Johan van der Smut

Because I currently have no job and no income, and the kind of fall Bonner is mooting will slash my nominal wealth drastically if I remain heavily invested in gold. Periodically loading up the truck isn't an option for me because I don't have any money coming in!

Speaking as the man on the Clapham omnibus, I'd say that with their austerity measures, European governments at least appear to be addressing the debt problem now, which is more than could be said a few months ago. Bill Bonner in The Daily Reckoning is warning that gold could go to $850 before bouncing back in a time of inflation (though he advises against selling it). Then there's Mish, who thinks gold will be the king of currencies in a time of deflation. I'm interested in the views of both. I take Mish more seriously but Bonner has got me somewhat spooked.

I've just sold most of my PMs. I wish I'd done it weeks ago when gold was £850 and my gut told me the sterling price was going to tumble. In my defence I'll say that some of these 'PMs' were gold and silver ETFs and the rest were with BV, which I've been wary of ever since I heard of the Rothschild investment. I'm now hoping that the price will tumble for a few more weeks, when the plan is that I'll buy some sovereigns and stop worrying about capital gains tax.

Yes, and just as I'm pondering how to manage this shift, gold gets smacked down about $20, making me wonder whether I should have sold some of my BV stash this morning.

Where is the best place to buy a bulk order of British sovereigns?

Probably my favourite video on YT: From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUcXI2BIUOQ

A couple of years ago I set up a couple of virtual portfolios on my stockbroker's account: 'Paul Hill buys' and 'Paul Hill gambles'. I didn't buy any of the shares he'd tipped - I just wanted to see how well they did. At the time of writing, most of the ones I recorded have done disastrously. The man's a clown IMHO.

Aw, what the heck, I watched it with the sound down. I prefer this one From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWktQi9fwW4

I'd watch it, but I'm at work. Presiding over my evil empire, obviously.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have topped £550.

£548.

No, but I think £546 is, and that's the figure goldprice.org is showing now.

I know how you feel. I went out to do a bit of shopping and when I came home I was <adopts Harry Enfield voice> considerably richer than when I'd left.

The Bullion Desk says it's reached $795.90. Does that count? (Edited to change £795 to $795. If only!)

Up to £513/oz now.

Gold suddenly up to $771. Time for a rocket pic, maybe?

I once apologised to a driving instructor for shredding his nerves during a lesson. He said: "That's OK, I don't have any nerves left in this job." That's kind of how I feel at the moment. Having lived through some gut-wrenching moments in the past few months, I'm trying to be serene in the face of market volatility. I'd echo Andrew McP's point that at some point in the medium term, something horrible will happen, gold will rise again and we'll be able to get off the rollercoaster if we feel we can't take any more. I'm fairly new to this myself but I take heart from the fact that the people who saw the current financial disasters happening in advance are the same people, by and large, advocating ownership of PMs. Philip Manduca on Bloomberg (who's a dab hand at predicting the gold price, if we're to believe the guy who interviews him) predicted weeks ago that the dollar would rise in the short term and then be trashed. He told viewers: "Buy gold." Over at HPC, FP's POG predictions went awry for a little while, but he forecast a couple of weeks ago that gold could fall to $600 before staging a mighty comeback. Jim Rogers is predicting an inflationary holocaust. IIRC, Marc Faber and Mish Shedlock have said on Commodity Watch Radio that we may well see a deflationary blip followed by high inflation. Both recommended gold for the long term. So I'm not losing any sleep. Yet. But if all these guys' predictions turn out to be wrong, I will be very peeved.

I still can't get over being asked to have faith. In HBOS. There's so much I could have said about that, and about the reckless behaviour of banks generally. But I didn't want to bully a bank clerk for the sins of her bosses.

You'll have to ask Beyonce.

My true feelings emerged this lunchtime when I was paying a couple of cheques into the Halifax and the cashier asked me if I'd like to open a savings account. "To be honest," I said, "I'm planning to move all my money away from the Halifax. I don't trust banks, I don't trust politicians and I don't trust paper currencies. I'd rather have my money in silver and gold." "But if everyone did that, things really would collapse." "Sorry, but I'm a real doom and gloomster. There's a thousand trillion dollars worth of financial derivatives out there, just waiting to unwind. If you're going to panic, it's best to panic first." (Dear God, I'm quoting cgnao.) "You need to have a little faith," she said. "Ah, well, I have no faith whatsoever in politicians." "It's not just about politicians." "It is if they decide to inflate the currency away." She must have thought I was a right nutter.

Here?!?

Interesting conspiracy theory, but laughable to anyone who's ever worked in a newsroom. I can just picture the morning news conference. "Right folks, our governmental and corporate masters have ordered us to come up with a fiendishly devious scheme to prop up the banks. Here's how we do it..." The more prosaic explanation is that they're trying to fill space or airtime with whatever phenomenon has caught their eye lately, that someone has latched on to gold as a good story and that other news outlets have jumped on the bandwagon.

FP's sounding a cautious note on HPC: http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...6625&st=195 Which isn't quite true. Checking the charts on Kitco, it seems that gold was around $810 when he made his call on September 7, fell to about $740 four days later and is $867 as I write.

I'm looking for the right opportunity to get out of paper gold. If I think the POG's going to dip for a little while – something I'd welcome, having sold my ETFs during the AIG scare, a day before the fireworks – then I can dump the ETFs I re-bought when I was worried the price might skyrocket even higher. Or I could learn to stop worrying and embrace a possible financial Armageddon, which, according to the BBC, would be a nice, mild one anyway. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7631281.stm

I'm sure you're right. I just suffer from post-1.30 stress disorder.