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1. [verwijderd] 22 november 2005 22:38

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   Hi Gung Ho, allereerst wil ik mijn waardering voor je onaflatende informatie stroom uitdrukken. Nu vraag ik mij af, heb jij fysiek goud of nog omvangrijker zilver, of beleg je in fondsen? Als het mis gaat gaan de banken ook op slot maar ik zie nogal tegen het bewaren op. Suggesties? dank je.
2. [verwijderd] 24 november 2005 18:33

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   quote:

   roos 2000 schreef:

   Hi Gung Ho, allereerst wil ik mijn waardering voor je onaflatende informatie stroom uitdrukken. Nu vraag ik mij af, heb jij fysiek goud of nog omvangrijker zilver, of beleg je in fondsen? Als het mis gaat gaan de banken ook op slot maar ik zie nogal tegen het bewaren op. Suggesties? dank je.
   

   
   Hi Roos 2000,
   
   Ik beschik over aardig wat fysiek goud en zilver maar beleg ook in vooral juniors die op een turnaround exploratie/miner staan. Je hebt inderdaad gelijk over banken maar vlak bv de gevolgen van een electriciteiststoring ook niet uit.
   Het SG van Goud is fysiek interessant 1 kg goud stelt qua volume niet veel voor, zilver is wat moeizamer maar je bergt toch ook snel wat op. 1 KG zilver is overigens ook een leuke pressepapier Succes GH
   
   WHAT MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT GOLD
   
   Thursday, November 24, 2005
   
   [ed. Note. In the following article, legendary speculator Doug Casey steps back for an important historical perspective on gold. You can learn more about Doug's renowned International Speculator newsletter, which each month focuses on providing unbiased recommendations on the world's most profitable junior gold, silver and metals exploration and development companies by clicking here. ]
   Historically, gold has never been viewed as a speculation. It was simply money: cash in the most basic form. It was a medium of exchange and a store of value. People did not accumulate gold because it could make them wealthy, but because it was a convenient, liquid way to keep the wealth they had.
   
   It's only very recently, since 1971-when the U.S. government proved unable to keep the price at $35-that gold has been viewed as a speculation. In those days gold was an ideal speculation, with minimal risk but a huge upside.
   
   Gold has been in a free market for three decades now; the frenzy of the '70s that took the metal from $35 to more than $800 disappeared, and was followed by a 21-year bear market. As a result, an entire generation of investors has grown up thinking that gold is not only not money but an investment dog. Their thinking is about to change. I believe that not only will gold again be used as money, but that it has entered a new long-term bull market.
   
   Before looking at where the metal's price is likely to go over the next few years, however, it's worthwhile to consider some of the fundamentals… fundamentals that not 1 in a 1,000 people understands.
   
   The Questions. Any discussion of gold always comes back to certain basic questions: Why is gold money? Why is gold valuable? Why can't money be whatever we say it is? (The last question is usually asked by government officials because they don't know the answers to the first two.) Why does gold give rise to all kinds of controversy not associated with, say, platinum or lead? Why is the stuff an emotional, political statement for those who love it and for those who hate it?
   
   The Answers. Over thousands of years, in billions of transactions by millions of humans, many commodities have been used as money: stones, salt, cattle, and seashells among them. But wherever gold was available, it tended to displace other media of exchange. Like any successful money, gold never needed to be decreed "legal tender" by a government; it was recognized as the most desirable money by common consent because of its unique properties.
   
   Certain materials have proven especially well suited for certain uses. Aluminum is good for airplanes, bricks for construction, paper for books, and gold for money. If bricks were used for airplanes and aluminum for books, the results would be as suboptimal as when paper is used for money.
   
   In fact, the properties required of money were first described by Aristotle in the fourth century BCE.
   
   It is durable. It won't evaporate, mildew, rust, crumble, break, or rot. Gold, more than any other solid element, is chemically inert. This is why foodstuffs, oil or artwork can't be used as money.
   
   It is divisible. One ounce of gold-whether bullion, coin, or dust-is worth exactly 1/100th of one hundred ounces. When a diamond is split, its value may be destroyed. You can't make change for a piece of land.
   
   It is convenient. Gold allows its owner physically to carry the wealth of a lifetime with him. Real estate stays where it is. An equivalent value of copper, lead, zinc, silver, and most other metals would be too heavy.
   
   It is consistent. Only one grade exists for 24-carat gold, so there is no danger of owning 24-carat gold varying in quality. Twenty-four-carat gold (pure gold) is the same in every time and place since gold is a natural element, unlike gems, artwork, land, grain, or other commodities.
   
   It has intrinsic value. Gold finds new industrial uses each year. Of all the metals, it is the most malleable (able to be hammered into sheets less than 5-millionths of an inch thick), most ductile (a single ounce can be drawn into a wire 35 miles long), and the least reactive (it can stand indefinite immersion in seawater, does not tarnish in air, and can withstand almost any acid). Next to silver, it's the most conductive of heat and electricity and the most reflective of light.
   
   These superlatives make gold uniquely well suited as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Arguments that gold's value is "mystical" are silly; it is simply one of the 92 natural elements.
   
   One important last point was not listed by Aristotle, probably only because he lived before the creation of paper and banking.
   
   Gold cannot be created by government. Gold can, of course, be debased with impurities or falsified in weight, and governments strapped for revenue have tried those tricks. But a trader can protect himself with a pair of scales or a vial of acid, although a familiar and trustworthy hallmark of a coin saves him that trouble. Unlike currency, gold cannot lose value because of government mismanagement. On the contrary, it tends to gain value because of government mismanagement.
   
   But isn't that latter point largely academic, since gold isn't presently used as money anywhere in the world? I think not. Even though the concept still receives little discussion, and none in "official" circles, gold is likely in the foreseeable future to reassume its traditional role as money worldwide. (And not just in bullion form, but in modern, safe and reliable bullion proxies and electronic transaction services such as those offered by goldmoney.com.)
   
   I have no doubt that gold will again regain its traditional role of money, but only after it is trading at far higher prices than it is today. Wait and see.
   
   Until then, there is nothing wrong with viewing gold as a speculation… which is doubly true of the gold shares we follow in our International Speculator newsletter. That's because every $1.00 increase in the bullion price of gold translates into an exponential increase in the value of a mining company's profits, or an exploration company's blue sky potential.
   
   Doug Casey
   
   Doug Casey, legendary natural resource speculator and author of "Crisis Investing", one of the best-selling investment books of all times, has helped tens of thousands of investors become a great deal richer.
3. [verwijderd] 26 november 2005 11:15

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   Gold price hike freezes real estate market
   10:04 26/11/2005
   Real estate market at a standstill due to the gold price hike.
   
   Real estate agents have few customers
   Over the last two weeks, real estate agents have had few customers. Doan Khac Thuat, Director of Saigon Real Estate Trading explained that the dramatic gold price increase has caused trading activities to come to a halt.
   
   Currently payment in real estate is undertaken by gold, not cash, and with such a dramatic price increase, clients will have to pay tens of millions of VND more for a house valued at 1,000 taels of gold.
   
   Mr Thuat related how a deal failed last week due to a last-minute decision, with the buyer refusing to buy a house when he heard that the price exceeded the threshold of VND900,000. There is a tendency among buyers to wait for gold prices to cool.
   
   Truong Anh Tuan, Director of Hoang Quan Real Estate also said that numerous deals fell through last week. He said that houses valued at 2,000-3,000 taels of gold cannot sell these days, and other brokers revealed that no successful deals have been made recently.
   
   The price rise has brought loss to those who borrow gold to buy land and houses. Ngo Xuan Quy from Tan Phu district, HCM City, one such individual said that the gold price was VND890,000 per tael when he borrowed gold, but it has now risen to VND940,000 per tael, equating to a loss of VND50mil over half of month.
   
   According to Nguyen Ngoc Duong, Deputy Director General of Van Phat Hung, the continuous price increase will prompt investors to buy gold instead of houses and land as the profit made by real estate investment cannot offset the increase of gold prices. If the gold price keeps increasing, the real estate market will remain frozen.
   
   According to Lam Van Chuc, Director of Phuc Duc, the current real estate market has been narrowed compared to the same period last year. On Tran Nao and Luong Dinh Cua streets, where 110 real estate centres used to practice, there are now only 10 companies operating.
   
   Mr Chuc went on to say that real estate businesses are facing big difficulties due to stagnant activities, while some have to pay large sums of interest to banks. “If the situation continues, 30% of real estate businesses will go bankrupt,” he said.
   
   (Source: Tuoi tre)
   
   
4. [verwijderd] 27 november 2005 12:40

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   Newmont Forecasts Gold to Rise Above $1,000 on Asian Demand
   Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Newmont Mining Corp., the world's largest producer of gold, says the price of the precious metal may rise to more than $1,000 an ounce in the next five to seven years as demand growth driven by Asia outstrips global supply.
   
   The gold market ``is hot and it is going to get hotter,'' Denver-based Newmont's President Pierre Lassonde said in an interview on Australian Broadcasting Corp. television today. ``By early next year you are going to see $525 and down the road even a lot higher than that.''
   
   Gold for immediate delivery touched $497.02 on Nov. 25, the highest intraday price since December 1987, as Japanese investors bought bullion to hedge against inflation and jewelers in Asia and Europe stocked up. Lassonde's prediction surpasses a Merrill Lynch & Co. forecast in July that gold may rise to $725 by 2010 because of rising demand from China.
   
   ``When any of these markets get momentum behind them, you tend to find some pretty outrageous calls,'' said Mark Pervan, head of resources research at Daiwa Securities SMBC Australia in Melbourne. ``There's going to be a lot of gold calls made in this environment, it's similar to the oil market about six months ago when people'' were saying oil may reach $100 a barrel, he said.
   
   Gold may top a record $873 during the next three years because the U.S. will be unable to check inflation caused by rapid growth in China and India, William Gary, a publisher of newsletters with subscribers that include hedge fund Tudor Investment Corp., forecast last month.
   
   China, India
   
   Some investors buy gold to hedge against accelerating inflation. Gold futures surged to $873 an ounce in 1980, when U.S. consumer prices rose more than 12 percent from the previous year. Gold last climbed above $500 an ounce on Dec. 11, 1987.
   
   ``Everybody thinks inflation is going to stay at 2 percent, I don't believe it,'' said Lassonde. ``There has been way too much money printing in the world for that to happen.''
   
   Inflation, excluding food and energy, will probably rise 2.4 percent by the fourth quarter next year from this quarter, up from a 2.1 percent gain a year earlier, a survey by the National Association for Business Economics found.
   
   Newmont said Oct. 26 third-quarter profit fell 2.3 percent to $126 million as output dropped 6.8 percent, eroding the benefit of rising gold demand and prices.
   
   Worldwide gold production last year had the largest decline in 39 years, Lassonde said. Demand in India, the world largest consumer, rose 47 percent last fiscal year, and 14 percent in China, the world's fastest growing economy, he said.
   
   The decline in output will continue ``for at least another couple of years simply because the industry didn't put money back into the ground when the gold price was very low,'' Lassonde said. ``On the other side demand is just surging everywhere. It is driven mostly by Asia, China and India.''
   
   Barrick
   
   The price of gold may rise above $500 in the ``very near future,'' Barrick Gold Corp. Chief Executive Gregory Wilkins said in an interview in Toronto Nov. 18. Still, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. analyst Craig Ferguson said in an Nov. 22 report that gold may fall as low as $455 in the next three months.
   
   Gold has rallied from a 20-year low of $253.20 an ounce in 1999 partly because 15 central banks in Europe, including Germany, agreed to limit their annual bullion sales to 400 tons through 2004. The banks, under a second agreement that began last year, increased the annual limit to 500 tons. Central banks, mainly in the U.S. and Europe, hold almost a fifth of the world's gold as a reserve asset.
   
   Lassonde's forecast ``is an ambitious target considering that central banks hold a lot of gold and at $1,000 it looks very attractive to sell,'' said Daiwa's Pervan.
   
   In 2004, central banks sold 475 tons of gold, contributing 14 percent to global production, which included mine output and sales of scrap bullion, according to the World Gold Council.
   
   Lassonde said he was undecided if Newmont should make a takeover bid for Placer Dome Inc., Canada's second-largest gold producer. Placer is fending off a $8.93 billion hostile takeover bid from Barrick, the world's third-largest gold miner, and said last week it's seeking alternative transactions.
   
   ``It would be fair to say that we have to at least think about it but whether or not we are going to do something is far from evident,'' he said. Still, ``the suite of assets is not entirely complimentary to what we have at Newmont.''
   
   To contact the reporter on this story:
   Miriam Steffens in Sydney at msteffens1@bloomberg.net
   
   Last Updated: November 26, 2005 23:01 EST
   
5. [verwijderd] 28 november 2005 09:06

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   The Gold Sector's Hidden Values By Ben Abelson
   27 Nov 2005 at 10:39 PM EST
   
   NEW YORK (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Since the beginning of fall gold has taken off, recently trading above $495 per ounce. Along with this move, scores of miners have seen their stock prices skyrocket – with industry heavyweights like Goldcorp [TSX:G; NYSE:GG], Glamis Gold [TSX:GLG; NYSE:GLG] and Placer Dome [TSX:PDG; NYSE:PDG] all moving toward multi-year highs. But while some traders prefer to get into a hot momentum play during gold’s upturn, common wisdom holds that an investment in a solid company that trades at an attractive discount will yield the best longer-term results.
   
   Many of the companies highlighted below shined in the sector’s late 2003 surge – only to be chopped back down to size over the past 18-24 months. In the case of those selected, we posit that this trend has gone too far – making these miners and explorers compelling value propositions. It’s also notable that insiders at all four of our producer picks (data was unavailable for the two explorers) have actually been net buyers of stock since the start of the year – an almost unheard of idea for the heavy option issuers in the precious metals industry.
   
   Without further ado, here a few selected picks to make up an ‘under-appreciated’ miner portfolio. While it’s quite likely that one or two of the companies below won’t dazzle over the next couple years, when taken as a whole the group’s results should be striking.
   
   For those of you interested in jumping around, the stocks highlighted below are:
   
   Northgate Minerals [AMEX:NXG; TSX:NGX]
   Golden Star Resources [AMEX:GSS; TSX:GSC]
   Cambior Inc. [AMEX:CBJ; TSX:CBJ]
   Nevsun Resources [AMEX:NSU; TSX:NSU]
   Wolfden Resources [TSX:WLF]
   Nevada Pacific Gold Ltd. [TSX:NPG]
   Northgate Minerals
   
   We’ve been bullish on Northgate since right around the time it bottomed at $0.92 last May (“Northgate Strikes Backs,” May 26). Still, even at the recent $1.62 stock price, Northgate trades exactly where it was about 2 years ago – and is well below its cycle high in the $2.50 range.
   
   The stock took a hard hit early last year as earnings stalled while the company took the time to access higher-grade ore at its flagship copper-and-gold Kemess South mine. With that ore now accessible and a brief labor strike well behind it, Northgate’s looking to continue producing about 300,000 ounces of gold and 75 million pounds annually from Kemess South with life of mine cash costs (net of copper credits) of about $170 per ounce through 2009.
   
   Much of the company’s future is tied up in the nearby 4.1 million ounce Kemess North deposit, where a production decision is expected early next year. Given that many analysts and investors are now ascribing little or no value to Kemess North, if the project does go ahead this alone will provide upside momentum to the stock. After speaking with CEO Ken Stowe last May, it seems that management is committed to making the necessary decisions to generate shareholder value on the property..
   
   Additionally, Northgate recently acquired Ontario’s Young-Davidson Mines [TSXv:ODM], and will begin a drilling programme on that company’s prospective land holdings early in 2006.
   
   On November 24, Northgate also announced the discovery of a potentially large mineralized system elsewhere on the Kemess property – which propelled the stock up over the short term. Based on initial drill results, Northgate’s shelling out $2.5 million for drilling on that property in 2006.
   
   All told, Northgate remains a bargain today. Kemess South has several good years of production left, the company has several very good exploration prospects, there’s little debt on the balance sheet and the company holds a miniscule hedge book (about 140,000 ounces). If gold trades flat in the near term, the stock could move back down to the $1.50 level – working off some of its near-term ebullience, and making it ripe for a long-term investment.
   
   Golden Star Resources
   
   Since early 2004, only gluttons for punishment – or deep value investors – have been attracted to Golden Star Resources. Once soaring to over $8 per share, Golden Star’s languished in the $2.50 range when we first profiled it back in April (“Beaten Down Golden Star Tries to reclaim Its Footing,” April 25). Since then, the stock has worked its way down to as low as $2.10, before recently bouncing up to $2.44.
   
   Under $2.50 a share, Golden Star remains a compelling investment in the potential of West African gold mining. This year was marked by a series of transitional problems –costs at the Wassa mine ran up quite high, and there was a month-long production delay at Prestea. Longer-term, however, it appears that Golden Star has made the necessary infrastructure upgrades and commitments to more than double production to 500,000 ounces by 2007 – at a cash cost of about $220 per ounce.
   
   The company also recently signed an agreement to purchase St. Jude Resources [TSXv:SJD], adding to its prospective projects in Ghana. Golden Star also has solid investments and JVs with several other African explorers.
   
   Obviously, the proof will be in the pudding – but where Golden Star is priced right now, it appears that investors have all but written off this promising growth story. The bulk of Africa’s gold resources remain vastly under-exploited – and Golden Star is solidly positioned to take advantage of this over the long-term.
   
   Cambior
   
   The mining world has thumbed its nose at this old-time French Canadian gold mining company – and often with good reason. In the past, Cambior was laden with a decent debt load, a hefty hedge book, and had a string of assets that were slowly deteriorating. While some of this story remains, Cambior has taken solid strides to revamp its operations in the past couple of years – and remains a compelling value at $2.33 per share.
   
   While Cambior’s debt still remains high (at 12% of total capital) it’s not at the point that it is unwieldy for the junior producer. The hedge book is down to just 150,000 ounces or so, and the company’s Roesbel mine (put into production in 2004) is churning out about 300,000 ounces per year – nearly half of the company’s total gold output.
   
   The biggest near-term problem plaguing Cambior is finding additional resources. The company’s shares took a hit in late 2004 when an agreement to acquire a controlling stake in Peru’s Compania Minera Podersa fell apart. Still, the company’s production should be boosted by its recent decision to move its Camp Caiman project – located in French Guiana with an estimated reserve base of 1.1 million ounces - toward production. Additionally, Cambior has significant land holdings throughout stable countries in South America (re: not Venezuela), giving it decent exploration upside. Another plus is that Cambior recently raised $37.5 million through the sale of its Carlota Copper Project to Quadra Mining.
   
   At current gold prices, Cambior pretty much trades at its net asset value (with a 5% discount), according to Canaccord, well below the 1.62 average multiple currently ascribed to intermediate producers. While production should be more or less flat over the next couple of years, the development of Caiman should put Cambior on track towards its goal of producing 800,000 ounces annually within the next few years. Given its low multiple and the current consolidation environment, Cambior just might get snapped up by a larger company loo
6. [verwijderd] 29 november 2005 07:49

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   Brown's gold sale losses pile up as bullion price surges By Bill Jamieson The Scotsman, Edinburgh
   Monday, November 28, 2005
   
   business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=23...
   
   Higher still and higher climbs the price of gold. It closed up late on Friday at $495.70 an ounce in London and was even higher in Hong Kong.
   
   Since the start of the month, the precious metal has gained almost 9 per cent, and there is growing confidence among traders that it will break $500 before too long.
   
   This is all deeply embarrassing for our chancellor, Gordon Brown.
   
   Remember how some six years ago he declared he would sell 60 percent of Britain's gold reserves held by the Bank of England?
   
   Many suspected the exercise was designed to inspire confidence in the then soon-to-be-launched European single currency. This was because some of the proceeds were to be earmarked for the purchase
   of euros.
   
   In due course, Brown sold off 300 tonnes at just $275 an ounce -- close to a 20-year low.
   
   Roughly a third of the proceeds were then invested in euros - which then proceeded to plummet.
   
   The gold price did not do much for a time. Now it has enjoyed a stunning rally.
   
   The result is a stonking loss on those Gordon Brown gold sales. In fact, the Chancellor's disastrous foray into international asset management now looks to have cost the British people some £2 billion.
   
   One point he could enter in mitigation is that he was not alone in this error. Other European central banks also sold down their gold holdings. There was much conceit around at the time about the coming
   emergence of the euro as the world's reserve currency.
   
   Gold, by contrast, was a barbarous relic, one whose presence in the world monetary system had persisted out of superstition rather than logic. And unlike government bonds, it paid no interest.
   
   But gold has systematically defied all attempts to expunge it from the vaults of the world's central banks and from its perch as a haven of last resort for millions of savers round the world.
   
   Unlike many currencies, it is universally recognised as a store of value. It is readily accepted in exchange for goods and services. It is an excellent hedge in times of uncertainty and instability. And, again unlike currencies, gold cannot be printed to order to help debt-laden economies off the hook.
   
   The latest surge is a reminder of gold's powerful global appeal. The recent price strength has been due to continued demand from India and China.
   
   And it might also reflect, too, anxiety over coming instability in the world's currency markets. Many traders do not trust the burst of strength of the US dollar over the past year. The US currency was
   widely predicted to fall sharply. Instead, it has been hitting new two-year highs against the euro. Yet the twin deficits problem has not gone away.
   
   How strange that, despite all rhetorical declarations to drive out gold from the vaults of central banks, its presence persists and, indeed, looks set to increase in central banks vaults across Asia.
   
   The strength of gold - and its lasting appeal to central banks - is the subject of an informed analysis from fund management group Bedlam (www.bedlamplc.com). I was struck by some outstanding graphic showing how western governments still love gold - euro area governments hold some 39 per cent of official gold holdings and the
   US 26 per cent.
   
   All the world's currencies, its says, are now "fiat" money, that is, they lack any intrinsic value so are supported by faith, PR spin and
   little else.
   
   There's nothing wrong or, indeed, unusual about this - just so long as politicians and central bankers act prudently and do not flood the world with worthless notes.
   
   Might the current era of a total acceptance of fiat money be drawing to a close? Asian bankers may prove the key trigger as they seek to diversify out of the dollar. The excessive monetary printing that
   has already taken place looks set to drive the gold price higher, as are confiscatory, anti-wealth taxes by governments. This is one of the key reasons why gold remains so popular in continental Europe: it is an excellent means of storing wealth without the authorities knowing.
   
   Bedlam's conclusions are thought provoking. It foresees an unsteady rise, with the possibility of a blowout in 2007-8.
   
   There are only 153,000 tonnes of gold above the ground and a maximum of 2,500 tonnes a year from mine supply. It sees only a low chance that in 2006 the gold price averages much below $450.
   
   Modest forecasts suggest a 15-20 per cent gain by end 2006, or more than three times the UK's current government long bond yield. So some diversification into gold may start to appeal. "It is certainly
   less naive," it says, "than the investment industry's present consensus that government IOUs are a risk-free investment."
7. [verwijderd] 2 december 2005 09:08

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   Gold Smashes Through the Psychological Barrier!
   
   By Jon A. Nones 01 Dec 2005 at 02:00 PM
   
   St. LOUIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- December gold jumped $7.90 to close at $502.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and analysts calmly shrugged it off. After touching $500 Tuesday evening and hitting $502 on Monday night, it seemed inevitable to most gold bugs the barrier would be broken in New York. Resource Investor asked the experts for their comments.
   
   “Look at the way gold has been trading the past few weeks. Every dip is well bought. There's so much money waiting on the sidelines to buy gold,” said James Turk, founder and chairman of GoldMoney.com. “This new money trying to enter the market knows the long-term outlook for gold remains positive.”
   
   Turk said that in the near-term, gold is being driven higher by this new money in the market.
   
   “The shorts must be getting nervous, so I expect more buying from them too,” especially now that we’ve cleared $500, he said.
   
   The $500 level is widely watched around the globe, so not that gold has cleared $500 it could be “an international buy signal that I expect will send gold higher very quickly as new buyers jump into the market,” Turk added.
   
   Peter Grandich, Editor of The Grandich Letter, says $500 is no big surprise.
   
   “I have been saying $500 gold was not a question of if, but when for almost two years so this is no surprise to me - but there have been many new bulls popping up daily,” said Grandich.
   
   Grandich attributes the rally to three drivers:
   
   Investment demand
   Physical demand
   Geopolitical concerns
   First, investors have not only recognized the relative cheapness of gold versus other asset classes, but are growing more concerned about America's out of control financial house both in the public and private sector, according to Grandich.
   
   “These folks feel it's only a question of when, not if, the U.S. dollar resumes its inevitable slide and view gold as the best alternative to paper currencies,” he said.
   
   Second, Grandich noted that jewellery demand is about 80% of all of gold’s yearly consumption. A good part of the increased demand is coming from areas of the world where wealth creation is growing the fastest, such as China and India, he said.
   
   In addition, the fact that gold rose in stages versus spikes kept buyers from facing sticker shock, stopping their purchasing, he added.
   
   “Gold has been in a ‘two steps up, one step back’ mode for three years and I hope it remains that way,” Grandich said.
   
   And third, for 2,000 years, gold has proven to be a valuable asset to hold when the perception grows that the emperor has no clothes, Grandich said. He added that the world has grown very concerned about “America’s 21st century Vietnam – Iraq.”
   
   “President Bush’s slide in popularity has led to a belief he’s already a lame duck and progress in Washington will, or has already, grounded to a halt,” he said.
   
   Dale Doelling, Chief Market Technician of Trends In Commodities is as equally taken-aback as Grandich.
   
   “I don't have to tell you that I'm hardly surprised,” said Doelling. “The only possible surprise is that it took this long!”
   
   Doelling said the possibility of $600/oz by year-end is not entirely out of the question.
   
   “In know this, we're in a strong, secular bull market in the precious metals and I see nothing that is going to keep the markets from making significant advances going forward,” said Doelling.
   
   If gold can move to these levels in the face of a sharply higher dollar, then what’s going to happen when the dollar finally starts to stumble? Doelling asked.
   
   “We’ll just have to wait and see,” he simply concluded.
   
   
   © Copyright 2005, Resource Investor
   
   
8. [verwijderd] 3 december 2005 17:43

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   Gold rally's no dollar cushion, bulls are here to stay.
   NIDHI NATH SRINIVAS
   
   TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, DECEMBER 03, 2005 12:13:33 AM]
   
   NEW DELHI: If you still believe the present bull run in gold is proxy for bear terror of the falling dollar, it’s time to hit the refresh button. The bears are out. Gold and dollar bulls are running in sync as the precious metal moves for the first time from being a simple currency hedge to an investment tool, where its fortune is no longer tethered to greenbacks. In other words, welcome Stage Two of the Great Gold Bull. What’s more, this new trend is expected to last for the next three-four years.
   
   “We are now seeing gold as an inflation hedge instead of being just a currency hedge. This delinking of gold from its inverse relationship with the dollar is the beginning of the stage Two Bull. We believe it will last for, at least, four years,” says Sivaramakrishna, currency analyst and director at Kombench DMCC, a Dubai-based consultancy.
   
   Gold traders say the new gold highs against the euro are a clear indication that gold finally has the fundamental strength to rise against all the important global currencies, not just against the rapidly devaluing dollar.
   
   “We are seeing a lot of investment demand from traders who have lost faith in currencies and equity and moving towards metals like zinc, copper and precious metals. Traders are very active on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange in morning trades. Gold prices are rising because of their own stock-use fundamentals as a commodity and due to very heavy speculative fund buying from across the globe,” says Johnson Lewis, associate director at Scotia Bank in Mumbai, the world’s top gold bank.
   
   So, what is really happening? The first stage of the gold rally was currency-devaluation driven. Typically, gold only gains significantly as the world’s reserve currency loses value. The second stage is driven by global gold investment demand, forcing gold to decouple from the dominant currency and rise on its own fundamental merits.
   
   Stage Two has huge implications because that is when the gold bull really comes into its own and starts galloping. It is also a special bonanza for investors because final gains vastly exceed the profits made from stage one.
   
   “In the short term, gold will be pushed down to the $492-486 levels due to speculative profit-taking. But that will be critical for a consolidation in the medium term at around $502. In the long term, even $525 is not such an unthinkable figure,” says Mr Lewis.
   
   British consulting firm GFMS is predicting that gold will be at $460/oz from the second quarter of ‘06 onwards. The great thing about investments is their demand curve is inverted. The higher their prices go, the more desirable they become to investors.
   
   “Basically, because prices are rising, every one is further talking up gold,” he added. Agrees Mr Sivaramakrishna. “We are predicting that gold will reach $800 in the long term,” he said.
   
   Gold’s own fundamentals are enough to keep the rally fuelled, at least, in the medium term. According to latest Fortis Bank estimates, while the total supply of gold in the world was an estimated 3,791tonne in ‘05, demand was at 4,019 tonne. That means a shortfall of 228 tonne or 5%.
9. [verwijderd] 5 december 2005 08:48

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   When Will Asian Central Banks Buy Into Gold?
   By Jon A. Nones 02 Dec 2005 at 09:17 AM
   
   St. LOUIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Yesterday, gold closed at $502.50/oz in New York and gold bulls rejoiced. Many analysts seem to think this is just the beginning of the rally. Resource Investor asked Peter Grandich, Editor of The Grandich Letter, what would happen to the gold market if central banks in Asia decided to follow the recent trend and increase their gold reserves?
   
   “The talk of Asian central banks increasing their gold holdings is a very real possibility,” said Grandich.
   
   In the last two months, Russia, South Africa and Argentina all decided to increase the amount of gold in their reserves, reversing a six-year trend of central bank sales.
   
   At the LBMA Precious Metals Conference in mid November, Russia’s head of external reserves management Maria Guegina said gold reserves as a proportion of all reserves may be doubled from 5% to 10%. Even though Guegina’s colleagues have since repudiated this assertion, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the Central Bank of Russia should “pay more attention” to gold while forming the country’s foreign exchange and gold reserves.
   
   Also in mid November, head of South Africa’s central bank Mboweni said that South Africa might increase its gold reserves, noting that central bank had been increasing its foreign exchange reserves at a measured pace and there was no reason why it could not boost gold holdings.
   
   And on September 14, Juan Ignacio Basco, head of market operations of Argentina’s central bank, said the Argentine bank might increase its gold reserves as a hedge against inflation and to protect it against financial crises.
   
   According to International Finance News, central banks of Asian countries including China are expected to further increase their gold reserves in the near future. It is only a question of time for Asian central banks to follow and buy gold.
   
   Asian central banks hold $2.6 trillion in foreign exchange reserves and may wish to change more of them into gold as a hedge against a decline in the U.S. dollar.
   
   According to the article, “the U.S. dollar will inevitably slip further. Some budget deficits of the seven major industrial countries are at a record level, and central banks are ‘printing banknotes’ to devalue their currencies. Huge amount of budget deficits and debts in Europe, America and Japan will finally force them to increase real interest rates in an effort to drag economies back to the right track. This means slower growth rate and lower prices of stock, bond and real estate as well as faster increase of inflation - a golden opportunity for central banks to buy in gold.”
   
   The banks are “literally overflowing with U.S. dollars and up to their ears in U.S bonds, it’s a very logical and prudent move to diversify into gold,” said Grandich.
   
   Asian countries have good reasons to hold more gold, according to the article. Compared with developed countries, their percentages of gold in foreign exchange reserves are apparently small. And, as the World Gold Council points out, Asian investors are the world largest gold consumers.
   
   Gold only takes up 1.1% in China’s official reserves, 1.3% in Japan and 3.6% in India respectively. A sharp contrast is the American percentage of 63.8%, and over 50% in Germany, France and Italy respectively.
   
   “The surprise could be how much they actually acquire. If and when this happens, it's the death warrant for the groups who have been attempting to cap the gold price,” Grandich concluded.
   
   Philip Klapwijk, chairman of London-based consultancy GFMS and a director of the Global Precious Metals Fund, was quoted in an article in Economic Times saying this move could be explosive.
   
   “Just a hint of Asian central bank buying would set the gold market on fire,” said Klapwijk. “That’s going to be explosive,” he added.
   
   We will see.
   
   
   © Copyright 2005, Resource Investor.
   
   
10. [verwijderd] 6 december 2005 00:11

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    Why Gold can go Higher and Higher by Paul Tustain
    
    BullionVault's Paul Tustain explains the current attraction of gold.The number of zeros on formal statistics sometimes disguises their real meaning.
    
    The US government currently borrows $5,000 a year on behalf of each US family, which it dares not tax for electoral reasons. This is the source of the budget deficit. That uncollected money remains in the hands of the family, which currently prefers buying foreign goods and spends $5,000 on them, producing the trade deficit. The foreign supplier sends the $5,000 back to the US by buying government bonds and American businesses. This money from abroad is the source of the fine-sounding US capital inflow.
    
    Give or take $1,000 this same $5,000 deficit triangle is completed for each of about 100 million US households every year, and that is why there is a $500 billion budget deficit, and similar trade deficit and US capital inflow. It is tempting to assume that this is the way it has always been and that somehow it must be stable, but that is wrong. This is a wholly new way of arranging things.
    
    The last four-year administration ended having increased the average US family's gross future tax debt by about $19,000. The family's total accumulated uncollected tax - i.e. its share of the country's public debt - grew by that $19,000 to about $74,000, three quarters of which has been built up since 1985. The demand which has sustained growth for twenty years has arisen from this money being spent twice, and this duplicated spending is the only explanation that is needed to understand the remarkable strength of the USA's economy. But the legacy of it is this $74,000 tax debt for each of just over 100 million families.
    
    How serious is a $74,000 tax debt? We don't know because it has never happened before, but we do know that in Argentina in 2001 their sovereign public debt was about $12,000 per family, and at that level it triggered the capital flight which was the direct cause of their debt default and subsequent economic crunch. It is both extraordinary confidence in underlying USA economic robustness and an apparent lack of alternate options which appears to be preventing a similar US setback. But the confidence rests on the demand strength, which itself arises from the scale of the deficit triangle.
    
    To resolve the US public debt problem safely is very difficult. Raising taxes to the required level is unthinkable - both electorally and because it would hurt domestic spending and feed back into a deflationary spiral of declining output and demand. Trade protectionism was tried before and it triggered tit-for-tat trade restrictions and global depression. Meanwhile formal debt default is unnecessarily dramatic, but it seems it can be effected without the same national loss of face by a policy which allows the dollar to bleed value: so serious inflation seems much the most likely result.
    
    Assessing how severe the coming inflation might be is also difficult, but it is possible to get an idea by looking at the bond market. For twenty five years the bond market has been growing fast, to about 40 times what it was in the early eighties. Through most of that time interest rates and inflation were falling, so fixing a rate of return with a bond was an attractive option for a saver. As a result while borrowers were spending savers were diverting their cash out of the economy and freezing it in bond portfolios, until eventually US dollar bond markets have grown to contain 50 times all the dollars in current circulation.
    
    This frozen money is up for redemption over the coming years so it will turn back into cash, and little of it can sensibly be re-invested in bonds with inflation threatening and rates turning up from long cycle lows. In any event much of it must be returned as consumable cash to the retiring boomer generation.
    
    This suggests a possible cash glut in the medium term, and that indicates inflation too. Aggressive inflations do tend to follow an accumulation of official indebtedness. It would be unusual if the current US situation did not result in something similar.
    
    Fear of this should have already caused a downwards dollar correction, but this has not happened because the alternate currencies have similar problems. The Yen is afflicted by an equally difficult sovereign debt problem, while the Euro looks politically unstable and can agree neither a constitution nor an ongoing budget. Commodities on the other hand have been rising in price - and gold particularly so.
    
    Gold is famously useless in almost everything except that it cannot be made, and is reliably difficult to find. Even now if all the gold ever produced on Earth were formed into a single cube its edge would be less than 20 metres - 2 metres shorter than a tennis court. Annually mined production grows that cube by about 12 centimetres a year, and more than each year's production is used up by jewellers such that now 75% of that cube is fabricated in an art form worth several times its bullion value. Meanwhile after 15 years of consistent selling into private demand central bank ownership is now down to about 20% of the world's gold.
    
    That 20 metre cube of gold would weigh about 140,000 tonnes and each tonne is worth about 16,000,000 dollars. So all the gold in the world is currently valued at $2.2 trillion, which compares to a US public debt of $8 trillion, and an unreserved US generational debt of $44 trillion. By contrast the US has the biggest gold reserve in the world which at 8,000 tonnes is worth only $0.12 trillion, enough, were it all sold, to stop the deficits growing for about 10 weeks.
    
    Arising from this there are are powerful fundamental forces at work on the gold price which cautious savers understand intuitively - even if some cannot put their finger on what those forces are. The value of anything reflects its utility at the margin, which means it only needs a slight shortage to create price surges and a slight surplus to create price slumps. The utility of gold is simply that it is rare, and for 5,000 years people have used reliably rare stuff to store value for the future.
    
    Often because of a local shortage of gold (which they might prefer because of its natural and unimpeachable rarity) most human societies have been able to arrange and enforce a respectable rarity of artificial forms of money, and so long as savers have been able to trust in this artificially created rarity the marginal utility of gold's natural rarity stays low. Paradoxically rarity is in surplus wherever artificial money is being reasonably well managed, and this makes gold's natural rarity less valued in those times.
    
    But what savers are now realising is that official money is not being well managed and cannot in future be relied upon for rarity, and they believe their governments will soon be forced to create money in large quantities. Even if the underlying demand for the rare stuff required to store value stays the same then the value of the few naturally scarce things will go up. Much more likely is that the underlying demand for natural rarity will increase, and it's utility at the margin, where diminishing supply of rarity meets increasing demand, will continue to force up the price.
    
    This is what is starting to happen to gold now. Arising from the scale of public debt the forced monetary issue which is being anticipated by savers is causing them to value the unimpeachable rarity o
11. [verwijderd] 7 december 2005 12:22

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    Hai GH,
    
    Het is wel heel veel Engels....
    Ik zag dat er ook een nederlandstalige site was met columns over goud: www.edelmetaal-info.nl
    
    Er is net weer een nieuwe column geplaatst van ene Jabecque:
    
    Een klein stukje eruit:
    "Toen schonken de Wijzen uit het Oosten: goud, wierook en mirre,… dat waren duurzame, harde en zachte grondstoffen.
    
    Kenmerkend voor de eerste fase van de veelbelovende stierenmarkt in edelmetalen, die begon in september 1999 na de Washington Agreement, was dat de visionairs en de fundamentalisten wat dat betreft genegeerd werden.
    
    Wanneer het gezelschap van toen, nu zelf over het goud begint, ondervinden we dat de tweede fase begonnen is en het nu aan onze beurt is om ons grijnzend achter onze krant te verschuilen of een drankje in de bar uit te zoeken. Dat de tweede fase is ingetreden merken we ook in de media, in 1999 was er nauwelijks iets over grondstoffen en edele metalen te vinden in ons beursparochieblad en andere bladen, terwijl ze er nu bol van staan!
    
    Op de goudmarkt wordt er een nerveuze strijd gestreden. De Stieren zoeken ongestoord nieuwe hoogtes in de Comex-arena. De Beren zijn overtuigd: “Het feestje is over!” Beide kampen willen hun gelijk halen met een overvloed van feiten, cijfers, fictie,…"
    
    Al eerder verschenen er ook columns over goud van Mihaly Schroth. Ook op deze site wordt af en toe over goud geschreven.....
    Je kunt zien dat goud aan het rocken en rollen is: er wordt veel meer over geschreven!
    
    GP
    
    
12. A 's 7 december 2005 20:39

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    quote:

    Gung Ho schreef:

    6. The real story of silver is as money. Today, there has been an explosion of paper money all over the world. The amount of U.S. dollars in the banks alone totals over $9 trillion. Source: federalreserve.gov While the bond market is $20 trillion! All of this money is potentially "monetary demand" for gold and silver. But the available silver is only about $300 million, well under a single billion dollars. Also, annual investment (or monetary) demand is a miniscule 25 million ounces, out of the 900 million ounces of silver demanded by industry.
    
    7. The silver market is so small, and is so tight, that there is no room for any significant monetary demand for silver, without a massive move upwards in price.
    
    --------------------------------------------------------------
    Jason Hommel
    silverstockreport.com
    19543 Explorer Dr., Penn Valley, CA 95946 (530) 432-9671
    
    Important Facts about dollars:
    
    "The money chart".
    
    1,000,000,000,000: 1 Trillion dollars
    1,000,000,000: 1 Billion dollars
    1,000,000: 1 Million dollars
    $200,000,000,000,000: Estimated total derivative exposure of all banks in the entire world. (20 x U.S. GDP)
    $75,000,000,000,000: U.S. Govt. unfunded liabilities; social security, etc.
    $45,153,000,000,000: U.S. Household wealth, as of first quarter, 2004. (Includes Real Estate, and investments)
    $33,000,000,000,000: World bond market, yr end, '01: tinyurl.com/vr7u
    $26,400,000,000,000: World stock market, June 2002: www.nyse.com/press/1044027443845.html
    $20,200,000,000,000: U.S. bond market, yr end, '02: tinyurl.com/vr7g
    $11,447,800,000,000: U.S. GDP, 2004 q1 www.bea.doc.gov/bea/dn/home/gdp.htm
    $11,300,000,000,000: NYSE U.S. stock market, April, '04 (363 bill/s x $31.14/s ave.) nyse.com (See: Market info: quick facts)
    $9,391,000,000,000: M3 (money in U.S. banks) Nov, '04 tinyurl.com/vra0
    $7,595,000,000,000: US debt, 1-06-2005 www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny...
    $2,360,000,000,000: U.S. annual budget 2005 tinyurl.com/3xbd2
    $1,860,000,000,000: World "official" gold mined in all of history, 145,000 T (4.6 bil oz.) @ $400/oz. tinyurl.com/vrcc
    $400,000,000,000: Estimated silver mined in all of history: 40 billion oz? @ $10/oz. snipurl.com/93j1
    $738,000,000,000: Total U.S. paper currency & coin in circulation, Sept. '04 www.fms.treas.gov/bulletin/index.html
    $700,000,000,000: Annual U.S. budget deficit (2004).
    $700,000,000,000: Annual U.S. current account deficit (trade deficit) for 2004.
    $380,000,000,000: Market Cap of General Electric (biggest U.S. company) tinyurl.com/vrcn
    $290,000,000,000: Debt of General Motors (biggest U.S. car company) Jan 2005
    $164,700,000,000: Debt of Ford Motor Co. (2005) tinyurl.com/vrd1
    $109,600,000,000: US gold, 261 mil oz., @ $420/oz. tinyurl.com/vsr9
    $100,000,000,000: all the world's gold stocks/equities (estimated?)
    $75,000,000,000: Money flowed into Equity funds in the first quarter, 2004
    $18,000,000,000: Market Cap of Newmont Jan '05 (biggest gold company in the world)
    $8,226,000,000: all the world's "primary" silver stocks (80 of them on this list, as of June 25, 2004)
    $6,710,000,000: 671 mil oz. of "identifiable" silver bullion left in the entire world, according to GFMS @ $10/oz.
    $265,000,000: 41.5 mil oz. of "registered" COMEX silver bullion (1-05-05) @ $6.4/oz. tinyurl.com/vrcw
    
    To receive my weekly silver report in email, sign up at:
    silverstockreport.com
    
    Sincerely,
    
    Jason Hommel
    
    You can unsubscribe to this report at
    www.goldismoney.com/subscription-ss.php
    

13. [verwijderd] 9 december 2005 09:02

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    THE GOLD STANDARD GETS NO RESPECT by Chris Mayer
    
    There is a lot of dumb stuff written about the gold standard and the Great Depression these days. I open the paper yesterday and I read a column by
    Robert Samuelson in The Washington Post, "Gold's Enduring Mystery."
    
    Samuelson goes on to say some things about gold's role as money for much of recorded history. Then he gets to the Great Depression and he enters the realm of the absurd. He writes: "But the gold standard's very rigidity led to its collapse in the Great Depression. Too little gold fostered
    banking and currency crises."
    
    Tsk, tsk. Poor gold! Now the blame for the Great Depression lies at your feet. Truly, the victors write history. For here is history from the view
    of a paper money enthusiast.
    
    Such a view is not uncommon. Our own newly appointed Fed chief, Ben Bernanke, also holds such views. Bernanke is a Great Depression buff, just
    as people are Civil War buffs. It fascinates him. He studies it as a man might pick over the remains of some archeological dig. He even began a book about it.
    
    Greg Ip's piece in the Wall Street Journal summarizes some of Bernanke's views on the Great Depression. On the top of the list: "Beware of outdated orthodoxies such as the gold standard."
    
    To the world-improver set, confident they can push the right buttons and pull the right levers, the gold standard is nothing more than a straitjacket. To those who see gold's charms, that is precisely its chief merit. You see, the gold standard checks the creation of new money.
    
    If every dollar must be backed by a certain amount of gold, then you cannot create money out of thin air. The gold standard says you must have the gold first. Governments find it harder to wage war, dole out entitlements and build public works with a gold standard tying them down. Banks can't lend as much money; hence they can't make as much money. This
    is why the banking interests of this country backed the creation of the Federal Reserve. They appreciated the value of a good cartel.
    
    It's a bit like a cash-only bar. People with little money who like to drink tend not like cash bars.
    
    The problem, Mr. Sameulson, is not that there was not enough gold. The problem was too many dollars. When Roosevelt ordered Americans to surrender their gold coins in the spring of '33, he was not saving
    capitalism. He was burying it.
    
    Capitalism - or free markets - depends on ontracts. Contracts are nothing but promises. When contracts cannot be enforced, then you join the world of banana republics and post-Soviet style looting. The system breaks down.So it was whenever the country reneged on its promise to back its own currency with gold.
    
    Those who gave their gold in exchange for dollars - backed by a promise to redeem in gold - were simply left with dollars. Their own government
    essentially stole their gold from them. Dollars, I should note, that have lost a lot of value in the ensuing seventy years.
    
    But there's more than this. Money unfettered by specie is the main fuel for the unsustainable booms that later turn into the panics, crashes and
    depressions that pock the landscape of financial history. Gold was what reigned in such excesses. It was the anchor that kept the ship in the harbor.
    
    Just because the government frequently broke these rules does not mean the gold standard itself is at fault. (The rules were broken with finality in 1972, when President Nixon quashed the last vestige of the gold standard).A man who cannot keep his promises cannot reasonably lay the blame on the
    promises. Such a routine breaker of promises may be a rogue, a thief, and a scalawag. Usually, the preferred term is "liar." Today we call such
    people politicians and "saviors of capitalism."
    
    Bernanke may have studied the Great Depression, but he has read the wrong books. He should give a look at Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression. Rothbard's examination is clear and logical, without the trappings of mathematics that otherwise pollute economic texts today.
    
    Why should paper money create unsustainable booms? I'll attempt an answer in brief, at the risk of oversimplifying something that's taken centuries
    to get right and that is still being explored and elaborated upon by economists today. (The best thing to do is read the book. Read only the
    first three chapters and you'll know more about business cycles than most professional economists.)
    
    Basically, in a free market, individuals decide how much they want to save. These savings are invested in the market - ether by the saver or through an intermediary (like a bank). The price of savings is the "natural rate" or "pure interest rate." Just think of it as a natural market price, the result of supply and demand.
    
    So, when you create money out of thin air you give the impression there is more savings in the economy than there really is. You distort interest rates and the natural rate does not function so well. The market's signals are emitted through a monetary fog.
    
    All this excess money leads to new investments and spending creating the "boom." As Rothbard says, "the boom, then, is actually a period of
    wasteful misinvestment. It is when errors are made, due to bank credit's tampering with the free market."
    
    At some point, the misinvestments are exposed as unprofitable, the growth unsustainable. "The depression is actually the process by which the
    economy adjusts to the wastes and errors of the boom, and reestablishes efficient service of consumer desires." In other words, the jig is up,
    reality sets in and the pull of the market price - the "natural rate" - start to assert itself.
    
    It's just like any other price controls. Set it too high or too low and there are consequences. It is unsustainable. This is why we have markets,
    to discover the "right" price.
    
    There's a lot more to this idea than I can delve into here. But the main point I want to make is this: The gold standard is not to blame for the
    crises of the past. They were caused by our inability to keep the promise to redeem in gold. And, secondly, that far from causing crises, the gold standard kept in check the growth in money. As a result, the gold standard served to stem unsustainable booms and avoid the necessary busts that follow.
    Sincerely,Chris Mayer for The Daily Reckoning
14. [verwijderd] 10 december 2005 19:55

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    Dubai may import 23pc more gold
    Posted: Saturday, December 10, 2005
    
    
    
    Dubai
    
    Dubai may import 23 per cent more gold next year, depending on how prices behave after their surge to 24-year highs above $530 an ounce, an industry official said.
    
    'If price levels stabilise or go down a little bit, then you get a big increase. If prices are very high, I would see the business remaining as it is,' said Colin Griffith, executive director of gold at Dubai Metals and Commodities Centre (DMCC).
    
    Dubai is a regional wholesale and retail jewellery hub, with gold heading to the world's biggest gold consumer, India.
    
    Griffith said gold imports by Dubai might rise to 650 tonnes next year from 530 this year, but would be static if the market was volatile.
    
    'If gold is very high, people tend to withdraw a little bit and wait and see,' he said at an industry conference.
    
    He said gold business in the region was booming because of high disposable incomes and heavy tourist inflows.
    
    'When people go on holiday, they want to buy some jewellery. They are not price sensitive.'
    
    Griffith said the region was also expected to gain from a drop in gold freight rates.
    
    Air freight rates coming in were cheaper than going out.
    
    'There has been some progress. We have certainly seen an improvement in the rates,' he said, adding that airlines might yet yield more competitive rates.
    
    Gold was expected to move in a range of $500-$550 next year.
    
    'There is much more market participation in gold on the global basis. There has been a realisation by investors that gold, energy, steel and copper...are very important markets.'
    
    Griffith said the new commodities exchange started in Dubai last month had begun well and trade was expected to rise as more players traded actively.
    
    'We will move from 60 to about 200 members in the next two months and that will, of course, increase the volumes that have been traded,' he said.
    
    Volume on the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) reached 280 lots on Thursday. One lot is equal to 32 ounces of gold.
    
    'We are quite happy with the volume. We had no teething troubles with information technology or infrastructure.'
    
    But he said the timing of the launch of the exchange was probably not good because of the high volatility in prices.
    
    'Probably a little bit less volatility would encourage more business,' he said.
    
    He said the exchange would launch silver futures between February and March and gold and silver options in March and April. It also planned to launch steel and energy futures.
    
    'There is a need for a proper (steel) futures contract because it's a very volatile market.'Reuters
    
    
15. [verwijderd] 12 december 2005 09:27

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    GOLD UP $5 IN TOKYO - MIDAS TECHNICAL ALERT
    
    The Feb Comex gold contract, which is the nearby pivotal
    one now on the continuation charts, has taken out its high
    of 1981 of $535 on a quarterly basis. This breakthrough is
    of big picture importance. What is of note is the next significant resistance for gold on a quarterly basis on the continuation charts is all the way up to $612.
    
    Frank Veneroso confirmed tonight what MIDAS and GATA have
    been saying for some time. The Gold Cartel has lost control
    of the gold market. This was also confirmed to us the other
    day by one of the members who sat on the Board of one of
    the 12 Fed banks. This Board member has loaded his own boat
    (big numbers) with physical gold and expects the price to
    reach $900 to $1,000 within 3 years. This, from a
    conservative banker.
    
    One of the most critical dynamics of the gold market at
    the moment confirms what GATA has said all along ... and
    what no one in the gold mainstream gold world will even
    admit exists. There is a MASSIVE Gold Cartel short position,
    one they cannot get out of. The bums are trapped. These
    white-collar thugs, who have violated US anti-trust laws
    for so many years, have cooked their own goose.
    
    I sent the following today to Ted David of CNBC, which
    is like dropping an email into a black hole, but we
    (GATA ARMY) have to keep up the good ole college try. I
    included the Russian/GR 21 stuff I have been pounding
    away on for weeks ... and these notes (facts):
    
    *Since Gold Rush 21 gold rose $95 - YET, the dollar rose
    from 87 to 91 and oil fell from $68 to $60 per barrel.
    Almost no one thought that possible a year ago. The key
    to the gold market is surging physical market buying
    overtaking the Gold Cartel's ability to suppress the price.
    
    *For years GATA stated the price of gold could rally $100
    and the dollar do nothing as The Gold Cartel lost control
    of their price rigging scheme. Few, if anyone else, thought
    that possible. (It has done that.)
    
    *The Central banks have less than half the gold they say
    they have. Over the last decade they have surreptitiously
    lent out this missing gold in order to suppress the price.
    This calculation is based on studies by three GATA
    consultants.
    
    *One of the major factors in the gold market today is the
    gold short position ... more than 10,000 tonnes in a market
    with a 1500 tonne yearly supply/demand deficit and only
    2500 tonnes per year coming out of the mines. The shorts
    are trapped. Cannot get out. There are mega-derivatives
    tied to those shorts. GATA knows this because of the
    Bank For International Settlement derivatives numbers.
    
    *A Gold derivatives neutron bomb will go off. Could happen at any time.
    
    *Price prediction: Adam Fleming, former Chairman of Harmony
    Gold and now Chairman of Wits Gold, said at Gold Rush 21
    that he is looking for $3,000 to $5,000 per ounce. I concur.
    
    Alternatieve koers(geen kitco)
    
    isht.comdirect.de/html/detail/main.ht...
    
    grafiek:
    
    www.kitcomm.com/comments/gold/userima...
16. [verwijderd] 13 december 2005 08:32

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    CURRENT COMMENTARIES www.goldensextant.com/
    December 12, 2005 (RHH). Gold Derivatives: Footprints of Retreat
    
    On November 17, 2005, the Bank for International Settlements released its regular semi-annual report on the over-the-counter derivatives of major banks and dealers in the G-10 countries for the period ending June 30, 2005. The total notional value of all gold derivatives fell to $288 billion from $369 billion at year-end 2004, a decline of more than 20% and the first time since June 2002 that total gold derivatives have failed to top $300 billion. As subsequently detailed in table 22A of the December issue of the BIS Quarterly Review, forwards and swaps fell by 17% from $132 to $109 billion while options fell by 25% from $237 to $178 billion, more than reversing the $48 billion increase in options reported for the last half of 2004.
    
    Translated into estimated tonnes, these figures are shown below in an updated version of the chart by Mike Bolser that has illustrated past commentaries on this data. Also shown in estimated tonnes are the gold derivatives held by U.S. commercial banks (principally J.P. Morgan Chase, HSBC USA and Citibank) as reported through June 30, 2005, by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (www.occ.treas.gov/deriv/deriv.htm).
    
    Prior commentaries have argued that the total notional value of forwards and swaps as reported by the BIS and converted into tonnes is a pretty good proxy for the total net short physical position in gold arising largely as the result of gold lending in one form or another by central banks. See, e.g., Hard Money Markets: Climbing a Chinese Wall of Worry (6/28/2004) and Gold Derivatives: Hitting the Iceberg (12/20/2003). As the above chart indicates, continuing a decline that began in the first half of 2003, total forwards and swaps fell sharply during the first half of 2005 to under 8000 tonnes, a level not seen since 1998.
    
    Howevcr, neither the timing nor the relative size of this decline has correlated closely with reductions of well over half in total producer hedge books over the same period. Indeed, while total forwards and swaps fell by some 1900 tonnes during the first half of this year, Gold Fields Minerals Services reported that the delta-adjusted forwards portion of the global producer hedge book declined by less than 100 tonnes to well under 1400 tonnes. GFMS, Global Hedge Book Analysis (quarterly, editions 10 through 12, May, Aug. & Nov. 2005). See also R. O'Connell, The Global Hedge Book, two authoritative surveys for the third quarter, Mineweb (Nov. 14, 2005).
    
    On the most generous estimates, the global producer hedge book, including options, never exceeded 4500 to 5000 tonnes. Accordingly, most of the total gold derivatives reported by the BIS cannot be attributed to producer hedging but instead appear to have been generated by bullion banks funding themselves through the gold carry trade while assisting the central banks to suppress gold prices. See Déjà Vu: Central Banks at the Abyss (12/7/04).
    
    Turning to the figures on options, the previous BIS report seemed to indicate a sharp increase in the use of call options written by the central banks to provide delta hedges for short sales by the bullion banks, whether of borrowed physical or paper gold. See Gold Derivatives: Skewing the World (6/15/2005). Anecdotal evidence from John Brimelow at GATA's Gold Rush 21 tended to confirm this view, at least as to the fact of heavy call writing by the central banks if not as to their purpose.
    
    Some of the first half decline in the total notional value of gold options may well reflect falling volatility premiums arising from relatively flat gold prices during the first half of the year. However, the size of the decline also suggests a possible about-face in the attitude of the central banks toward writing call options against their own reserves. If so, official efforts to suppress gold prices have suffered another major setback.
    
    Central Banks Selling. Pursuant to the Joint Statement on Gold (WAG II) issued by the European Central Bank and 14 other European central banks (but not the Bank of England) to replace the original Washington Agreement on Gold (WAG I) that expired at the end of September 2004, the signatories agreed to limit their gold sales to 500 metric tonnes per year over the succeeding five years. The following table, compiled from the monthly International Financial Statistics published by the International Monetary Fund, show the sales by signatory for the first year of WAG II.
    
    WAG II Total Gold Reserves
    Signatories 9/30/04 9/30/05 Decline
    
    Germany 3433 3428 5
    France 3024 2890 34
    Italy 2452 2452 -
    Switzerland 1419 1290 229
    Netherlands 778 723 55
    ECB 767 720 47
    Spain 523 493 30
    Portugal 482 427 55
    Austria 317 303 14
    Belgium 258 228 30
    Sweden 185 170 15
    Greece 108 108 -
    Finland 49 49 -
    Ireland 6 6 -
    Luxembourg 2 2 -
    ---- ---- ----
    13,803 13,289 514
    Sales under WAG II, unlike those under WAG I, are not for the most part being carried out pursuant to a plan of publicly announced annual quotas for each participating country. Instead, the sales appear more opportunistic, with the ECB acting as coordinator.
    
    Although the Banque de France continues to adhere to its announced intention to sell 600 tonnes under WAG II in order to diversify into higher-yielding currencies, its first year sales of 34 tonnes were but a baby step in this direction. See M. Isa, French gold sales allows FX reserves diversification, Reuters (Nov. 15, 2005) (alternate link). However, according to the ECB's current data on official reserve assets, France sold another 33 tonnes in October and the Netherlands an additional 5.5 tonnes.
    
    The Bundesbank, which also claims a right to sell 600 tonnes under WAG II, sold a mere five tonnes during the new agreement's first year. It also resisted pressure from the new German government for gold sales to finance an investment fund to promote research and education. See Buba's Weber to resist political pressure to sell gold reserves, Forbes (Nov. 14, 2005) (alternate link).
    
    John Brimelow has followed gold sales by the ECB and its member banks under WAG II quite closely. As he recently noted: "It is clear the ECB is boosting sales to meet price strength, rather than selling regular amounts, weekly as the Swiss did. One wonders why." A partial explanation may be that many of these sales have been made in response to previously written calls, either as deliveries into in-the-money calls or as sales timed to push certain calls out-of-the-money.
    
    But this explanation, while consistent with the recent BIS reports on derivatives, does not address why the central banks, presumably mostly from the euro area, wrote heavy volumes of calls in the first place, especially during the last half of 2004. Nor does it explain why the euro area central banks continue to announce gold sales at a rate that puts them on track to sell a full 500 tonnes during the current (second
17. [verwijderd] 14 december 2005 09:04

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    Explaining Silver to the Masses by Greg Kyle
    
    About a year ago I told my neighbor that I planned to sell my house and rent for about 5 years. I told him how I expected larger gains in silver, and the precious metals industry in general. Like most everybody hearing of my plans, he tried to convince me that real estate was a great investment and that I should keep the property and rent it out. He said I would be missing out on equity gains if I sold. I reminded him to take into account inflation when calculating equity gains in housing. I then directed him to my website, silveriswealth.com.
    
    We discussed precious metals, not housing, the next time we met.
    
    "Hey, gold just reached a seventeen year high," my neighbor enthusiastically said, poking his head through my door.
    
    "Really? Where did you hear that?" I asked strolling to the door.
    
    "It was just on CNN.”
    
    "That's great. However, I never said anything about gold, only silver. Did you read my website [http://www.silveriswealth.com] yet?” I asked.
    
    "No, but I like gold better than silver," he replied.
    
    "Then did you buy any gold yet?"
    
    "Not yet."
    
    And that is how the majority of my conversations about precious metals end.
    
    I have another close friend who had listened to me talk about silver for years. I knew he had fully grasped the 'silver story' when his father saw me in the airport and started telling me in great detail everything his son had learned from me. Wow! Do you think my friend has purchased even one ounce of silver? Absolutely not. So why listen, absorb, teach his father, and then fail to buy even a 1 oz. silver round at a coin dealer? He probably does not believe in the fundamentals, or thinks he ‘just missed’ the big gains, or the inertia of actually visiting a coin dealer with his checkbook is too much to overcome. Perhaps he thinks it is easier to 'save' in a bank with shockingly low interest rates and watch the value of his savings decline due to inflation?
    
    Typically, when I talk about silver, it is the first they’ve heard about it as an investment. I’ve spoken to so many people about it that the most common responses are blank stares and then excuses. Their excuses usually change back into blank stares. So how do intelligent, educated people justify not investing in silver and the precious metals industry? Read their most common excuses and my response to each one:
    
    Excuse: "I have no money to buy any precious metals with."
    My Response: A 1 oz. silver round would cost about USD $8.80 at the local coin dealer. They may want to dig between their couch cushions for some spare change.
    
    Excuse: "I need to keep all my cash liquid."
    My Response: Most people keep all their savings in a bank, right? So they are susceptible to the potential BANKruptcy of their financial institution. If enough people demand to withdraw their deposits and their bank collapses, they will have nothing. And given that you can sell your silver to a coin dealer, isn’t that liquidity as well?
    
    Excuse: "I don't have a place to store it."
    My Response: I always recommend storage off premises. When they protest that they can’t watch over it, I remind them that banks ‘store’ their savings elsewhere. And then each month, banks mail an account statement as ‘proof’ that their deposits are secure.
    
    Excuse: "I bought gold and silver back in the day and got burned."
    My Response: If they bought gold around the peak of USD $800 / oz. and silver at $50 / oz., they watched the value of their holdings drop drastically. Admittedly this was a huge mistake. So why does silver and gold not appear to be a bargain now? It appears that buying at USD $8.65 should seem quite attractive.
    
    Excuse: "My financial planner told me that precious metals are a dead-end investment."
    My Response: Research does not consist of asking one person one question. And remember that it is a financial planner's job to sell stocks and bonds to receive a commission. I have also heard stories of brokerage firms actively discouraging the purchase of precious metals.
    
    Excuse: "I just bought a house."
    My Response: If no money is left to invest, they likely bought 'too much' house. Perhaps they should sell and rent or buy a smaller house. At the very least, they should not buy that huge flat panel TV (a liability) for their living room. They should buy some silver (an asset) instead.
    
    Excuse: "What if the U.S. Government confiscates precious metals?"
    My Response: Given the relative failure of the Gold Reserve Act of 1933, I doubt something similar would be tried again. Besides, the limited quantities of all other precious metals (silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium) would not be worth any governmental effort to confiscate them. Remember that banks and local governments can confiscate your house if you miss a few monthly payments. So the using the ‘confiscation excuse’ should prevent them from buying a house!
    
    Excuse: "You've been telling me about precious metals for two years now."
    My Response: If they were to view recent charts of the gains instead of protesting, I might be enjoying genius status amongst my friends by now.
    
    -----------------------------
    
    So what do all the excuses mean? It means that most people will likely give in to the mania at the top of the market and buy silver at peak prices, when talking heads on TV are reporting about it each night. I remember the mania of the late 1970s and 1980 partly because my own mother was enticed by the media to join the fray. She never did buy at peak prices, thankfully.
    
    I also partly blame the excuses for not exploring the ‘silver story’ on the huge losses suffered when the dot.com bubble burst. I, along with many others, lost capital during those trying times. I also understand that human nature can cause people to avoid exploring a topic they have never heard of, or find difficult to initially understand. What is easier to understand than going down to your local coin dealer and buying some silver coins? Unfortunately, for countless years, mainstream media exposure has primarily focused on stocks, bonds and real estate. So perhaps there is a comfort level or an illusion that they understand those markets?
    
    With those same media outlets failing to report on the recent gains in silver prices, silver apparently remains uninteresting. This apathy will likely continue until prices increase enough for the media and the masses to take notice. So turn off the TV and read articles like this, each newsletter, website and book you can find on the subject. Consider buying some silver with those potentially worthless fiat dollars. Just don't buy too much yet. I'd like silver to stay cheap for as long as possible so I can buy more.
    
    December 13, 2005
    
    Greg Kyle
    Silver Is Wealth, Inc.
    www.silveriswealth.com
    www.silverstockreport.com
18. [verwijderd] 15 december 2005 11:59

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    Buy gold to hedge US dollar downside risk
    From recent US Federal Reserve Board meeting minutes, it would appear that monetary policies will move from a tightening bias to a neutral or easing mode within the next six months or so. In the past, I have maintained that the US, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 300%, has no other option but to print money. Thursday, December 15 - 2005
    
    Tight money policies, which would depress asset prices such as stocks and home prices is simply not an option the Fed will consider. As a result, inflation will continue, whereby I am using here inflation as defined by a loss of the purchasing power of paper money.
    
    At times, such as in the 1970s, this loss of purchasing power of money is brought about by rapidly rising consumer prices, while at other times, such as in recent years, the purchasing power of money diminishes because real estate, stock, art and bond prices increase significantly. In both cases, under consumer price or asset price inflation, your dollar today can only buy a fraction of what it bought ten or twenty years ago.
    
    What is remarkable is that for as long as there was no Federal Reserve Board - that is between 1800 and 1913, the purchasing power of the dollar was more or less constant. However, as soon as the Fed was formed in
    1913, the purchasing power began to decline - in fact by 92% over the last 100 years or so.
    
    Now, considering that Household Net Worth is at an all time high and that rising home, and equity prices in the last twenty years or so drove the US economy up and the household saving rate down (now negative), Mr. Bernanke will under no circumstance allow asset prices to decline much.
    
    Just imagine what the Fed's reaction would be if both the Dow Jones and housing prices dropped by 10%! Money printing would be back in earnest because the Fed believes (erroneously, I may add) that it has the power to indefinitely postpone recessionary periods.
    
    Now, if the Fed prints money, all asset prices will rise in nominal terms whereby some prices will rise more than others, while the currency of the money printing country - the US - will weaken. The only problem for us investors is to recognize and forecast, which prices will increase the most, consumer prices or asset prices, and if asset price inflation continues, as occurred in the past twenty years, specifically which asset prices will move up the most. Moreover, if the US dollar weakens it is important to define against what the dollar will depreciate.
    
    Hedging dollar decline
    The importance of being invested in the 'right asset class' is evident from the diverging performance of the Hang Seng Index or of Hong Kong property prices and oil since 1997. So, whereas the Hang Seng Index and Hong Kong property prices have not risen, since 1997, crude oil is up by more than four times! I would expect similar diverging performances among different asset classes to emerge in future as well.
    
    In particular, I am a believer that at some point in future, investors will lose faith in the value of US dollar denominated bonds and in the US dollar. At such time, investors will drive US interest rates much higher resulting in tumbling bond prices and rush into anything but US assets such as equities and bonds.
    
    This does not mean that all US dollar assets will collapse in nominal terms, but they could collapse against a 'hard currency' such as gold or possibly against non-US dollar currencies, provided foreign central banks pursue tighter monetary policies than the US. This, however, is an issue about which we cannot really be certain, as all central bankers have a propensity 'to print money'. Therefore, I feel that asset prices will tend to depreciate against the only currencies for which the supply is limited - gold, silver, and platinum.
    
    I have shown the Dow/Gold ratio in the past but would like to expand on this theme. The Dow/Gold ratio has fluctuated over time between 1 and almost 45. When the Dow/Gold ratio was under five, gold was expensive and equities were cheap. Conversely, when the Dow/Gold ratio was over 20, stocks were expensive and gold relatively cheap.
    
    Now, it is interesting to observe what has happened since 2000. At the peak of the stock market in March 2000 the Dow/Gold ratio stood at close to 45. In other words, it was for a 'gold money' holder very expensive to buy one Dow Jones Industrial Average since it took 45 ounces of gold to buy the Dow. Thereafter, stocks collapsed into October 2002 and, therefore, the Dow/Gold ratio also declined.
    
    Dow/Gold ratio declines
    What is, however, interesting is that despite the stock market's rebound since October 2002, the Dow/Gold ratio has continued to decline. Simply put for the holder of gold - the world's only honest currency, since it cannot be printed by some dishonest central banker - the Dow, although it increased in value in dollar terms, has continued to decline in gold terms with the result that, today, it 'only' takes 20 ounces of gold to buy one Dow Jones Industrial Average.
    
    Simply put, since 2000, gold has risen at a much faster clip than the Dow Jones and I would expect this out-performance to continue for the next few years until 'gold currency' holders will be able to buy one Dow Jones with just one ounce of gold.
    
    So, if Mr. Bernanke does what he believes in - namely that asset deflation has to be avoided at all cost and, therefore, massively prints money, no matter where the Dow will be in future, at 36,000, 40,000, or at 100,000, as some pundits predicted in their in 1999 published books (of course shortly before the market tumbled), you will be able to buy the Dow with ounce of gold worth either $36,000, $40,000 or $100,000.
    
    Now, you may think that I have become insane. That is partially true because I am convinced that the US Fed's monetary policies will lead to exponentially widening wealth inequity and impoverish the majority of US households, which will then lead to social strife, protectionism, war, and the breakdown of the capitalistic system.
    
    However, if one considers that in 1932 and in 1980 one could indeed buy one Dow Jones Industrial Average with just one ounce of gold, then maybe my views are rather conservative. Possibly one will be able to buy, sometime in future, one Dow Jones with just half an ounce of gold!
    
    Therefore, rather than to buy US stocks, I suggest to invest in gold, whereby right now, both the Dow and gold, as well as most other investment markets are significantly over-bought and could easily correct by about 5% to 10% on the downside.
    
    Banking crisis scenario
    There are some more issues we need to address. What about if the 'deflationists' such as my friend Robert Prechter, whose arguments I highly respect, are correct and deflation brings down the Dow Jones, home prices, and all other assets by 50% or 90% in value?
    
    In such a scenario, I would expect that there would be serious debt defaults, a collapse of the derivatives market, and an imaginable banking crisis leading investors to rush into an asset that is not a liability of somebody else. Therefore, I believe that if the Dow Jones declined to say 5,000, gold might actually rally further.
    
    What about the US dollar's value against other currencies? This year the US dollar has been strong, but I would expect other currencies to strengthen against the US dollar once the market realizes that the Fed will print again money. At the end of
19. [verwijderd] 15 december 2005 12:01

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    Part 2
    
    What about the US dollar's value against other currencies? This year the US dollar has been strong, but I would expect other currencies to strengthen against the US dollar once the market realizes that the Fed will print again money. At the end of 2004, investors bet heavily against the US dollar and sentiment about the dollar was extremely negative.
    
    Today, however, we have the opposite situation with speculators being extremely positive about the dollar and negative about non-US dollar currencies. In fact, the speculative positions on the dollar stand at a record high. So, I would gradually move some funds out of dollar assets into the Euro, Swiss franc and Yen and even better continue to accumulate gold, silver and platinum.
    
    © 1996-2005 by AME Info FZ LLC. All rights reserved.
    This story was posted by Dr Marc Faber
    Thursday, December 15 - 2005 at 08:53 UAE local time (GMT+4)
    
20. [verwijderd] 16 december 2005 00:54

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    eigen tekst gung ho?
    
    keep it up!