GOLD

[azazel]

Can anyone answer why Aussie 1oz nuggets have a $US 50 premium over other coins like maples and kruggers? Is it because they have a higher % of gold in them?

A 1 ounce gold coin has 1 ounce of gold in it. A maple is pure gold, a krugerrand is 22 parts gold and 2 parts other metals such as copper. both contain an ounce of gold so the krugerrand is bigger due to the other metals. Th Nuggets are more expensive because they are collectable as part of a series. Coins vary in price depending on what the dealer wants to sell them for. If they only have a few pandas left they might price them higher to maintain variety. Also if they bought them high they might not be prepared to sell them at a loss.

[romans holiday]

Over next few months, I even suspect we may see USD 700 (or even lower).

If I remember rightly, Jim Rogers, or some other luminary, bought on the last dip at 750. That would be nice.

[Errol]

Jim Rogers buys gold whatever the price. He has no interest in the month to month (even year to year) movements.

[azazel]

Jim Rogers buys gold whatever the price. He has no interest in the month to month (even year to year) movements.

Marc Faber recently said the same. Buy some gold on a regular basis, every month.

[Errol]

That's been my strategy for almost 10 years.

[azazel]

Often, I buy gold, only for it to fall in value in the short term as I didn't get the bottom of the wave. Im up on all that I have bought except for the odd few ounces. I would have done better trading it but thats easy too say with hindsight.

[huntergatherer]

Often, I buy gold, only for it to fall in value in the short term as I didn't get the bottom of the wave. Im up on all that I have bought except for the odd few ounces. I would have done better trading it but thats easy too say with hindsight.

I bought my Au core position at $605 (£315) in 2006 and so far has not dipped below this (touch wood) as a long term hold.

 

My large position of Ag was traded out in early March at the recent high - below $14 for 11% profit - bought in inflationary uptrend in spring/summer '08 and by stronger sterling.

 

Other Ag bought at $8.81 was sold for 14% profit.

 

My attempt at buying some Au at a recognised entry point recently has turned out to be a dud. RSI down to near 30 but turned out to be a false signal. I hope to average this position out during the sales.

[lowrentyieldmakessense(honest!)]

bit of humour

 

via mikelivingstone on hpc

 

http://www.rathergood.com/bullion

[creditcrunch]

telegraph: Gold to go as high as $1500

 

[G0ldfinger]

telegraph: Gold to go as high as $1500

 

They forgot a 0.

[warpig]

So what do we think the gold market has in store for us this week... 7 Building Societies in crisis talks with the BOE after a Moody's rating downgrade, the budget statement on Wednesday, is there anything else in store for the UK... Surely the pound will weaken this week... Has gold bottomed?

[bitbigt]

So what do we think the gold market has in store for us this week... ?

A big drop, is my guess

[warpig]

You've been right so far, hat off to you, but now I'm not so sure.

 

Market manipulation is becoming so obvious, you have to ask yourself why are they being so blatant, what's the rush. Excessive gold short positions held by JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank are clearly herding the market despite unprecedented demand, even with Indian jewellery demand falling off a cliff. Does the IMF still have the gold China so desperately wants it to sell? IMO the further down gold goes the more people will buy, I am staggered they are offering another buying opportunity.

 

The "mark to market" accounting rule change is clearly aiding this suckers rally, but it's passing the problem further up the chain and adversely affecting gold. The US is desperately clinging to its reserve currency status at all costs, how long before China push the matter yet further? How much more stress can the bond market take? IMO excessive deficit spending, manipulation and QE are sealing its fate. As market tension, ignorance and unemployment as my gauge I'm with MA on this one.

 

A big drop, is my guess

[surfdude]

A 1 ounce gold coin has 1 ounce of gold in it. A maple is pure gold, a krugerrand is 22 parts gold and 2 parts other metals such as copper. both contain an ounce of gold so the krugerrand is bigger due to the other metals. Th Nuggets are more expensive because they are collectable as part of a series. Coins vary in price depending on what the dealer wants to sell them for. If they only have a few pandas left they might price them higher to maintain variety. Also if they bought them high they might not be prepared to sell them at a loss.

 

Are the nuggets "collectables" because they have a different kangaroo image each year whereas the maple and the kruggers don't change?

 

Here in Hong Kong when you want to buy/sell gold you go to a bank and exhange the currency the same as if you were exchanging Euros, $US or any other currency. Is this the same in the UK, that is, do the banks buy/sell gold? Or do you have to go to a PM dealer to buy coins or bars?

[romans holiday]

So what do we think the gold market has in store for us this week... 7 Building Societies in crisis talks with the BOE after a Moody's rating downgrade, the budget statement on Wednesday, is there anything else in store for the UK... Surely the pound will weaken this week... Has gold bottomed?

Unless there are fireworks in the heavens above, I think this will be another tedious slooooow week for gold. I wonder if it will continue to grind down slower for the next few weeks until it hits around 800 or 750. If it wasn't for the QE event I imagine we would get there a lot quicker. Good buying opps coming up.

[electroweak]

Gold doing little, but turdling behaving like a star again.

A falling star, that is. Maybe a Death Star.

GBPUSD:

14571.9 / 14574.9 -218.0

 

How any small business is supposed to survive in this climate, I don't know. I mean you could make profits abroad of say 5-10% and have it wiped out on a week-to-week basis by choosing the wrong moment to convert in/out of sterling.

 

Not all sme's use the futures markets, I'm sure.

[littledavesab]

Unless there are fireworks in the heavens above, I think this will be another tedious slooooow week for gold. I wonder if it will continue to grind down slower for the next few weeks until it hits around 800 or 750. If it wasn't for the QE event I imagine we would get there a lot quicker. Good buying opps coming up.

 

Is it fair to say that as long as the stock market rally continues then gold will continue to do nothing/grind down?

 

I think thats a fair bet

[lowrentyieldmakessense(honest!)]

latest from Alf

 

 

alf field

 

How will the current crisis end?

 

How will the current crisis end? As mentioned, this is a war between fiat money and sound money. It is extremely unlikely that Governments will voluntarily give up their freedom to create fiat money at will. They will have to reach a point where there is no alternative to introducing sound money because citizens finally refuse to accept the fiat currencies. This journey will probably be decidedly unpleasant.

 

Fiat money will survive for as long as people are prepared to accept it in payment for goods and services. The end will come when the general populace rejects the fiat currency in favour of sound or “good” money.

 

The bottom line is that it is the people who will finally decide when this crisis will end, when they reject bad money and force the good, sound money into circulation.

 

How can this happen in the USA? We need to go back to examine the basics of banking. Centuries ago goldsmiths, the forerunners of modern banks, provided a storage service for metallic coin money. The receipts they issued were regarded as being as good as gold and enabled commercial transactions to take place easily. The goldsmiths’ profit came from storage charges.

 

Later the goldsmiths started issuing receipts for their own gold as loans and charging interest on those loans. Then they started lending fictitious receipts based on the gold they were holding in storage for clients. That was when they morphed from the sound business of storage into the murky waters of lending money belonging to others.

 

The same two functions are performed by modern banks – the transaction function and the loan function. The transaction function is easy, safe, but unexciting business. The loan function is much more profitable and invites risk taking. This is where problems normally emerge.

 

With the development of electronic money and electronic banking, the transaction function has become vital to continuing economic activity. This is why Governments are so determined to save their national banking systems, but this requires them to absorb all the bad investments and derivatives from the loan side of the banks.

 

It seems inevitable that before this crisis is resolved, that the two functions performed by banks, the transaction function and the loan function, will need to be separated.

 

It also seems inevitable that when government fiat money is rejected by the people, (following unbridled creation of new fiat money), that gold and silver will have to re-enter the national and international monetary systems. In our modern economies, with their electronic money transaction systems, gold and silver will need to be in an electronic format to be reintroduced as money.

 

Electronic gold and silver money already exists. Some people (ahead of their time) have perceived this need and set up the electronic transaction function of a banking system using gold and silver. James Turk at www.goldmoney.com is one such person. Their business provides a facility for people to open electronic gold and silver accounts. Goldmoney.com buys and holds the precious metals on behalf of clients who can use their holdings to make electronic payments from their accounts, either in gold or silver or by converting back to fiat currencies.

 

Goldmoney.com makes its profits from minor transaction fees and small margins between the buying and selling prices of precious metals. They only provide the storage and transaction functions of a bank. They do not get involved in the loan function. Thus goldmoney.com has also achieved the separation of the loan and transaction functions of a banking system.

 

I have no connection with goldmoney.com and only mention their business as an example of how good money may evolve and eventually drive out the less desirable fiat money from circulation. If you use goldmoney.com or any similar business, please be aware that you must do your own due diligence to satisfy yourself of the security of the operation.

[warpig]

Gold doing well in Sterling today, another couple of days of this and it will look quite respectable again. I'm glad I bought some more last night!

[ziknik]

...

Is this the same in the UK, that is, do the banks buy/sell gold? Or do you have to go to a PM dealer to buy coins or bars?

 

I don’t know of any banks that will exchange gold/silver for fiat currencies in the UK.

 

I am told (by older relatives) that gold & silver coins and bars were available up to the 1980s

 

All my gold/silver buying is via bullion dealers / coin shops or Goldmoney & Bullionvault

 

[dietcolaaddict]

 

Gold, silver up.

Platinum, palladium down.

 

Statistical blip or a new trend?

[frizzers]

Platinum, palladium trade with base metals in that they are industrial metals

[Catflap]

Platinum, palladium trade with base metals in that they are industrial metals

 

I'm not so sure - I think they are both and investors will buy them if gold 'looks' expensive in comparison.

 

http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$PLA...id=p99596281105

 

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle5704941.ece

 

Shortage of platinum after Japan buying spree

 

Families are rushing to invest in the metal as faith in the Government's ability to handle the economic crisis dwindles

 

Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent

 

 

Tokyo bullion dealers are reporting an unprecedented drought of platinum ingots and coins, blaming the economic downturn and dwindling faith in the Government for a rush by middle-class Japanese families to buy precious metal.

 

With dealers turning away would-be platinum customers for lack of stock, retail investment interest is turning towards the even rarer Canadian Maple Leaf palladium coin.

 

Some dealers are predicting volatile palladium prices as Japanese investors compete with the car industry, palladium's main industrial buyer.

 

A government think tank is predicting that Japan's economy shrank by an annualised 10.59 per cent in the final quarter of 2008 - rather than the 5.14 per cent contraction they were predicting four weeks ago.

 

As if this was not enough for concern, there is a growing sense that the Japanese Government is not responding adequately to the economic crisis.

 

Jonathan Allum, chief Japan strategist at KBC Securities, is among a number of analysts with deep scepticism over the plans laid out by Kaoru Yosano, the Economics Minister.

 

“Some of Mr Yosano's previously expressed views do not wholly inspire confidence. This is a man who said on January 28 that a rise in the consumption tax could ‘lay the foundations for increased consumption',” he said in a note to investors yesterday.

 

Although precious metals dealers are thriving, Tiffany's said yesterday that it would cut prices in its Japanese stores by 9 per cent - a reflection of the stronger yen and dire times for the mainstream jewellery industry.

 

Platinum sales at Tanaka Kikinzoku, the largest Japanese bullion dealer, have soared by 430 per cent over the past 12 months.

 

The World Gold Council's latest figures suggest that total Japanese gold bullion sales for investment purposes soared by 61 per cent last year. Platinum is popular because the price is about 50 per cent lower than it was this time last year.

[azazel]

Gold, silver up.

Platinum, palladium down.

 

Statistical blip or a new trend?

 

Im hoping that there will be another up wave before the summer, if so I may exit some of my position in view of a home. If the late February peak was the last before the summer duldrums, it was quite an early peak compared to the last few years. Otherwise I'll stay in until next spring. I will still hang on to the family silver.

[G0ldfinger]

I'm not so sure - I think they are both and investors will buy them if gold 'looks' expensive in comparison.

...

In a hyperinflationary catastrophe boom anything real/tangible could become an object of speculation, e.g. heavy farming machinery or portaloos. ANYTHING will be better than cash, but the precious metals will rule.