Thursday, September 11, 2008

Gold: window of opportunity?

Gold per ounce is now $752 in US Dollars. I've been trying to track down an article I read in the past couple of days, that said Investec expected gold to veer between $750 - $1,000 (similar article here). Is this the time to get back in? An increase of 33% within months is nothing to sniff at - unless you're one of those greedy City boys.

10 comments:

James Higham said...

This seems so volatile, Sackers. You were advocating cash, then other commodities. I don't mean you are volatile but the market itself. Perhaps some long buying is required, as well as shorting.

CityUnslicker said...

gold is a disaster for all those holding it. including me, i hope for a v-shaped recovery but would not say this is a time to get it. it is dropping 5% a day!

Sackerson said...

Hi, both,and thanks for visiting. Gold didn't do badly for me and my meagre punt, but then I told you months ago when I cashed in. I don't do day trading, futures and options or betting with borrowed money, and I don't feel I have to be in the market all the time or get the entry point millimetrically right. I am not sophisticated and not a gunslinger.

But if Investec know their onions, then their comment about <$750 leading to mine closures does sseem to imply at least some support at that level. And the Fannie/Freddie nationalisation and other forced rescues suggest either higher taxes (how?) or inflation, at some point in the future.

We're in a long-term quandary - if the credit crunch hurts too many too badly, they'll deliberately mess up the money system; so at the moment we're being chased out of property, stocks (I'm still wondering what's holding those up) and (quite possibly) bonds, into cash - then they'll finish us off there, if we haven't got a back door.

Karl Denninger is now back on his theme of hold cash in a home safe. But the cheats running the system could eventually turn what we've got into Confederate money if they chose. What price the ultimate introduction of a sort of Rentenmark? Not much help for anyone stuck with the old stuff. When my grandmother died, we found a tin full of old white fivers, long after they could have been exchanged at the bank.

We're all going from pillar to post here.

Anonymous said...

Tins of corned beef, sardines, pears, lychees and beanz. Garden full of Jerusalem artichokes, for soup-making, leeks, broccoli and winter salads. Lots of bog rolls. Sugar, for home wine-making. Candles. Little camping cooker and bottles of butane. Water purification tablets.
What else?

Anonymous said...

The U.S. Government says there is a gold and silver shortage. Dealers are complaining about a gold shortage. The price is falling. some punter are either selling to cover margin or are ramming the futures. Maybe some of those computer algorithms are auto-selling the weakness. Who knows. I see a shortage + falling prices and I want in on the action.

My gold position, established at 680 is in danger. I'm not selling it. I just bought silver several days ago. I see instant losses and long term gratification.

Sackerson said...

Matt, thanks for the insider perspective.

DM: you're more practical than me. I think the secret is to be below the radar, or in everyone's blind spot. Eagles are endangered but rabbits thrive.

Anonymous said...

Mm. One thought occurs - like everyone else I've assumed that property is doomed to decline to, or below, where it "ought" to be: say, median house at some modest multiple of median income. But if a hyperinflation occurred, property would presumably prove to have been one of the few good investments.

Sackerson said...

If what you say happens, then tangible wealth generally will count. But your house and farm, like my grandparents', can be taken at gunpoint - they fled ahead of the Red Army.

Increasingly, the financial and political system we have seems to me an abstract form of theft and robbery.

Anonymous said...

One of the daftest things I ever did was to sell my rifle and let my licence lapse.

Sackerson said...

No, it just tempts you to use it. And you have to have hold of it at the right moment. Many US householders are shot with their own guns. He who runs away can come back.