Plastic Elastic

I'm sure with that sort of predictive powers you'll be more than welcome on the Fringe Forum

hmmm...

This is a lot about personal choice, and about balancing many factors! Dominic has ridden the gold bull for a long time, and he's now getting much more house per ounce than he would have got a few years ago. Is he getting out at the top? Probably not! Has he made a decent profit (in terms of sq.ft. per ounce)? Probably yes! If he has done his numbers properly and if he finds the right place then he could do worse than buying now! I also agree completely that tenancy laws and culture are a nightmare in the UK. Moving house seven times in ten years sounds awful and is also quite a stretch on resources (contacting agents, visiting properties, moving, paperwork etc.) - I can think of a million things more valuable to spend my time on...

What I forgot is the demographic issue. Some (but not all) rural areas in Germany (not only the East) are experiencing a rapidly shrinking population. There was an article in Der Spiegel a few months ago on this. It also seems very difficult to attract doctors to rural areas. Again, choosing wisely location-wise might be the difficult bit here.

I heard anecdotal evidence that Greeks were buying lots of properties in Hamburg but it could be that somebody was having me on I also feel that German people are getting concerned about inflation, and, thus, are herding into property, and, as you say, it might not be the wisest step in all cases. Firstly, Germany will not be spared from all the outfall from the PIIGs desaster, thus rents and tenants may and probably will become less reliable. Secondly, German property is likely to become a prime target of financial repression - I think they will simply raise taxes and all sorts of other legal hurdles (environmental legislation etc.) by a lot. We are seeing that already. Thirdly, you are "immobile", as the German term implies. Of course, a lot of these arguments may not apply if you looked for a property to live in but if you look towards renting out you better choose wisely and in a good location I think. I wouldn't be very keen to sell any gold for a property at this point.

Thanks, this one is new to me! Apparently, the index encompasses around 10% of all property transactions in Germany.

GF, I only found this one. I know there are others as well but I can't find anything at the moment. Edit: I guess this isn't based on, say, investing a UK mortgage into German property either. Even so, there is definitely some flow of foreign money in German property. Also, there were also American REITs that bought up former public property in Dresden, for example. I read about this a few years back, well before the crisis hit. A foreign investor may also buy shares of TAG Immobilien, for example, and related shares. Whether all this is enough to have a serious impact on prices I do not know. Plus, as you are well aware, there aren't really any house price indices in Germany.

That is a very interesting piece of information I was actually not aware of, so many thanks for that! Are these the dates you are looking at? It appears that they are not concurrent with stock option expiry dates. CME gold options expiry dates

Playing devil's advocate here Gold measured in S&P 500 just bounced off a resistance line.

Dave Morgan did. So did Bob Moriarty (321gold). They have certainly risen in my estimation by doing so. On the other hand I'd like to point out that it seems a bit strange to me when you label certain things as 'cultish', given the threads you post on various conspiracies and New Age ideas.

I think there are a number of investment vehicles that were created to enable British people to buy German property. I'll have a look and see if I can find some information. That's probably not what you meant though, GF.

Well spotted! That's just another piece in the puzzle of sophisticated disinformation, probably spread by the Illuminati.

This is precisely the problem with all these 'Port Out, Starboard Home' people

One could argue he'd be nearly 123 years of age by now. Then again, don't they say a cat has seven lives?

IF the price is really going to be at $2500 in September (let's face it: nobody knows) then you will likely have sold into a rising trend, and you're average selling price will be between $2500 and what it is now. Not exactly the top but not bad either I'd say. I fully agree.

If you definitely need to be out of 70% of your position why not sell a little bit each month? I'd probably go for selling a definite amount of gold each month rather than selling for a definite amount of money each month. Thus, you probably won't be hitting the top between then and now, but you will also avoid the risk of having to sell at the bottom. Obviously you could also look at seasonality factors, technical analysis and so on but selling gradually might be the most convenient option, especially if you sit on profits anyway.

Volume of GLD is rather associated with the weak hands that trade in and out of gold. I think it can give information on the short term price movement but has little to do with the long term trend. All in my humble opinion, of course.

Thanks for that, I will look into it!

May I ask what sort of investment fund you are talking about? I might be interested...

Yes, the two lines lines need to align again! I'm still not clear whether that's going to happen through a collapse of debt and money supply, a rapid decrease in value of monetary units or (at best) a slow and orderly decline...

Precisely!! This graph totally contravenes and undermines the entire idea of selling useless bits of paper from A to B, and then A buying it back from B a little while later. There will be a point where this particular piece of music stops playing. The emperor doesn't wear any clothes! I totally agree we are not there yet, and I also hope anything that is creating genuine wealth has not been destroyed by then! Every day I go to work I can see the effects of an asset stripping exercise carried out at my work place.

I find this one truly and particularly shocking!! GAZILLIONS of liquidity sloshing around in the system desperately looking for MORE YIELD, MORE MONEY, MORE RETURN, and nowhere near enough real goods or industry there to deliver it!! Not that we didn't know it but it's no surprise that in the last few decades we have seen one asset and stockmarket bubble after the other, more and more environmental devastation, longer and longer working hours, more and more ludicrous financial instruments, a greater and greater wealth gap in many countries and so on and so on... I think it's not too far-fetched to claim that the world is indeed drowning in liquidity and useless paper!

A lot is about the relative buying power of gold, hence the need for charts Gold vs. Dow, Gold vs. Houses, Gold vs. Brew etc etc From what I've seen recently in all these charts, IMHO gold isn't cheap anymore but it isn't terribly expensive yet either. IMHO that means it will go higher! All of the fundamental drivers of the gold price are still in place, and I don't see any of the root causes of the current mess being tackled. Of course, if any person doesn't have any gold at this stage, they should clearly still buy!

Appeared in this article (in German): CLICK Very nice graph here (courtesy of Daniel Haase (Haase & Ewert)! It shows the gold price in units of Munich Oktoberfest beers. I would say gold is definitely not cheap anymore but it's still some distance away from the 1980 top. As of today (€1240 per tr.oz. / €9 per Mass beer) we sit at a ratio of 138.

What degree of leverage is there in Paulson's gold investments?