Category — Gold

Gold a bubble? No chance, says respected Swiss investor Marc Faber.

The reason that people think gold is a bubble, says Faber, is that its current price seems a lot higher than its 1999 price of $252. But despite the significant gains, gold is still not as widely owned as other assets were during past examples of bubbles.

“In 1989, everybody owned Japanese stocks. And in 2000, everybody owned tech stocks. That is the bubble, when the majority of market participants own an asset. I think there are more people that own Apple stock than gold.”

The increase in gold’s price is down to the huge increases in debt levels, not tech-boom-style irrational exuberance.

“We had an explosion of debt, not just government debt, but private sector debt, and an explosion of unfunded liabilities.” [Read more →]

Gold prices had gold bugs giddy in the fall of 2011. In September, the luminous yellow metal touched an intraday high of $1,920 a troy ounce, putting the precious metal up roughly 35% for the year.

At the time it seemed like investors, traders and even the guy at the corner store were all buying, hoarding, and lusting for gold.

But the stellar gains were short lived, and by the end of the year gold prices had fallen by nearly 20%.

Part of the striking decline in gold was due to the fact that the “smart” money that had once been amongst gold’s biggest cheerleaders, sold it.

Some booked profits, some sold it to reflect gains in portfolios, others were forced to sell to meet margin requirements, and others wanted to start the New Year with a clean slate. [Read more →]

In a week where commodity prices have hit the skids, it seems crazy to ask if a commodity is safer than cash.

In just over a week…

Oil has fallen 8%.

Copper is down 5.6%.

And gold priced in US dollars is down 3.9%.

Yet those falls are nothing compared to the 10.5% cut many savers have suffered over the past six months. And odds are that, if you’re not careful, the news is about to get worse… [Read more →]

Gold has fallen out of the spotlight recently.

And it’s no surprise.

Frankly, watching gold trade has been a bit…well, boring.

But that could be about to change. During its 12 year bull-run, gold has often made its next move up after it has ‘done some work’ in a particular price range for a while.

After trading mostly between US$1600 and US$1800 an ounce for almost 11 months, the next move up could be coming soon…

So what’s happening in the real world to break gold out of its 11-month rut? [Read more →]

Why buy gold?

One of the problems with putting a price on gold – as gold perma-bears regularly point out – is that it doesn’t pay an income.

Generally, the starting point with valuing an investment is to work out how much income it will pay you in the future, then work out how much you are willing to pay for that.

With gold paying neither dividends nor rent, you can’t do that. So how do you value it?

I’ve just read an interesting report from Julian Jessop at Capital Economics that has a crack at it… [Read more →]

This article is contributed by Pinnacledigest.com. One of the TOP sites for up to date information on the Canadian and US Stock Markets. For more information subscribe to their free newsletter.

Dear member,

The leader of our new Featured Company has come to find success in a different way than your typical mining CEO. He is not a wheeler and dealer. He is not one to be at the restaurant or conference promoting his company to every ear that will listen.

This man is a problem solver and one who lives for the discovery and the understanding of geological formations. He is a geological engineer by education and trade and lets his results speak for themselves. His passion lies in the hunt.

We will get to this CEO’s collective accomplishments, but first, you have to understand the story which brought us to the selection of our new Featured Gold Company – Comstock Metals (CSL:TSXV).

The CEO of our new Featured Company (Comstock Metals) is also leading another junior explorer which has been around for a couple years. He has already delivered drill hole results, with this other company, that the vast majority of geologists never find.

What kind of results? Less than 3 months ago this CEO delivered a drill hole which intersected 213.9 metres (m) of 1.63 g/t gold (g/t Au), starting at 11.70 metres depth. To say he has proven himself in the mining industry is an understatement. [Read more →]

Today I want to talk about another cancer breakthrough that epitomizes this new era.

It’s found in gold.

As it turns out, gold is a natural-born killer of unhealthy human cells. It has distinct properties that make it ideal for linking medical science with the new field of nanotech.

I believe the yellow metal will play a vital role in the Era of Radical Change, in which human beings routinely live healthy, productive lives well into our hundreds. And gold’s growing use in both biotech and nanotech will greatly expand our chances to score big stock gains, too.
A new kind of gold rush has started. And not only can you make money from it – it could also save the human race from the most deadly diseases.

I predict that by the end of this decade, gold will be used as a lethal weapon in the battle against a wide range of killer tumors. [Read more →]

When notorious American thief Willie Sutton was asked why he robbed banks he replied “Because that is where the money is”. Similarly, if you were to ask mining executives why they are heading to West Africa and they might equally reply, “Because that is where the gold is”. In a recent report, [UK] natural resource broker Old Park Lane Capital describes West Africa as the “destination of choice in the gold space”.

But the report also reveals that, as Willie Sutton could have told today’s gold explorers, you cannot make easy money without bearing a bit of risk.

Why is this region, stretching from Sierra Leone to Ghana, becoming such a hotbed of activity? Its promise lies in its geology. Of particular importance is the Paleoproterozoic Birmian granite-greenstone terrain – this is the dominant source of gold in West Africa. [Read more →]

Here’s a surprise…

“We remain entirely prepared to take additional balance sheet actions as necessary to achieve our objectives.Those tools remained very much on the table and we would not hesitate to use them should the economy require that additional support.”

Those are the words from Dr. Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Of course, it’s not really a surprise.You’d have to be a certified idiot not to think the Fed and every other central bank is poised to pounce if their economies start to falter.
Here in Australia there are plenty of calls for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to drop interest rates to help the economy… even though Australia is supposedly the best economy in the world… ever!

But we try not to dwell too much on what the central bank clowns are doing.Because as we point out in this special presentation, “None of it matters.” [Read more →]

We’ve been fans of gold for a long time. And in the current climate of fear over defaults and money printing, we expect to be fans for a while.

Even although its value has soared in the past decade or so, it still lacks status as a ‘mainstream’ asset. Talk to a banker or a money manager about it even now, and they might still regard you as a crank.

The fact remains that one of the biggest drivers of gold demand has been retail investors in Asia – not Wall Street.And central banks, as a group, have been net sellers of gold over the past ten years.

However, this may be set to change. The FT recently pointed out that bankers have been quietly lobbying to be allowed to treat gold holdings as core capital. And JP Morgan has accepted gold as collateral since last year.

This has led some to claim that gold is about to enter the investment mainstream. There is even renewed talk about a return to a new gold standard. Is this justified, or likely? Or is it a sign that gold is getting too popular? [Read more →]