition used by the manipulators is provided by two sources: Central banks (including the IMF), and the COMEX. While there is nothing anyone can do about the gold selling that originates with the central banks, there are ways to choke off the amount of precious metal that flows into the COMEX warehouses.

Those of us who are tired of the manipulators picking our pockets need to become active.

In 1978 – 1979 it was a rising silver price that caused gold to rise – silver was the leader. It makes sense therefore to concentrate on silver, especially since the central banks do not have hoards of silver.

A SOLUTION!

Mining companies that supply silver to the COMEX need to find a way to turn their silver into small bars (1 oz to 100 oz), and 1 oz rounds and sell these to the public. Already some mines are doing this by selling from their websites, and they are obtaining a hefty premium over the spot price. If your production is limited, join forces with a mine that is already merchandising silver products, or form a sales organization with other small mines. Hire some cracker-jack salespeople; there is a big market out there! Starve the COMEX if you want to see silver sell to realistic prices. Adjusted for inflation, the silver price of 48.00 that we saw in February of 1980, is trading at $4.00 today.

Next, instead of keeping money in the bank, or in various kinds of short-term notes, mining CEOs should store up silver, and show us that they believe in the product they are producing. Instead of cash on hand, buy futures contracts, and keep rolling them over.

Coin dealers and wholesalers need to buy 5,000 oz bars from the COMEX, take delivery, and contact a refiner who will turn the silver into retail products. If your operation is not large enough for a 5,000 oz purchase, then buy silver from people like Jason Hommel, who was smart enough to start doing this on a large scale.

Investors who can afford to spend $55,000.00 should consider buying a silver contract from the COMEX and taking delivery. James Sinclair at JSMineset.com will show you how to go about that.

Finally, anyone who holds any kind of a certificate that promises to deliver silver needs to make sure that the bank or institution that stores the silver is willing to provide bar numbers. Otherwise, when the day comes to collect, you may find that the silver does not exist. On my website you will find an article that I wrote about a fund that stores gold and silver at a bank in Western Canada. They invite auditors twice a year to audit the inventory.

The Madoff scheme is but one example of the lack of oversight on the part of people who have been placed in the position of protecting the public. In the US Congress, two of the people responsible for the mess that was created by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Congressman Barney Franks and Senator Chris Dodd, are now part of the group that is trying to ‘fix’ the problem. The foxes are in the henhouse! It was Franks and Dodd, who for years received money from Fannie and Freddie, while they stood in the way of people who wanted to tighten the lending standard at these two mortgage lending institutions. Whatever happened to responsibility? Where is the outrage?

Featured is the weekly gold chart. The price is ready to breakout on the upside. The supporting indicators are positive (green dashed arrows). The 7 – 8 week cycles have been short (twice at 6 weeks). We are due for a longer cycle. A close above the blue arrow will indicate that week #4 is the start of a run up to the green arrow. Once 925.00 is reached, then 975 is next. Since Labor Day, the Federal Reserve’s assets (including huge amounts of toxic assets) have increased from 905.7 billion to 2.3 trillion dollars. This, along with the increase in the monetary base is going to add to price inflation and will cause a lot of investment money to enter the gold market. The gold rally that started in November has only just begun.

Featured is the weekly silver chart. The price has been rising since late October. The supporting indicators are positive (green dashed arrows). A close above the blue arrow sets up a target at the green arrow.

Thanks to Eric Hommelberg for the idea to use ‘historic spot charts’ to make my case. I applied the 11th commandment: “Thou shalt use every good idea thou comest upon.”

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To buy Hallmarked 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Gold Bullion, Gold Ingots & 916 Gold Coins in Singapore or convert your 916 Physical Gold to physical 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Click on Buy Gold Bullion Bars to find out more. You may Sell Gold Bullion Bars to us too.
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Gold Delivers One of "Very Few" Positive Returns for 2008; Outlook Strong for 2009

London Gold Market Report
By: Adrian Ash, BullionVault

THE WHOLESALE PRICE OF PHYSICAL GOLD slipped in London on Tuesday, retreating 2% from yesterday's early 11-week high to trade at $871 an ounce.

World stock markets rose and crude oil fell in thin holiday trade. Bond prices pushed higher again, driving yields still further below inflation.

"By and large, the market is unwilling to trade gold from the short side," notes the latest Gold Futures analysis from Mitsui, the precious metals dealer, in London.

"While scrap selling across traditional hubs placed an obvious ceiling on gold scaling $900, this appears to have dissipated for now."

Indeed, "Gold is set to close the year as one of the very few assets posting a positive 2008 return," Mitsui goes on – "a very significant achievement [that] bodes well for the year ahead."

Looking to Gold in 2009, "as the current deflation reality eventually abates and inflation looms large over the market," says Mitsui, "in such environments gold theoretically should flourish."

Overnight, however, the US Dollar leapt 4¢ against the European single currency, driving it back to $1.3950 and supporting the Gold Price in Euros above €615 an ounce.

That put gold more than 5% higher for French, German and Italian investors from the close of 2007.

Versus the British Pound, the price of Gold continued to hold north of £600 an ounce, more than 37% above its closing level last year.

London's FTSE100 index, in contrast, has dropped one-third of its capitalization. Interest paid to cash-in-the-bank now trails the rate of inflation by the worst margin since 1980.

"The Israel-Hamas tension [has] continued lending support to gold," said Shuji Sugata at Mitsubishi Corp. Futures & Securities in Tokyo to Bloomberg today.

Preparing the outlook for Gold in 2009, "we may see some technical selling and year-end book squaring after the recent gain."

Tocom gold futures closed Tuesday – the last day of 2008 trading – some 16% lower from New Year's Day. The first annual loss in almost a decade came as the Japanese Yen leapt on the forex market, delivering its strongest performance since 1989.

Bruised by this same "risk aversion" – a flight to cash that saw domestic Japanese investors begin to unwind $6 trillion-worth of offshore investments – the Nikkei stock index ended the year more than 42% lower, its worst ever 12-month loss.

On the monetary front, meantime, the US government promised $5 billion to buy equity in GMAC, the struggling auto and mortgage finance company, in one of the last desperate acts of the Bush administration.

The White House also vowed late Monday to extend the tax-funded loans to General Motors by a further $1 billion.

"Technical momentum signals are still warning of further upside potential for the Dollar," reports Manqoba Madinane for Standard Bank in Johannesburg.

"This could see the Dollar endure volatile swings if [today's Consumer Confidence & Case-Shiller Home Price] data comes in worse than expected. This might then create a negative feedback loop, causing further drainage of tactical investment flows from precious metals today – further compromising upside potential."

Adrian Ash
BullionVault

Gold price chart, no delay | Gold investment – simple, safe & efficient

Formerly City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and head of editorial at the UK's leading financial advisory for private investors, Adrian Ash is the editor of Gold News and head of research at BullionVault – where you can Buy Gold Today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.

(c) BullionVault 2008

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GoldTraderAsia.com - Where to Buy and Sell Gold Bullion Bars, Gold Ingots, Gold Coins Collection and Gold Jewellery in Singapore.

To buy Hallmarked 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Gold Bullion, Gold Ingots & 916 Gold Coins in Singapore or convert your 916 Physical Gold to physical 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Click on Buy Gold Bullion Bars to find out more. You may Sell Gold Bullion Bars to us too.
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President of Euro Pacific Capital on Gold and the Dollar

Mike Norman, HardAssetsInvestor.com (Norman): Well, he's back. Mr. Doom and Gloom is here ... Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of the new book just out, "Bull Moves in Bear Markets."

Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital (Schiff):
"The Little Book ..."

Norman: "The Little Book ..."; it's in The Little Book Series. Well look ... the last time you were here, things were kind of going your way, but it looks like things have turned upside down.

All kidding aside, I know your big thing over the last seven or eight years has been gold. We're very supportive of gold on this show; we think that probably people should have some gold as part of their overall portfolio mix. But let's just look at what happened.

Several weeks ago, the U.S. stock market had its worst week in history ... even going back to the 1930s ... worst week in history. I saw a breakdown of various assets - all assets really - stocks, bonds, gold, commodities, oil. Gold was at the bottom of the list. The top-performing asset, and something that you hate, was the U.S dollar.

So how do you explain that? If we are going through the worst economic and financial crisis in history - precisely what gold is supposed to protect against - why would it perform so bad?

Schiff: Well, I think it will perform very well; you got to give it a little bit more time.

Norman: More time or more decimation?

Schiff: No, what's happening right now, Mike, is just de-leveraging, and so gold is going down for the same reason a lot of stocks are going down, a lot of commodities are going down. There's a lot of leverage in this system, there's a lot of margin calls, a lot of liquidation; a lot of people are having to sell whatever they own to pay off their debts.

Norman: But look at where the money is going ... the money is going into U.S. sovereigns, Treasuries ... it's going into the U.S. dollar.

Schiff: For now.

Norman: Why for now?

Schiff: Right now there's some perception of safety there, but it's the opposite of the leveraging. If you're selling your assets, you're accumulating dollars; but ultimately right now, it's like there's been this gigantic nuclear explosion in the United States, and everybody is running toward the blast. Pretty soon they're going to figure out they're going in the wrong direction.

Norman: You always talk about gold as a currency, and we have seen currencies appreciate - the yen, for example, the dollar tremendously, for example, but gold has not held up.

Schiff: Well, if you actually look at gold versus other currencies, in the last couple of weeks gold has made new record highs in terms of the South African rand, the Canadian and Australian dollars ... so gold was not doing as poorly as many of the currencies, and I think this is all short term.

I think you're going to see a lot of money moving into gold, and if you look at how much gold has gone down from the peak, the peak was about a thousand ... it's off about 25%. Stocks are off 40%. Gold is still up during this year against the Dow.

Norman:
Let's see the performance from this point forward; we'll look back at this again and we'll revisit this issue.

Let's talk about something else, something that you have also ... and I just mentioned it ... the U.S. dollar. You were very, very negative. In the last month, we have seen unprecedented actions by the U.S. Fed in terms of expansion of the monetary basis; in other words, printing money ... what you call printing money ... and despite that, the dollar has remained incredibly strong.

How do you explain that according to your logic?

Schiff: Everything the government is doing is inherently negative for the dollar, and all of this...

Norman: It's not playing out that way.

Schiff: It will; you've got to give it time.

I remember when I was on television talking about the subprime and people were telling me it's no big deal, and I said, just wait a while; give it time

Look, everything that we're doing - all the bailouts, all the stimulus packages - this is all being financed by inflation. It's inherently terrible for the dollar.

Norman: But you just said yourself that everything is deflating.

Schiff: But right now, Mike, you're getting this de-leveraging, and this is benefitting the dollar, so despite the horrific fundamentals for the dollar, it's going up anyway.

But ultimately, when this phony rally runs out of steam, the dollar is going to collapse, and that's when we're going to have a much greater crisis because now you're going to have a collapsing dollar, which is going to push long-term interest rates up, commodity prices up.

Norman: I still don't understand why the dollar is going to collapse. So you're saying that the Fed is just going to allow ... or leave this enormous amount of liquidity in there, that at some point down the road, if we recover, they're not going Scto take it out?

Schiff: Look, they have no control over it. The Fed is trying to artificially reflate our phony economy, right?

We had this economy that was based on Americans borrowing money and then spending it on products. We have this huge debt finance bubble which is collapsing, and it's being supported by foreigners.

But when this artificial demand for Treasuries goes away, the Fed is going to try to print a lot of money and the dollar is going to get killed.

Norman: All right; I'm going to ask you to hold on. Folks, check back because we're going to do the second part of my interview with Peter Schiff, so check back to this site. This is Mike Norman; bye for now.

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GoldTraderAsia.com - Where to Buy and Sell Gold Bullion Bars, Gold Ingots, Gold Coins Collection and Gold Jewellery in Singapore.

To buy Hallmarked 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Gold Bullion, Gold Ingots & 916 Gold Coins in Singapore or convert your 916 Physical Gold to physical 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Click on Buy Gold Bullion Bars to find out more. You may Sell Gold Bullion Bars to us too.
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What Does Gold's Price Behavior Mean?

I am no gold analyst, but the metal has always interested and perplexed me. It is supposed be a hedge against inflation as also a savior in bad times – depression/deflation scenarios.

A Business Week report explains:

It can be argued that gold's price spike to a record high of almost $1,030 an ounce last March had more to do with a surge of strength in commodities as a whole than anything specific to the yellow metal. Unable to buck the general sell-off in commodities since the summer, gold sank to a low of $680 in November before rebounding above $800 as the end of the year approached. Now that a new era for commodities seems to have begun—one likely to be characterized by greater price stability—any future gains by gold will have to come on its merits as a perceived safe-haven store of wealth, a hedge against inflation, and as a desirable component of jewelry.

…. cited questions he has received as to whether gold is still a safe haven asset—and if so, why the metal hasn't performed better during the recent economic tumult. Meger believes gold remains a safe haven asset and says it has weathered much smaller percentage decreases in price than have other commodities while avoiding the extreme volatility seen in other financial instruments. In fact, some of the selling pressure has been the direct result of gold's function as a store of wealth with easy liquidity, he points out...

The true inflection point for gold, however, will come when concerns about deflation give way to inflation worries, Meger predicts...

Much like the stock market, which is way ahead of the economy, the price of gold is reflecting the market's belief that the worst of the recession is over, he says.” (All emphasis added.)

The main point is that gold can be sold in times of chaos and disorder, and hence you should invest in it if you expect a major deflation/unemployment/depression scenario. Also, in case of expectations of inflation or high-inflation when the value of currency is falling rapidly, gold can be a proxy as it is real, compared to fiat money (fiat or order by the government that it should be accepted as a means of payment), which is created out of thin air without any real asset backing. As the trust in a given currency bursts, gold increases in value as it is anticipated that gold can be used as currency for payment of goods and services if the currency fails.

Further this distrust in the fiat currency makes governments and central banks jittery, and more so in the case of US dollar, which is a reserve currency for many countries/institutions. The fear that this reserve currency may now change to gold because of the lack of faith in US dollar has lead to manipulation theories where various central banks are supposed to have sold gold in a coordinated fashion to strengthen the US dollar, and the spike from July in USD was as a result of this effort which also squeezed the dollar shorts. Gold in other words is an inverted dollar.

Source: gold-eagle.com

What I understand is that the current move up above $800 is because of the weakening of the dollar due to the Fed rate cut to zero. However, it is expected that ECB and BOE will also follow with their own ZIRP (Zero interest policy) and it would be interesting to watch how US dollar and gold behave thereafter. Also, the current geo-political situation in the Gaza strip and the Indo-Pak situation is supposed to have given it a further push.

Another point made by the Business Week article referred to above is:

Not everyone favors gold, even as a mere hedge against inflation. Historically, the returns on the physical commodity are miserable, although commodity futures are "somewhat more favorable as a diversifier," according to Rick Miller, founder of Sensible Financial Planning and Management in Cambridge, Mass.

Those looking to gold as a store of wealth as part of a doomsday portfolio are better off holding gold coins, which they can keep in their physical possession.

"If the worst happens and you want gold because nothing else is worth anything, being able to say 'I have shares in this gold ETF' and going to the vault of a bank to get it out is unlikely to cut much ice," Miller says.

Prices of gold coins have spiked in the last six to seven weeks due to a shortage of supply and a jump in demand, even as gold futures prices have come down on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The American gold eagle, one of the three most popular gold coins, is now selling for the spot price of $845 plus a premium of $80 to $100, compared with the usual premium of 4.5% to 6.0%—or $38 to $51…

That indicates small investors are moving more and more into gold because they're worried about the economy… (All emphasis added.)

So while physical demand has been strong, the question that arises is why did gold fall to $680? The manipulation theory explained above has been given by many. It is a fact that the paper gold market is 40 times the physical one and the former sets the price. The other reason is the deleveraging or forced selling due to the credit crisis.

If gold prices are the leading indicator, what is its behavior telling us about the possible future economic conditions? It appears to be a ‘heads you win-tails you win’ asset class both in a potential inflationary (or hyperinflationary as some think) situation and deflationary or depression conditions – desire to hold gold should be pre-dominant in both situations. In such a situation, shouldn't gold prices already be at the levels they are projected to be - at $2000+? Why this hesitancy? Is the behavior giving some other signal? Or am I missing something? I look forward to readers’ views and comments.

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To buy Hallmarked 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Gold Bullion, Gold Ingots & 916 Gold Coins in Singapore or convert your 916 Physical Gold to physical 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Click on Buy Gold Bullion Bars to find out more. You may Sell Gold Bullion Bars to us too.
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Monday, December 29, 2008

Four Reasons for an Immediate Rise in Gold

Gold hit $884 as this post was written early on Monday 29th December, the day that Indian astrologers have down for a stock market crash. That would seem unlikely given thin holiday trading. But a further rise in the gold price, even if short-term, looks probable for four reasons:
  1. Geopolitics: Israel has attacked Gaza with considerable loss of life, a reminder of the chronic political problems of the Middle East with Iran and Pakistan other possible flash points. Arabs are big investors in gold and respond to disruptions in their own backyard.

  2. Physical delivery requests are mounting at the Comex futures exchange which could well result in an immediate shortage of gold at the year-end. The futures market looks about to breakdown, giving control of the gold price back to the physical market where available stocks are low.

  3. Gold preserved value through the storm of 2008, and 2009 looks no better, while investors are increasingly concerned about the bubble in the bond market. In the investment cycle the next step is a bond crash and a flight to precious metals.

  4. The dollar rally looks to have already broken down, so look for a swift reversal to dollar devaluation and gold appreciation. That would also boost the oil price, usually a positive for gold, and also linked to geopolitical instability in the Middle East.
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GoldTraderAsia.com - Where to Buy and Sell Gold Bullion Bars, Gold Ingots, Gold Coins Collection and Gold Jewellery in Singapore.

To buy Hallmarked 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Gold Bullion, Gold Ingots & 916 Gold Coins in Singapore or convert your 916 Physical Gold to physical 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Click on Buy Gold Bullion Bars to find out more. You may Sell Gold Bullion Bars to us too.
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Gold Hits 12-Week High for Dollar Investors on Israeli Attacks, Breaks New Record at £600 for UK Buyers

London Gold Market Report
By: Adrian Ash, BullionVault

THE PRICE OF GOLD jumped once again in thin Asian trade early Monday, adding to Boxing Day's 3% gain to reach an AM Gold Fix in London of $881 an ounce – the best level vs. the Dollar since Oct. 10th.

Trading almost 5% higher from the start of 2008, Spot Gold prices also jumped to a 3-week high against the Euro before slipping lower as the single currency strengthened to $1.4330 on the forex market.

Measured against the British Pound, Gold Bullion continued to hit new all-time highs, breaking above £600 an ounce for the first time ever.

Sterling sank to just 2¢ above parity with the European single currency, down more than 42% from its all-time top of March 2000.

"[Gold is] pushing higher due to increased geopolitical risk in the Middle East," writes Manqoba Madinane at Standard Bank in Jo'burg, pointing to Israel's rocket attacks on the Gaza Strip.

"Further geopolitical tension should inflate the risk premium in current precious metal prices. Barring any significant decline in financial market systemic risk, this should translate into increased upside potential in the near term."

"Gold is obviously gaining a lot of favor as a safe haven asset again," agrees Darren Heathcote at Investec Bank in Sydney, speaking to Bloomberg by phone.

"The weaker Dollar and rising oil prices also helped," he added.

Today crude oil rose almost 3% to break back above $40 per barrel. Base metals held flat as London trade remained thin.

Soft commodities rose pretty much across the board.

"What was surprising was the timing of the violence between Israel and Hamas," noted Adrian Koh at Phillip Futures in Singapore to Reuters this morning. "That's the thing that caught everyone by surprise.

"The markets are still very much in thinned-holiday trade and the news of the violence basically spurred buying and pushed prices past key resistance levels."

Looking ahead to Gold in 2009, prices "should continue to rally into the New Year," says today's note from Mitsui here in London, "with the initial target the psychological level of $900 and above that the technical resistance at $930 an ounce."

The precious metals team peg minor support at $870, with a firmer floor now sitting at $850.

Adrian Ash
BullionVault

Gold price chart, no delay | Gold investment – simple, safe & efficient

Formerly City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and head of editorial at the UK's leading financial advisory for private investors, Adrian Ash is the editor of Gold News and head of research at BullionVault – where you can Buy Gold Today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.

(c) BullionVault 2008

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GoldTraderAsia.com - Where to Buy and Sell Gold Bullion Bars, Gold Ingots, Gold Coins Collection and Gold Jewellery in Singapore.

To buy Hallmarked 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Gold Bullion, Gold Ingots & 916 Gold Coins in Singapore or convert your 916 Physical Gold to physical 999.9 Pure Swiss Gold Bars, Click on Buy Gold Bullion Bars to find out more. You may Sell Gold Bullion Bars to us too.
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Sunday, December 28, 2008

Gold Poised to Move Higher

Gold belongs in every investor’s portfolio. It is totally unique among financial assets, a physical metal commanding timeless and universal intrinsic value. It is a rock of stability in a chaotic world, a stark contrast to the complex web of mere promises to pay that is our modern faith-based financial system. Without gold, true diversification and protection from systemic risk is impossible.

Gold’s fundamentals are dazzlingly bullish. Like everything else on the planet that is freely bought and sold, gold’s price today and in the future is a direct function of its supply and demand. As long as its global demand exceeds its global supply on balance, gold’s price will continue powering higher in its secular bull. While it has already come far from its humble beginnings in the $250s in April 2001, it has a long way to run yet.

When I first started recommending physical gold coins to our subscribers in May 2001 in the $260s, gold was widely derided as an anachronistic relic. Not surprisingly after nearly quadrupling in the years since, it has earned vastly more respect today. Still, most mainstream investors have yet to understand gold’s bullish fundamentals so unfortunately they are missing out on the vast opportunities to come.

It is for these gold neophytes I am penning this essay. I will explore gold’s key fundamental drivers, both from the supply and demand sides. After you digest this high-level overview of gold’s fundamentals, you’ll have a much better idea of whether you should add some gold to your own investment portfolio. In order to streamline the enormous body of research underlying this effort, I’ve divided this essay into sections.

Supply - Mined Supply. Ultimately all gold is painstakingly chiseled from the bowels of the earth. But even with the best modern mining technology, this rare metal is still exceedingly hard to produce. Today’s gold miners face nearly insurmountable challenges on a myriad of fronts. It is really a wonder that any gold is produced at all when you consider just how difficult it is to bring new supplies to market.

First explorers have to find gold deposits. This isn’t easy. Not only is gold very scarce in the natural world, but prospectors have been scouring the planet for millennia looking for it. Most of the low-hanging-fruit gold deposits have probably already been found. It costs millions to explore, with very high odds of failure. And if a promising ore target is found, tens of millions more must be spent to drill and sample it to determine if it is economically viable. This risky exploration and proofing process takes years.

And once a deposit looks economically viable, the real fun begins. Miners must spend years more developing a mining plan and having it approved by various government authorities. At any stage in this long arduous journey, the government can torpedo the whole project resulting in a total loss. Unlike most businesses, mines cannot be moved when problems arise. So gold miners are totally at the mercy of corrupt bureaucrats. Extortion is common and even outright nationalization is a very real threat in many parts of the world. Radical fringe environmentalists constantly try to derail mining projects too.

After the government permits are obtained, construction must begin. This costs hundreds of millions, sometimes well over a billion, in today’s environment. Since gold mining is so risky the banks are often unwilling to loan money to miners, and if they do they demand onerous terms. So the companies have to issue shares in the equity markets to finance these projects. While financing was already difficult to obtain before the credit crisis and stock panic, many miners today are finding it impossible to come by now. Without financing, mines cannot be built.

Even if a miner somehow overcomes the long odds and brings its mine into production, often a decade after the deposit was first found, more challenges await. Even with extensive drilling before mining, the geology of the ore can vary dramatically from plan. This results in lower production, higher costs, and lower profits. Since gold is often only found in hostile climates today, bad weather can interfere with production in a variety of ways. Friendly governments can be usurped by unfriendly ones, raising the risks of crushing taxes or even confiscation.

For these reasons and many more, global gold production is actually falling despite the relatively high gold prices. Annual gold mined today, which is 70% of the world’s supply, is running over 4% lower than when this bull began in 2001! Global reserves are also shrinking, despite vast sums being spent on exploration. My business partner Scott Wright recently wrote an excellent essay, with charts, on worldwide gold production and reserves if you want to dig deeper. Despite this powerful gold bull, miners are falling further behind.

With mined gold supply heavily constrained despite the best efforts of the world’s elite miners and the strong gold-price incentives to produce, any demand growth cannot be satiated with mined gold. And even if gold mining somehow becomes easier (geopolitics are less hostile, for example), it will still take the better part of a decade before new supplies can be brought online. This is incredibly bullish for gold!

Supply - Central Bank Sales. Over centuries, central banks have accumulated vast hoards of gold bullion. Some of this was purchased righteously, but much was obtained via plunder and confiscation. Central banks as a group are the largest participants in the gold market. Thus they have become something of a bogeyman in the gold world. Many investors live in constant fear of future central-bank gold sales.

Seven years ago when gold was under $300, central banks made me anxious too. But they don’t any longer. Despite the mystical aura of dread surrounding them, they are merely gold investors like me. While their collective scale is very large, these behemoths are run by mere mortals who cannot see the future either. Whether buying or selling gold, central banks operate within the same market constraints as the rest of us.

In the entire history of the world, analysts estimate that about 162,500 metric tons of gold have been mined. Incidentally gold is so dense that a metric ton of it will fit in a solid cube less than 15 inches square. Thus all the gold ever mined anywhere would fit in a cube less than 67 feet per side! Of this global above-ground gold supply, as of Q3 2008 the world’s central banks held 29,784t. Thus the CBs control just 18% of the world’s total above-ground gold. Investors control a far-greater 82%.

Since this gold bull began in 2001, mined production has averaged about 2,500t per year. So if the world’s central banks decided to sell all their gold today, it would be like 12 years of production hitting the markets all at once. The gold price would utterly crash in such a scenario, it would be apocalyptic. Thankfully it will never happen for a wide array of reasons. First, 107 sovereign countries own this gold and they are never all going to agree on anything, let alone a coordinated gold dump.

Of this 29,784t of official gold holdings, 8,134t (27%) belongs to the United States. Many gold conspiracy theorists believe a big fraction of this gold has already been stealthily sold into the marketplace. This is very bullish if true since it reduces the threat of future sales. Even if the US still holds this gold though, the US dollar would probably collapse if an announcement was made that the US was dumping its gold reserves. It is extremely unlikely. 10,911t (37%) of this CB gold is held in the Eurozone, and this gold is a very high percentage of these countries’ total foreign-exchange reserves (58% in aggregate).

So European CBs have been selling gold aggressively to diversify since at least 1999. That year they met and formed what was later called the Central Bank Gold Agreement. They agreed to limit their collective gold sales to 400t annually over 5 years. In March 2004 in CBGA 2, this agreement was extended and expanded to a 500t-per-year maximum for another 5 years. While these targets haven’t always been hit in a given CBGA year (ending September), they are a good proxy for European CB sales as a whole.

Since 2000, European CBs alone have sold between 400t to 500t of gold annually. These are indeed big numbers, adding 16% to 20% to the global mined supply. Without these sales, gold’s price would have gone much higher. But even with them, gold has still nearly quadrupled since early 2001! This means even heavy sustained CB selling is not big enough to offset the growing investment demand for gold. So far in this secular gold bull, despite the CBs’ giant selling campaigns, gold has still powered higher.

Central banks are not an apocalyptic threat for gold. Every year European CBs sell gold, which makes their “market share” of total above-ground gold dwindle. And every year more gold is mined, further reducing CBs’ relative footprint in the gold world. Thus with each passing year, with every tonne of CB gold sold, central-bank impact and relevance in the gold market gradually fades. They are nowhere near as big of a threat today as they were in 2001 and with each passing year their positions continue to weaken.

And not all central banks are sellers. 10,739t (36%) of CB gold is held outside of the US and Europe. These Asian central banks will probably increasingly buy physical gold bullion. While Western CBs’ gold holdings generally represent 50% to 75% of each country’s total forex reserves, in Asia gold is just a few percent. Japan’s 765t of gold are just 2.1% of its forex reserves. China’s 600t are merely 0.9%. Russia’s 473t are only 2.1%. And India’s 358t account for a paltry 3.1%. These growing Asian giants need to diversify into gold, not out of it like the Western CBs. They will add to overall global investment demand.

The International Monetary Fund holds 3,217t (11% of official gold). Potential IMF gold sales are a perennial threat trotted out every few years to scare gold investors. Even back in 2001 IMF sales were discussed often, yet big IMF selling has still not come to pass in the 7 years since. Even if the IMF can get permission from its 185 member countries to sell gold, which is very unlikely for political reasons, the IMF gold cannot stop this secular gold bull. Bring it on, the Asian CBs would love to own the IMF gold.

At any rate, the key thing to remember about central-bank gold sales is they have been large and constant since gold was in the $250s. Yet even with this supply headwind, gold still nearly quadrupled to just over $1000 by early 2008! Even the worst that central banks could throw at gold wasn’t enough to seriously retard its secular bull. And with each tonne they sell, their relative share of above-ground gold (along with their relevance) dwindles. CB gold is finite. It is central banks that are the anachronism, not gold.

Demand - Investment Demand. With mined supply shrinking and central bank hoards dwindling, gold supplies are very constrained. And no matter how high the gold price goes, mining is not going to get much easier and in fact will probably continue to get more difficult. And central banks are not going to be able to conjure up more gold out of thin air like they do with their fiat paper currencies. With flat-to-shrinking supplies, demand is the wildcard that will drive gold prices in the coming decade.

Unlike all other commodities which are primarily used for industrial purposes, almost all gold demand is investment-driven. Gold’s intrinsic value has persisted for millennia, outliving every government, currency, and nation the world has ever seen. Gold is not a faith-based promise to pay like every other financial asset. Its innate value makes it easily negotiable, for anything anywhere, no matter what happens. Physical gold bullion should be the foundation of every investor’s portfolio.

All the demand categories below are subcategories of investment demand. For a broad array of reasons today, all kinds of investors all over the world are increasingly interested in gold investing. And in the financial world, the higher the price of anything goes the more people become interested in it. Performance and returns attract in capital, which creates a virtuous circle driving even higher prices. So a secular gold bull gradually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy until supply once again eclipses demand.

Demand - Monetary Inflation. Inflation is always and exclusively purely monetary in nature. When central banks create fiat money out of thin air, it eventually filters into the real economy to compete for finite goods and services. Relatively more money bidding on relatively less goods and services means higher general prices. Inflation is devastating for investors, an immoral stealth tax levied by corrupt governments. Gold is the only financial asset that thrives in inflationary times.

And boy are we seeing inflation today! The socialistic financial-market bailouts, which now exceed $8 trillion in the US alone according to Bloomberg, are the biggest single inflationary event the world has ever witnessed. During the Great Stock Panic of 2008, within a matter of months Washington and the Fed inflated, spent, or guaranteed the equivalent of 55% of the entire GDP (all goods and services produced annually) in the whole United States of America!

This near-hyper inflation alone is exceedingly bullish for gold. But unfortunately central banks relentlessly inflating their money supplies is not an isolated event reserved for crises. They are always doing it! Since January 1980, the US Federal Reserve has grown MZM money by an astounding 10.4x! There are an order of magnitude more dollars floating around the world today than 3 decades ago. This equates to an 8.7% compound annual growth rate over 28 years.

This wouldn’t be a big deal if the underlying economy grew by 8.7% a year as well. If the pool of goods and services on which to spend money grows as fast as the money supply, there is no inflation. But obviously this is not the case. Since January 1980 US nominal GDP has only grown by 5.3x, only about half as much as the money supply. And the Fed is not alone here, all over the world broad money supplies in first-world nations generally average growth rates of around 7% annually.

At 7% annual growth rates globally, there is 6.6x more paper money in circulation today than there was in early 1980 at the top of the last secular gold bull. Yet over centuries, new mining has only added 1% to 2% to the aboveground gold supply annually. At 1.5% gold growth through mining each year, today’s gold supply is only 1.5x as big as 3 decades ago compared to 6.6x for money. Divide this out and there are 4.4x as many fiat-currency units (dollars, euros, everything) potentially chasing each ounce of gold today than at the end of the last gold bull!

If you multiply the famous $850 nominal high of January 1980 by this 4.4x outpacing of gold growth by monetary inflation, it yields a conservative end-of-bull target approaching $4000 per ounce. If you adjust by the lowballed Consumer Price Index instead, the real gold high in January 1980 in today’s dollars ran up around $2400. Either way, today’s gold bull has a long way to run before it reflects today’s inflation, let alone future inflation. Central banks’ only real ability is to inflate, inflate, inflate into infinity.

So monetary inflation is not going away. If anything it will only accelerate. In a fragile debt-based highly-leveraged global financial system, inflate or die is a literal truth. If central banks don’t keep inflating at ever-expanding rates, the whole worldwide system will implode. This perpetual accelerating fiat-paper inflation is unbelievably bullish for gold. As investors worldwide become more aware of the incredible monetary inflation around them, their appetite for gold investment will only grow.

Demand - Negative Real Interest Rates. When central banks are running their printing presses overtime and inflating like mad, nominal interest rates (yields on bonds) can slide below the rate of inflation. When this happens real inflation-adjusted interest rates go negative. In other words, merely by owning the best elite bonds like US Treasuries bond investors actually lose real purchasing power year after year! Naturally bond investors aren’t in the game to lose money, so negative real rates infuriate them.

Unfortunately just like the old Soviet Politburo, today’s central banks actively manipulate short-term interest rates. As we’ve seen in recent months, central banks can drive nominal interest rates down to zero if they desire. This abominable power is unbelievably destructive to free markets. It destroys the necessary natural balance between savers (investors) and debtors. And when capital transactions are no longer mutually beneficial to both parties, investors gradually start to walk away.

Thus negative real rates slowly strangle the life out of the bond markets. Bond investors, tired of being punished by the central banks for their act of saving and forced to subsidize debtors, gradually withdraw their capital. It is foolish to invest in a realm where you are guaranteed to lose real purchasing power for investing your scarce capital. Some fraction of this bond flight capital seeks refuge in gold. While gold doesn’t pay a yield, over millennia it has never failed to at very least keep pace with monetary inflation and preserve purchasing power.

And in today’s crazy environment of near-zero nominal yields on even US Treasury debt, mainstream bond investors’ traditional argument against gold is rendered moot. In normal times of positive real rates, the way the markets would always work without central-bank interference, bond investors object to gold because it pays no yield. Well, today bonds pay virtually no nominal yields either! And after inflation their real yields are terribly negative. This makes gold very attractive to mainstream debt investors.

Thus negative real rates, inflation exceeding nominal bond yields, is the most bullish possible monetary environment for gold. A couple weeks ago I wrote an essay on real rates and gold that includes long-term charts if you want to dig deeper into this crucial truth. Until the goofy Fed raises interest rates radically, say to 6%+, real rates will remain too low or negative and very bullish for gold. And as you know, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that the cowardly Fed will push rates to 6%+ for many years to come, if ever.

Demand - Secular Dollar Bear. The central banks’ artificially-low interest-rate policies to subsidize debtors and punish savers wreak terrible collateral damage on currencies. The global currency markets are often driven by yield. If one first-world country’s bonds are yielding 2% while another’s are yielding 4%, currency investors and speculators will naturally gravitate to the higher yields. So today’s ludicrously-low US interest rates are ravaging the already-weak US dollar.

Once the world’s reserve currency, the mighty US dollar has been in a secular bear since mid-2001. As measured by the flagship US Dollar Index (a basket of major currencies), the dollar carved a series of new all-time lows in spring 2008. The long-term dollar charts show just how weak this currency has been, down 41.0% at worst in its secular bear to date. And this was all well before Ben Bernanke panicked and forced US interest rates to all-time lows near zero!

Today’s deeply negative real-rate environment will only strengthen and prolong the secular dollar bear. As the long-term USDX charts clearly reveal, the US dollar is always weak in a secular sense when real rates are too low or negative. A weaker dollar drives all kinds of investment interest in gold, from two major constituencies. Since gold is ultimately another currency, the only hard one on the planet, futures traders buy gold aggressively when the dollar sells off. A continuing dollar bear will drive major futures buying in gold.

Even more importantly, large foreign investors including central banks have far-too-much dollar exposure relative to their overall portfolios. This great overallocation was fine when the US dollar was in a secular bull in the 1990s. But these investors have already lost a fortune in the 2000s dollar bear and they will lose a lot more if this bear continues and they don’t diversify out of their overweight dollar holdings. While they will buy a lot of euros with their dollar sales, some major fraction will flow into gold.

The biggest buyers of gold to protect themselves from the ongoing dollar bear will be the Asian central banks. As mentioned above, they now have trivial fractions of their total forex reserves deployed in gold. Yet they have trillions of dollars worth of exposure in US dollars and US Treasuries, from 50% to 80% of their total reserves in falling US dollars! Asian CB diversification out of dollars into gold is mind-blowingly bullish for this metal.

At $800 per ounce, the 2500t of new gold mined each year is only worth $64b. If Asian central banks gradually move $1t (not even half of their US dollar reserves today) into gold in the coming decade, it would represent buying equivalent to almost 16 years of total world gold production! So the secular dollar bear, exacerbated by the Fed’s asinine 1970s-style negative-real-rate policy, is highly likely to spawn big CB gold buying out of Asia for diversification reasons. The ongoing dollar bear is very bullish for gold investment demand growth.

Demand - Secular Stock Bear. Bond investors, futures traders, and Asian central banks are not the only giant pools of capital that have huge incentives to invest heavily in gold today. So do stock investors. As I started warning about back in 2001, after the giant secular bull that peaked in early 2000 the US stock markets were due for a 17-year secular bear. This means 17 years of grinding sideways on balance, never heading too far above the 2000 highs over this entire multi-decade span.

These secular bears that occur after secular bulls are part of a great valuation-driven cycle in the stock markets that I call the Long Valuation Waves. The LVWs are the single most important force for long-term stock investors to understand, so please read my essay on them if you are not familiar. Since 2001 this analysis has proved dead right, even though most investors and analysts scoffed at it. I even used LVWs to warn about the S&P 500 getting cut in half back in January 2008 well before the recent stock panic.

Because we are indisputably in the secular-bear stage of our current LVW, the stock markets are likely to grind sideways for another 8 years or so. The last time a 17-year secular-bear hit the US stock markets, between 1966 and 1982, stock investors were flat on paper but they absorbed tremendous real losses after inflation. Realize that big 100% cyclical stock bulls are still possible and probable within these secular bears, but when all is said and done stocks will have merely ground sideways for nearly two decades.

As stock investors come to grips with this ugly reality, they will get more and more discouraged about general stocks. Kind of like negative real rates’ impact on bond-investor psychology, stock investors are going to increasingly realize how silly it is to stay heavily deployed in flat-trending stocks and suffer heavy real losses. Some fraction of these beleaguered stock investors will turn to gold for deliverance.

Between March 2000 and November 2008, the flagship S&P 500 US stock index lost a sickening 50.7%. Yet over this same span to the very day, gold soared 161.0% higher! Wouldn’t you have much rather been in gold since then, like we contrarians have? And if you instead optimize this span for the secular gold bull rather than the secular stock bear, it looks even better. From April 2001 to March 2008, gold soared 291.7% higher. Over this identical 7-year span the SPX was merely up 11.4%.

As mainstream stock investors start to better understand gold’s fundamentals, more and more of their massive pool of capital is going to flood into gold. Indeed this is already happening through the new gold ETFs. These exchange-traded funds act as a conduit between stock-market capital and the physical gold market. In fact, the GLD gold ETF in the US (the world’s largest by far) has grown its holdings from nothing to 775t held in trust on behalf of US stock investors in just 4 years! This single ETF now holds more gold than all but 6 of the world’s biggest central banks!

Demand - Secular Commodities Bull. During the secular stock bull from 1982 to 2000, capital was increasingly seduced into the stock markets to chase the phenomenal returns. This led other sectors to be starved for investment, particularly commodities. Thus global commodities-producing infrastructure was largely left rusting for the better part of two decades even while worldwide economic activity ramped up dramatically. This chronic underinvestment in supply and delivery infrastructure led to this decade’s great commodities bull.

Despite the brutally fast and large correction in commodities since July that was greatly exacerbated by the stock panic, these secular commodities bulls aren’t over. They tend to run 17 years on balance in history, with inverse phases to the stock LVWs. When stock markets are in secular bulls, commodities are in secular bears. And when stocks are in secular bears like today, commodities are in secular bulls.

Secular bull markets can’t end until global supply growth exceeds global demand growth. This has yet to happen in nearly all major commodities. No matter how high prices go, as gold mined production illustrates, commodities producers just can’t adjust fast enough to meet demand trends. It takes years to over a decade to find new supplies of raw materials and bring them to market. This inherent inelasticity of commodities supplies is what makes commodities bull markets so exciting and exceedingly profitable.

On top of today’s demand, half the world (primarily Asia and Africa) is now industrializing. Billions of people are working incredibly hard to increase the standards of living for their families. And as standards of living rise, absolute commodities consumption will skyrocket. Sure, the average Chinese or Indian is never likely to consume as much per-capita as we Americans are blessed to do today. But since they are starting from such low levels, and since there are billions of Asians, even if they ultimately get to 1/5th the per-capita levels of US consumption of major commodities then aggregate global demand will explode.

As this commodities bull powers higher worldwide, gold will get increasing attention from investors. While gold is not the king of commodities like oil, gold is the easiest and most logical way to invest in commodities. It is easily bought and sold, extremely valuable for its volume and weight, completely portable, and very easy to store. So as the global commodities bull reemerges from this severe correction and powers higher, untold hundreds of millions of investors worldwide will start adding gold to their portfolios.

Demand - Rise of the Asian Consumer. We’ve already discussed Asian central banks needing to diversify their dollar-dominated forex reserves into gold. But another huge source of future investment demand is going to be from average Asian consumers. Unlike Americans and increasingly Europeans, Asians have a deep cultural affinity for gold. They have always respected it and want to own it even when it is not performing well. They understand from painful historical experience how physical gold protects them from corrupt governments, paper currencies, and unforeseen financial disruptions.

As the industrialization of Asia (and Africa) makes consumers more affluent, they will demand much more gold investment. Asians tend to be big savers (investors) even in lean times, and as their incomes grow they will have larger surpluses available to invest after living expenses. There is no doubt a big fraction of these surpluses will buy gold. While each Asian won’t be able to afford much by Western investors’ standards, with billions of them the aggregate increase in gold demand will still be stunning.

And Asian stock markets weren’t immune to the recent stock panic. In fact, they fell more violently than the US markets in many cases. Gold denominated in other currencies did far better in the global stock panic than it did denominated in US dollars, approaching all-time highs in some cases. So the new Asian investing class, terribly shaken by the stock-market carnage, is now more likely than ever to diversify some of its capital into gold.

Over the coming decade, the rise of the Asian consumer/investor could be more bullish for gold investment demand than all the other demand factors combined. Asian investment demand barely existed during the 1970s gold bull, yet that bull was still huge. Imagine how big today’s will ultimately prove with Asia finally on board.

Suppy and Demand - Technical Proof. There are many other secondary factors likely to increase global gold investment demand. The Information Age is an example. During the 1970s gold bull, Wall Street hated gold just like it does today. So back then many investors couldn’t learn about gold because the mainstream media monopolized information flow. Lack of widely-available good analysis on gold retarded that famous gold bull, which was still very large (+2,332%!).

But thanks to the Internet, the mainstream media’s stranglehold on information has been shattered. Today anyone anywhere can easily learn about gold fundamentals. This is very bullish for gold. Thanks to the Internet, today any investor can order physical gold coins in a matter of minutes that will be delivered to his doorstep a few days later. Thanks to computers, today stock investors who wouldn’t bother with gold coins in a million years can buy a gold ETF in seconds to add gold exposure to their portfolios. We live in a wondrous era!

Ultimately though, the proof of this gold bull is in its secular chart. The path gold has carved here is the aggregate result of every ounce of gold bought or sold on this planet since 2001. Every central bank sale is reflected here. Every gold investment made by individuals and institutions is reflected here. Every sale of gold, whether to fund a kid’s college education, buy a house, or whatever, is reflected here. This chart is the distillation of all global supply and demand for gold. And its message is crystal clear.

Since early 2001, gold has nearly quadrupled at best. It has relentlessly carved higher highs and higher lows on a secular basis. Its dollar price has increased every single year (the green numbers on the bottom show the amounts). The only way such results are possible is if global demand growth has indeed exceeded supply growth since 2001. I challenge you to find another investment that can even approach such performance in the incredibly chaotic markets we’ve witnessed over the last 7 years. Gold is already in an elite class of its own.

At Zeal we’ve been long physical gold since it traded in the $260s in May 2001. Our subscribers have already made fortunes in the 7 years since heeding our analysis and recommendations. So we are certainly not new to this gold party, we were buying gold and gold stocks back in the early 2000s when it was considered lunacy to do so. We are true contrarians who have been battle-tested, and prevailed, in this challenging financial decade.

We are going to work hard to continue excelling in the next decade, capitalizing on the ongoing gold and general-commodities secular bulls. We publish acclaimed weekly and monthly newsletters that detail our market analysis on an ongoing basis and the real-world trades we are making based on it.

We also just finished a deep new 36-page fundamental report on our 12 favorite gold stocks, the result of hundreds of hours of research looking at all the world’s publicly-traded primary gold producers. As gold powers higher, gold stocks should continue to leverage its gains.

The bottom line is gold’s fundamentals are more bullish today than ever. Despite relatively high prices, mined supply is shrinking. Central banks’ relative power in this market is waning dramatically. And thanks to both natural market forces and artificial manipulation contrivances, global investment demand for gold is likely to grow tremendously from today’s levels. This secular gold bull is far from over friends!

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