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Friday, March 9, 2012

Gold Bullion Investment: Gold-Proven Method of Preserving Value

Gold Bullion Investment: Gold-Proven Method of Preserving Value: Why Invest in Gold? Historically, gold has been a proven method of preserving value when a national currency was losing value. If ...

Gold-Proven Method of Preserving Value


Why Invest in Gold?
Historically, gold has been a proven method of preserving value when a national currency was losing value. If your investments are valued in a depreciating currency, allocating a portion to gold assets is similar to a financial insurance policy. In the past year, the climb in the price of gold above $1900 per ounce is due to many factors, one being that the dollar is losing value.

Reasons to say YES to Gold
  1. The dollar is weak and getting weaker due to national economic policies which don't appear to have an end.
  2. Gold price appreciation makes up for lost interest, especially in a bull market.
  3. The last ten years are a major bull move similar to the 70's when gold moved from $38 to over $800.
  4. Central banks in several countries have been increasing their gold holdings as part of their foreign reserves, instead of selling.
  5. All gold funds are in a long term uptrend with bullion, sliding in 2011 as gold increased, but ready for an new gold bull market surge in 2012.
  6. The trend of commodity prices to increase is relative to gold price increases.
  7. Worldwide gold production is not matching consumption. The price will go up further with demand.
  8. Most gold consumption is done in India and China and their demand is increasing with their increase in national wealth.
  9. All gold funds reached all-time highs in 2010 and will soon resume the advance.
  10. The short position held by hedged gold funds has being methodically reduced.
  11. U.S. government economic policies over the past decade have systematically projected the U.S. economy down a road with uncontrollable federal spending and an uncontrollably increasing trade deficits. Both will cause the dollar to lose in international value and will increase the price of alternative investments, such as gold.
  12. With the recent devaluation of many international currencies, the U.S. dollar was the international safe haven of last resort. We are seeing signs of this ending due to many financial factors, the most important one being a falling dollar.
  13. There are over two Trillion dollars ($2,000,000,000,000) of U.S. debt owned by foreigners which could be repatriated under certain conditions. This could cause a major decline in the value of the dollar and a soaring gold price.

If you believe in 'buy low, sell high', gold is still low, but climbing.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Hold GOLD for your own wealth protection and insurance against both monetary and political shocks.


Hold GOLD for your own wealth protection and 

insurance against both monetary and political shocks.

Eurozone saga continues

A record number of European banks, 800 to be precise, borrowed money as part of the ECB’s LTRO yesterday, compared with the 523 banks who borrowed in the last LTRO back in December. 
This does not sound like a situation which is improving in any sense of the word. Banks, central banks and governments in the West have worked extremely hard to debauch their currencies; this new step has merely spurred on the race to end the fiat money system.
If banks are still rushing to borrow money, then maybe one should be worried about the money which you’ve deposited with them.
The MF Global collapse should be evidence enough that risk remains high in the financial markets, making gold and silver ownership, an investment position free from contract void of counterparty risk, a more attractive prospect.
Meanwhile efforts to save the Eurozone’s countries, let alone banks, are proving fruitless. Figures from Greece today showed the economy is in its worst position since the crisis struck. Reuters reported, ‘Greek manufacturing shrank at its fastest rate in at least thirteen years in February as production and new orders declined at record rates, driving the sector deeper into recession and forcing firms to shed more jobs, a survey showed on Thursday.’

Gold as a medium of exchange

As we reported recently, Iran is now accepting gold payments. This was further confirmed on Tuesday when Mahmoud Bahmani, governor of Iran’s central bank, said the country was ready to accept gold as payment for oil. 
In fear of repeating ourselves this move is most likely not just down to recent EU and US sanctions. It is also likely to be down to the fact that the US Dollar, the international reserve currency, is continually being debased and slowly other countries are losing faith in it.
Along with Iran, Russia and China’s central banks embracing gold, we continue to see record amounts of gold buying from other central banks. Earlier this month we briefly discussed the World Gold Council’s latest report which showed Central Banks’ gold buying activity was up 571%, making them net buyers of gold.

Ignore the price

Yes it is bad that the gold market may be manipulated, and investors should celebrate the  work of GATA. However for investors still considering whether or not to buy precious metals they should bear in mind the reasons to own gold are still there, in fact this behaviour shows that they are stronger than ever.
In one sense yes, the power and desire of central banks and governments to manipulate the gold price is almost frightening. It is also tempting to think Bernanke was right, things are improving. But as Mises once said ‘Governments cannot free themselves from the pressure of public opinion. They cannot rebel against the preponderance of generally accepted ideologies, however fallacious.’
Whilst it is always nice to see the price of gold go up, short and medium-term price movements are fairly irrelevant. 
You should try to ignore them and remember that you hold gold for your own wealth protection and insurance against both monetary and political shocks.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Why It's a MUST Invest in Physical Gold


Why Invest in Physical Gold
Why Holding Physical Gold in Your Portfolio Isn't Advisable... It's a Must



15 Fundamental Reasons to Own Gold
1. Global Currency Debasement
The U.S. dollar is fundamentally and technically very weak and should fall dramatically over the next few years. However, other countries are very reluctant to see their currencies appreciate and are resisting the fall of the U.S. dollar. Thus, we are in the early stages of a massive global currency debasement which will see tangibles, and most particularly gold, rise significantly in price.

2. Rising Investment Demand
When the crowd recognizes what is unfolding, they will seek an alternative to paper currencies and financial assets and this will create an enormous investment demand for gold. Own both the physical metal and select mining shares.

3. Alarming Financial Deterioration in the U.S.
In the space of two years, the federal government budget surplus has been transformed into a yawning deficit, which will persist as far as the eye can see. At the same time, the current account deficit has reached levels, which has portended currency collapse in virtually every other instance in history.

4. Negative Real Interest Rates in Reserve Currency (U.S. Dollar)
To combat the deteriorating financial conditions in the U.S., interest rates have been dropped to rock bottom levels, real interest rates are now negative and, according to statements from the Fed spokesmen, are expected to remain so for some time. There has been a very strong historical relationship between negative real interest rates and stronger gold prices.

5. Dramatic Increases in Money Supply in the US and Other Nations
Authorities are terrified about the prospects for deflation given the unprecedented debt burden at all levels of society in the U.S. Fed Governor Ben Bernanke is on record as saying the Fed has a printing press and will use it to combat deflation if necessary. Other nations are following in the U.S.'s footsteps and global money supply is accelerating. This is very gold friendly.

6. Existence of a Huge and Growing Gap between Mine Supply and Traditional Demand
Mined gold is roughly 2,500 tons per year and traditional demand (jewelry, industrial users, etc.) has exceeded this by a considerable margin for a number of years. Some of this gap has been filled by recycled scrap but central bank gold has been the primary source of above-ground supply.

7. Mine Supply is Anticipated to Decline in the next Three to Four Years.
Even if traditional demand continues to erode due to ongoing worldwide economic weakness, the supply/demand imbalance is expected to persist due to a decline in mine supply. Mine supply will contract in the next several years, irrespective of gold prices, due to a dearth of exploration in the post Bre-X era, a shift away from high grading which was necessary for survival in the sub-economic gold price environment of the past five years and the natural exhaustion of existing mines.

8. Large Short Positions
To fill the gap between mine supply and demand, Central Bank gold has been mobilized primarily through the leasing mechanism, which facilitated producer hedging and financial speculation. Strong evidence suggests that between 10,000 and 16,000 tons (30-50% of all Central Bank gold) is currently in the market. This is owed to the Central Banks by the bullion banks, which are the counter party in the transactions.

9. Low Interest Rates Discourage Hedging
Rates are low and falling. With low rates, there isn't sufficient contango to create higher prices in the out years. Thus there is little incentive to hedge and gold producers are not only not hedging, they are reducing their existing hedge positions, thus removing gold from the market.

10. Rising Gold Prices and Low Interest Rates Discourage Financial Speculation on the Short Side.
When gold prices were continuously falling and financial speculators could access Central Bank gold at a minimal leasing rate (0.5 - 1% per year), sell it and reinvest the proceeds in a high yielding bond or Treasury bill, the trade was viewed as a lay-up. Everyone did it and now there are numerous stale short positions. However, these trades now make no sense with a rising gold price and declining interest rates.

11. The Central Banks are Nearing an Inflection Point when they will be Reluctant to Provide more Gold to the Market.
The Central Banks have supplied too much already via the leasing mechanism. In addition, Far Eastern Central Banks who are accumulating enormous quantities of U.S. Dollars are rumored to be buyers of gold to diversify away from the U.S. Dollar.

12. Gold is Increasing in Popularity
Gold is seen in a much more positive light in countries beginning to come to the forefront on the world scene. Prominent developing countries such as China, India and Russia have been accumulating gold. In fact, China with its 1.3 billion people recently established a National Gold Exchange and relaxed control over the asset. Demand in China is expected to rise sharply and could reach 500 tons in the next few years.

13. Gold as Money is Gaining Credence
Islamic nations are investigating a currency backed by gold (the Gold Dinar), the new President of Argentina proposed, during his campaign, a gold backed peso as an antidote for the financial catastrophe which his country has experienced and Russia is talking about a fully convertible currency with gold backing.

14. Rising Geopolitical Tensions
The deteriorating conditions in the Middle East, the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and the growing conflict between the U.S. and China due to China's refusal to allow its currency to appreciate against the U.S. dollar headline the geopolitical issues, which could explode at anytime. A fearful public has a tendency to gravitate towards gold.

15. Limited Size of the Total Gold Market Provides Tremendous Leverage
All the physical gold in existence is worth somewhat more than $1 trillion U.S. Dollars while the value of all the publicly traded gold companies in the world is less than $100 billion US dollars. When the fundamentals ultimately encourage a strong flow of capital towards gold and gold equities, the trillions upon trillions worth of paper money could propel both to unfathomably high levels.