Why The Gold Bull Market Is Only Getting Started

According to one market seer who has been a long term gold bull, the fear of higher inflation should not be viewed as the primary factor driving gold prices higher.

In an interview with Fortune Magazine, Stephanie Pomboy explains why she likes gold despite the powerful deflationary undertones of the world economy. Ms. Pomboy is the head of MacroMavens, a firm she founded in 2002. Major institutional investors and giant money management firms have become clients of MacroMavens based on Pomboy's successful ability to forecast major trend moves based on macroeconomic factors.

Ms. Pomboy has correctly been bearish on the U.S. economy since late 2008, predicting a long period of deleveraging due to declining incomes and the deflated housing bubble. Deflated asset bubbles, declining incomes and a slow economy are not the classic ingredients for inflation. Pomboy correctly argued that low inflation, or actual deflation, would not prevent gold prices from surging higher.

Pomboy has a superb track record predicting gold prices. In a December 2008 interview with Barron's, Pomboy prophetically concluded that "We are going to see a secular rotation from paper assets to hard assets like gold. The whole global competitive currency devaluation, including that of the dollar, plays right into that. We are acting as though there are no consequences to basically running the money off the printing press and handing it to the Federal government to backstop financial markets or bail out homeowners or what not. There is no consequence to doing this, unless or until the rest of the world says to us, 'We don't like this game' and We don't want to have all the dollar claims we are holding debased by [Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke] running his printing press."

Those who heeded Pomboy's advice have seen gains of about 100% as gold moved from the $850 range in 2008 to the current price of $1,675.   As a means of protecting capital against the debasement of all major currencies, gold remains the best hard asset to own.

In a follow up interview with Barron's in February of this year, Pomboy made another extraordinarily accurate call on both gold and bonds.  Despite referring to treasury bonds as certificates of confiscation, Pomboy recommended buying U.S. government debt and gold, a seemingly contradictory stance.  As Pomboy explained it to Barron's:

My bullishness on these flimsy pieces of paper is purely opportunistic. It is based on (1) my view that the perception of the economy has run far ahead of the reality and that disappointment will find yields declining. And (2), as I discussed in the interview, my belief that this will find the Fed extending QE--a policy which involves the Fed's outright purchase of Treasuries... Not only is the Fed now the largest holder of Treasuries, but thanks to Ben's printing press, it has unlimited capacity to buy. So this is one market where the fundamental laws of supply and demand do not apply.

Finally, for those who can't fathom going long gold and Treasuries in combination? it's simple. It's the neatest expression of a bet on continued Fed monetization which, again, entails the direct PURCHASE of Treasuries!!! The wisdom of this trade has been on full display for ?oh? the last FOUR and A HALF years! The fact that it is still viewed as some kind of oxymoron only reinforces how much farther it has to go.

The Fed's commitment to further assets purchases was revealed today when the Fed released the minutes of their last meeting.  Although the Fed temporarily stopped outright asset purchases when QEII ended, policy makers are already discussing when to resume the practice.  The Fed has already purchased about $1.6 trillion in government bonds, financed via quantitative easing.  As the economy slows further and government spending continues its upward spiral, anyone who thinks the Fed won't start monetizing the public debt is delusional.

In her recent interview with Fortune Magazine, Pomboy remains bullish on gold and forecasts higher oil prices as emerging nations reduce dollar reserves.  According to Pomboy, "I'm really interested in strategic resources -- commodities that emerging nations like China are trying to stockpile.  Oil would be at the forefront. I think it will continue to be a beneficiary of this global debasement of currency and the need for emerging nations to diversify the foreign exchange resources that they're sitting on, which are being debased every single day. Why not take that money and spend it on building strategic oil reserves rather than watching it go up in smoke?"

Pomboy's perfectly logical theory that emerging nations will sell dollar assets to buy oil implies that demand for U.S. treasuries will drop dramatically since emerging nations such as China have been one of the biggest purchasers of U.S. debt.   The absence of sufficient bids at Treasury auctions will immediately cause the following two events to occur:  1) the Fed will be forced to monetize ever greater amounts of debt in order to keep U.S. interest rates from rising and 2)  the price of gold will soar.

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You Know Paper Currencies Are In Trouble When Investors Flock To The “Safety” Of The Yen

Investors in paper currencies are running out of safe havens.  As Europe totters on the brink of a debt implosion and the Dow routinely plunges 1,000 points every other week, holders of paper wealth are desperately searching for a store of stable value.

Ironically, the two currencies viewed as the least risky are the Japanese yen (issued by the country with the highest debt/GDP ratio in the world) and the U.S. dollar (issued by the country with the largest amount of debt in the world).

Investors in U.S. dollars remain forever at risk to the Fed's policies of dollar debasement and money printing, but to seek safe haven in the yen seems like an even more foolhardy proposition.  Consider It's 1987 Without the Bubble In Japan for insights into the fundamental weakness of the economy backing the paper yen.

Japan’s labor force shrank last month to its smallest size since October 1987, when the nation’s stock-market benchmark was 185 percent higher and land prices were 85 percent greater than today.

Employers cut payrolls by 160,000 and a further 200,000 workers retired or abandoned efforts to find a job, leaving the seasonally adjusted number of employed at 59.4 million, the statistics bureau said today in Tokyo. Separate figures showed industrial production rose 0.8 percent from the previous month, less than all but three of 28 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey.

The data deepen concern that Japan’s recovery from the March earthquake will be stunted by manufacturers shifting operations abroad because of gains in the yen, a deterioration in consumer confidence and prospects for higher taxes at home. The challenges add to the burden of an economy already beset by a shrinking and aging population.

The yen traded at 76.59 as of 12:11 p.m. in Tokyo, less than 1 percent from the post-World War II record high of 75.95 on Aug. 19. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average was little changed at 8,723.12, compared with the peak of 38,915.87 when it closed out 1989, capping a four-year run when it soared almost 200 percent.

Japan has been in a contained depression for two decades, propped up by massive deficit spending and BOJ money printing.  A double dip world recession will send Japan's economy into a nosedive since exports account for 15% of GDP.

In order for Japan to service its crushing debt burden, they need rapid economic growth and and a large expansion of their labor force.  Will this happen?  In a word, no.  The world economy has been in a downward spiral since 2007  and massive stimulus efforts by governments and central banks have failed to contain the ongoing depression.  Making matters even worse for Japan is the fact that the Japanese are slowly exterminating themselves.  The birth rate in Japan has been plunging since the early 1970's and has now gone negative.  An economy with a dwindling labor force and an aging population has little hope of servicing a massive debt burden.

Japan population growth: Courtesy google.com

The appreciation of the yen is forcing Japanese companies to fire domestic employees and move operations overseas in order to remain competitive.   The Japanese government has intervened numerous times in the currency markets, trying to force the yen lower without success.  Despite the weak fundamentals of the Japanese economy and a suffocating level of debt, the yen continues to appreciate, suggesting that investors perceive other currencies to be riskier than the yen.   The yen has gained the dubious distinction of being the cleanest shirt in the dirty laundry.

Yen - courtesy stockcharts.com

There is no way of predicting how long the value of the paper yen can defy economic reality.  Markets will eventually price to fundamental values and investors will question the value of all paper currencies.  At this point, gold will rightfully be perceived as the only currency with real value.  What price level gold will soar to during the chaos of collapsing currencies cannot be predicted - what can be predicted is that holders of gold will be the only ones left holding a currency with any value.

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Gold Stocks Vastly Outperform Gold On The Week – Will The Trend Continue?

For the week ending October 14, gold continued to rally, gaining $26 on the week to $1,678.00 as measured by the closing London PM Fix Price.

Gold stocks, by comparison,  dramatically outperformed the gain in bullion by almost fourfold.  In order to get a broad based assessment of relative performance, gold was compared to the XAU, GDXJ and TGLDX.

The XAU or Philadelphia Gold/Silver Sector is a broad based index of sixteen large precious metal mining companies, the GDXJ or Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners tracks small and medium cap gold and silver miners and the TGLDX  or Tocqueville Gold Fund is a diversified gold stock fund with one of the best track records in the industry.

A summary of gold compared to the XAU, GDXJ and TGLDX for the one week period ending October 14th is shown below.

One week does not ensure that a trend will continue but the gold stocks have long been under priced in relationship to gold bullion. Eventually, this pricing disparity will converge. Throughout 2011, gold stocks underperformed gold as can be seen by comparing the performance of gold to the XAU.

XAU VS GOLD - courtesy stockcharts.com

The Tocqueville Gold Fund (TGLDX), run by legendary gold investor John Hathaway, has vastly outperformed the S&P, the XAU and gold bullion over the past decade with an average annual return of over 26%.  This is what John Hathaway had to say about the long term performance of gold stocks in his first half investment update for the Gold Fund.

During the 1st half of 2011, gold shares lagged the gold price. Bullion rose 5.56% while the XAU benchmark declined 10.57%. The Tocqueville Gold Fund declined 5.53%. This apparent disconnect is not unprecedented. For example, during the credit crisis of 2008, the XAU declined 28.54% while the price of gold rose 5.77%. Even though the gold price is the single most important fundamental determining value for gold mining shares, they often do not move in lockstep and the first half of 2011 is one such example. In 2010, gold shares performed particularly well and the XAU rose 34.67% while the metal rose 29.52%. In our opinion, the relative underperformance of gold shares during the first six months of this year represented a healthy and necessary consolidation. The Tocqueville Gold Fund owns physical bullion but is much more heavily weighted to gold mining stocks, as has been the case over the past ten years.
We believe that there is significant performance catch up potential ahead for gold mining shares relative to bullion. Earnings reports for the quarter just completed should be exceptionally strong for all producers and in most cases surpass all- time records. We expect such results to be accompanied by numerous announcements of dividend hikes. Should gold prices maintain or exceed the $1500 level, skeptical investors will become more willing to normalize the earnings power that is soon to be demonstrated.
The factors that drive liquid assets into gold bullion continue to flourish. Most important, negative real interest rates open the floodgates for capital to seek out the safety of gold. In addition, the never ending sagas of the Eurozone debt woes and the US debt ceiling remind investors that sovereign debt of nearly all Western democracies are not the safe havens they were once regarded. Nevertheless, while we expect bullion prices to set new highs during the second half, we believe gold mining shares will provide returns superior to the metal.

The latest report on the top ten holdings of the Tocqueville Gold Fund are shown below.

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A Perspective On The Plunge In Gold and Silver

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke set the world on fire this week as his latest scheme to "twist" long term interest rates lower pleased no one and triggered a 737 point drop in the Dow.  In addition, the Fed panicked investors by admitting that there were "significant downside risks to the economic outlook".

Virtually every asset class except U.S. treasuries went into full scale meltdowns.  The U.S. stock market registered its worst weekly drop since the dark days of October 2008 when the  U.S. banking system was collapsing.

The rush to liquidity and forced margin selling sent precious metal prices into a tailspin. London silver plunged by $7.07 or 18%, to $32.90, the biggest decline since 1987.  Gold, as measured by the closing London PM Fix Price, dropped $105 on the week to $1,689, the largest weekly decline since 1983.  Spot prices for both gold and silver continued lower in New York afternoon trading with gold settling at $1658.20 and silver at $31.03.

Platinum dropped by $147 on the week to $1,651 and palladium dropped by $73 to $659 for losses of 8.18% and 9.97%, respectively.  Silver, with 60% of its demand relating to industrial use,  took the largest plunge in the precious metals group as economic indicators pointed to a rapidly slowing economy worldwide.

Although the sharp declines in gold and silver are unsettling, the fundamental reasons for owning gold and silver remain intact.  The rapid price increases in gold and silver since July attracted large investment flows from hedge funds and other short term speculators, who rapidly liquidate large positions based on short term technical sell signals.

Despite this week's panic selling, long term gold investors have seen their investment rise from $1,405.50 at the beginning of the year, for a gain of $283.50 (20.2%).  Silver, despite this week's painful sell off, is still higher by $2.23 or 7.3% from the beginning of the year, as measured by the closing London PM Fix Price.

For additional perspective on the relative performance of the gold and silver markets, here's the record for various stock indices and the 10 year bond since the beginning of 2011.  (Note that the 10 year bond shows yield, not price.)

Asset Performance - courtesy schwab.com

Meanwhile, as the global financial system rapidly moves towards the precipice, faith in the ability of governments to contain the crisis is quickly eroding.  2011 is not a replay of the 2008 financial meltdown - it's much more dangerous.  The sovereign governments that "saved the system" in 2008 incurred massive amounts of debt which have brought them to the brink of insolvency.  The bankruptcy of one country could ignite a financial firestorm that world governments cannot contain.

The inability of European leaders to effectively act in concert to resolve the Euro debt crisis has drawn the United States into the center of the crisis.  According to The New York Times, the U.S. is pushing Europe to mount a massive bailout to avoid financial Armageddon.

The Obama administration, increasingly alarmed by the spillover effects of Europe’s financial crisis, has begun an intensive lobbying campaign to persuade Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and other leaders to ramp up efforts to stem any contagion from the debt crisis in Greece.

In phone calls and meetings over the last week, President Obama urged Mrs. Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France to take coordinated measures — including spending billions in additional funds to bail out Greece and bolster European financial institutions — to prevent Greece’s debt woes from spreading to its neighbors.

“The biggest single risk to the United States today is that the European situation will spiral out of control,” said Edwin M. Truman, a former Treasury official who is now at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Europe is not going to save the U.S. economy, but it could be the straw that breaks it.”

Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard economist who has written about the history of financial crises, puts Europe’s effect on the United States in blunt political terms. “The downside scenario is awful,” he said...

American officials have also emphasized the Fed’s outsize role in responding to the financial crisis here and urged Europe to view the Fed as a model. It made trillions of dollars in loans so that investors remained able to buy and sell a wide range of financial products.

Given the risks to the United States economy from a banking collapse and sovereign defaults in Europe, anyone who thinks that the United States will not be getting deeply involved in the financial bailout of Europe is delusional.  The "rescue" of Europe will ultimately involve the same techniques (zero interest rates and money printing) used by Bernanke in the United States.  The resulting negative interest rates and worldwide debasement of paper currencies will ultimately send gold soaring to new highs.

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Value Investor Loads Up On Gold Bullion

Panicky investors may be dumping their gold, but one investor with a superb long term track record of value investing is loading up on gold bullion.

In a Fortune interview, Charles de Vaulx, who runs the IVA Worldwide Fund, explains why his $10 billion fund holds over 7% in gold bullion.

At the time of the interview, gold was selling at $1,900 per ounce and de Vaulx was bullish based on a "mistrust of policymakers, be they in the U.S., Europe, Japan, or even China."  The inability of politicians to arrive at agreements in the face of a looming debt crisis gives gold an inherent value that paper currencies do not possess.  As to why he would still be buying gold after a sevenfold rise since 2001, de Vaulx said that "the paradox with gold is that even though the price has gone up so much, it is still under-owned." (See Americans Remain Underinvested In Gold.)  The IVA Fund has invested only in gold bullion which is viewed as being "safer and cheaper" than gold mining stocks.

Regarding the U.S. dollar, de Vaulx thinks that over the long term, the U.S. will be forced to solve its massive debt problems through currency debasement and inflation.   Initially, the bursting of a credit bubble causes deflationary problems but ultimately the policies of the Federal Reserve will produce inflation.  Fed policies will accordingly result in poor returns for bond investors who have sought shelter in U.S. treasury securities.

The circumstances under which de Vaulx would reduce his gold positions would be if policy makers are able to institute policies that would encourage sound currencies or if the values of equities become "truly cheap."

According to Fortune, de Vaulx launched his fund only three years ago.   Based on a long term track record of superior investment returns, de Vaulx was able to quickly attract $10 billion in assets.  Due to the recent panic sell off in the gold market, de Vaulx's fund has taken a hit, but my bet is that de Vaulx is taking advantage of the situation by scooping up more gold at bargain prices.

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Treasure Hunters Find 7 Million Ounces of Silver On SS Gairsoppa

On  February 16, 1941, Ernst Mengersen, Captain of Nazi U-boat 101, torpedoed the starboard side of the British merchant ship SS Gairsoppa, sending her to the bottom of the Atlantic.  Little did Captain Mengersen realize that the value of the sunken ship's cargo would be worth almost a quarter of a billion dollars seventy years later.

The wreck of the SS Gairsoppa was discovered 300 miles off the coast of Ireland, at a depth of 15,400 feet, by Odyssey Marine Exploration.  The British Government had awarded an exclusive contract to Odyssey to find the SS Gairsoppa which, on her last voyage, was returning from India with a cargo of pig iron, tea and 7 million ounces of silver ingots.

The silver treasure, which is the largest value cargo salvage in history, was originally valued at approximately £600,000 British pounds when the SS Gairsoppa was sent to the bottom of the Atlantic.  Those 7 million ounces of silver today are worth 225 times the 1941 value or about £136,000,000 ($210 million).

The 412 foot steel-hulled SS Gairsoppa had been in service since her construction in 1919 and was sailing with a convoy to England on what turned out to be her last voyage.  Running low on fuel and in a heavy storm, the unlucky ship left the convoy to head for Galway, Ireland.  After being spotted by a German plane, the Gairsoppa's fate was sealed as U-101 moved in for an easy kill.

Although the general location of the sunken ship was long known, the technical complexity of salvage operations at a depth of 4,700 meters made recovery operations almost impossible.  Recent advances in salvage recovery, as well as the increased value of silver, resulted in the British government soliciting private companies to find and salvage the Gairsoppa's precious cargo.  Under the agreement with the British government, Odyssey Marine  will keep 80% of the value of the silver bullion recovered.

SS Gairsoppa - courtesy Odyssey Marine Exploration

Odyssey Marine has gained fame for previous discoveries of sunken ships laden with gold and silver treasure.  In 2003 Odyssey discovered the SS Republic, a Civil War era ship with over 50,000 silver and gold coins on board.  Odyssey also recovered a treasure trove of over 500,000 silver and gold coins from a Colonial era shipwreck site code named Black Swan.

Of the hundreds of thousands of shipwrecks over the centuries, the only cargo worth retrieving (other than archaeological treasures) are precious metals, which have retained value since the dawn of human civilization.  Just for laughs, let's compare that to the purchasing power of the paper dollar over the past half century.

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Ron Paul Blames Destructive Fed Policies For Housing Crash And Economic Bust

Ron Paul explains better than anyone else the destructive economic forces unleashed by Federal Reserve monetary policies.  According to Paul,  loose monetary policies and manipulation of interest rates has caused "every single boom and bust that has occured in this country since the bank's creation in 1913."

In a Wall Street Journal editorial, Ron Paul explains exactly how the Fed has wrecked the economy, why they are clueless for the reasons behind their failures and why further Fed actions will only further exacerbate the problems caused by the Fed in the first place.

Adding new money increases the supply of money, making the price of money over time—the interest rate—lower than the market would make it. These lower interest rates affect the allocation of resources, causing capital to be malinvested throughout the economy. So certain projects and ventures that appear profitable when funded at artificially low interest rates are not in fact the best use of those resources.

Eventually, the economic boom created by the Fed's actions is found to be unsustainable, and the bust ensues as this malinvested capital manifests itself in a surplus of capital goods, inventory overhangs, etc. Until these misdirected resources are put to a more productive use—the uses the free market actually desires—the economy stagnates.

Yet policy makers at the Federal Reserve still fail to understand the causes of our most recent financial crisis. So they find themselves unable to come up with an adequate solution.

The Fed fails to grasp that an interest rate is a price—the price of time—and that attempting to manipulate that price is as destructive as any other government price control. It fails to see that the price of housing was artificially inflated through the Fed's monetary pumping during the early 2000s, and that the only way to restore soundness to the housing sector is to allow prices to return to sustainable market levels. Instead, the Fed's actions have had one aim—to keep prices elevated at bubble levels—thus ensuring that bad debt remains on the books and failing firms remain in business, albatrosses around the market's neck.

If the Fed would stop intervening and distorting the market, and would allow the functioning of a truly free market that deals with profit and loss, our economy could recover. The continued existence of an organization that can create trillions of dollars out of thin air to purchase financial assets and prop up a fundamentally insolvent banking system is a black mark on an economy that professes to be free.

Fed policies have pushed the U.S. and global economies to the precipice of a full blown depression.  What are the odds that they  reverse course and follow Ron Paul's recommendations?  Zero, in my opinion.  Bernanke still believes in the fantasy illusion that creating more dollars at zero interest rates will somehow ignite economic growth.  The Fed blindly ignores the fact that in all of recorded human history, once great powers that incurred massive debt loads have all failed.

Ron Paul concludes that the Fed will continue its self defeating policies because of  the pressure to "just do something".  And right on cue, former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder recommends (in his own concurrent Journal editorial) that the U.S. government needs to incur whatever amount of debt is necessary to cure the housing crisis.  Blinder's idiotic recommendation comes on the heels of previous failed and costly housing programs that cost billions and futher delayed the recovery in housing by keeping unqualified homeowners in homes they can't afford to be in.

Here's Blinder's advice on How to Clean Up The Housing Mess, which is the exact opposite of Ron Paul's free market solutions.

Given the huge magnitude of the aggregate gap between house values and mortgage balances, a comprehensive anti-foreclosure solution requires hundreds of billions of dollars.

So what can be done now? There is no silver bullet; we need different remedies for different types of (actual or prospective) foreclosures. And to succeed, we must overcome the three barriers. Foreclosure mitigation is expensive. It will encounter political resistance. It probably requires bending some property rights.

Blinder's new spending plans and previous similar ones have cost the Government trillions, tremendously debased the dollar and accomplished nothing except to make the case for owning gold even more compelling.

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Will Central Banks Continue To Increase Their Gold Holdings?

FORT KNOX

Central banks continued to add to their gold reserves in August with three countries adding a total of 643,000 troy ounces to their reserves.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the largest central bank purchaser of gold during August was Thailand which purchased 300,000 troy ounces, bringing their total gold holdings to 4.4 million ounces.  The Bolivian central bank purchased 225,000 ounces increasing their total reserves to 1.36 million ounces and the central bank of Russia purchased 118,000 ounces which increased total reserves to 27.2 million troy ounces.

After selling gold reserves for many years, central banks began purchasing gold around 2000.  Over the past several years central banks have sharply accelerated their purchases of gold to diversify away from the U.S. dollar which is no longer considered to be a safe asset.  China and Russia, large buyers of gold, have been particularly critical of U.S. monetary and fiscal policies and are actively seeking to reduce their reserve holdings of U.S. dollars.

Will central banks continue adding to their gold reserves?  For some insight on this matter, consider the following facts.

In August Russian Prime Minister Putin said that the United States is "not living within its means, shifting the weight of responsibility  on other countries and in a way acting as a parasite."  Putin also said that a new reserve currency is necessary to protect against a "systemic malfunction" of the U.S.  Putin has reason to worry since Russia has almost half of its reserves in U.S. dollars.  In 1998 Russia had gold reserves of 14.7 million ounces compared to 27.2 million ounces after its latest purchases.  Despite the fact that the Russian central bank has the eight largest official gold holdings in the world, gold amounts to only 8.2% of total reserves.

China, which holds $1.2 trillion of U.S. treasury debt, has the most to lose from the continuous debasement of the U.S. dollar and has become harshly critical of U.S. economic policies.  After the U.S. debt downgrade in August, China said that America must "cure its addiction to debts" and "live within its means."   China is actively seeking to diversify its reserves and reduce its holdings of  U.S. dollars.  The latest reports show total Chinese gold reserves at 1,054 tonnes compared to 395 tonnes in 1988.   Gold holdings amount to only 1.6% of total Chinese reserves.  China's 33.9 million ounces of gold is currently valued at only $54.2 billion.  By comparison, the gold holdings of the SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD) total 39.9 million ounces valued at $65.6 billion.  Expect China to add dramatically to its gold reserves in the future.

Gold purchases by central banks during 2011 are forecast to be 336 metric tonnes, approximately 13% of total yearly gold mine production.  Central banks during  the second quarter of 2011 purchased four times the amount of gold purchased during the comparable quarter of 2010.  Given the fragile state of the world fiat money system, it is likely that central bank gold purchases could expand dramatically going forward.

Only 7 countries or institutions currently hold more than 1,000 tonnes of gold - the United States, Germany, the IMF, Italy, France, China and Switzerland.

Total official world gold holdings by central banks and the IMF currently total 30,707 tonnes, valued at approximately$1.6 trillion which, coincidentally, is the size of this year's budget deficit for the United States.  Total gold holdings of the world's central banks amount to only a fraction of the value of paper currencies that have been exponentially created.

All of the gold mined throughout history totals only 178,000 tonnes or about 6 billion ounces valued at $9.6 trillion.  Central bank holdings amount to only 17% of the total gold supply available.

Despite increasing gold prices, gold mine production has been stagnant.  Most of the easy to mine, high grade ore deposits have already been exploited.  New total yearly gold production adds only 1% per year to the existing supply of gold.  Increasing demand and limited supply result in higher prices.

Only 34 central banks currently hold over 100 tonnes of gold and only 12 central banks or institutions hold more than 500 tonnes of gold.

Ironically, the United States, the most indebted nation in world history has decreased its gold reserves.  In 1962, the United States owned 14,269 tonnes of gold or almost 39% of all gold held by central banks.  By 1972, the United States held only 8,584 metric tonnes of gold.  Currently, U.S. gold reserves allegedly total 8,134 tonnes but the amount remains in question since the government will not allow an independent audit of the actual amount held.

Considering the relatively small amount of gold held by central banks and the exponential increase in the creation of paper money, gold demand by central banks should  increase dramatically in the future.

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Gold’s Long Term Trend Is Up As America Commits Suicide

Every bull market has pullbacks.  Sharp sell offs can generate fear and panic, causing investors to sell at the worse possible time.

Steep and sudden price declines are  characteristic of any long term bull market.  Speculators and investors with short term perspectives wind up selling instead of adding to positions during the buying opportunity that arises from panic selling.

The great bull market in stocks, which lasted from the early 1980's to 2000, provides a classic case of a sell off that proved to be a great buying opportunity.  On October 19, 1987, a day now referred to as Black Monday, the Dow collapsed in a sea of sell orders that left the Dow down by 508 points for a shocking loss of almost 23% in one day.

The loss on the Dow was the largest in history, causing panic among investors.  After Black Monday, a group of the world's foremost economists unanimously predicted an economic downturn similar to the 1930's.

Although the exact cause of the Crash of 1987 is still being debated, those who stayed in the market and used the sell off to add to positions, went on to enjoy one of the greatest bull markets in history.  Anyone gazing at a long term price chart of the Dow has to squint to see the Crash of 1987 that transpired during the super 20 year bull market that finally ended in 2000.

DOW JONES - COURTESY YAHOO FINANCE

We have recently witnessed what some are referring to as a "crash" in the gold market, with bullion dropping suddenly by $300 per ounce.   Although a rapid depreciation in the price of gold by over 15% can be painful, especially if new positions were initiated prior to the sell off, the decline should be of minor concern to long term gold investors.  The fundamental reasons for owning gold have not changed.  Investors in the gold market today are being given an opportunity similar to that offered to stock investors in late 1987.

Gold is the only defense against fiat currencies which all ultimately fail and the day of reckoning may be sooner than many think. In his new book "Suicide Of A Superpower", Patrick Buchanan makes a compelling case that America could collapse financially before 2025.  In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News (see video link below), Buchanan argues that:

America's problems are "deep and endemic".Half of the American population are "tax consumers" rather than tax payers and thus have no incentive to support reduced government spending.American society has lost its moral foundations and its sense of right and wrong.The widely different views of the major political parties cannot be reconciled and America thus faces a "Balkanization" that will further contribute to the breakdown of American society.America will soon become California - bankrupted by the demands of "tax consumers" who will always demand more.  By virtue of their majority status, the "tax consumers" will elect politicians who promise them the most, thus ensuring the bankruptcy of America.

The decline of America that Buchanan warns about is already well underway. From a long term perspective, that is all gold investors really need to know.

Audio Link to Suicide Of A Superpower narrated by Patrick Buchanan.

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US Mint Collector Gold Coins and Silver Set Suspensions Return

The United States Mint prior to the 3-day Labor Day weekend again suspended the sale of several of its numismatic products, including collector gold coins and two of its silver sets.

These products have gone through several suspensions of late due to volatile precious metals prices. Their sales were again halted for that reason.

The United States Mint said the collector gold coins would be placed back on sale after Wednesday's London PM Fix -- the time when the Mint evaluates precious metals prices each week and normally adjusts prices for gold coins, if needed. Affected gold products include:

Seven First Spouse Gold Coins2011 American Buffalo Gold Proof Coin2011 American Eagle Gold Proof Coins (1 oz., 1/2 oz., 1/4 oz. and 1/10 oz. sizes and the 4-coin set)2011 American Eagle Gold Uncirculated Coin

United States Mint commemorative gold coins are still available. The four 2011-dated coins had been halted recently, and then made available on August 25 when a new coin pricing grid was published and commemorative prices increased.

Four silver sets were actually affected. The two 2011-dated silver sets remain available for consumer purchase but they have been suspended from the Mint's bulk purchase program -- a program where qualified dealers can receive a discount when buying numismatic products in certain quantities. The 2010-dated silver sets suspended include:

2010 America the Beautiful Quarters Silver Proof Set2010 Silver Proof Set

These will return after re-pricing or a drop in silver prices.

Unaffected was the 2011 American Eagle Silver Proof Coin. Its price was recently raised $8.50 to $68.45 due, in part, to higher silver prices.

Related posts:

US Mint Suspends Sales of Gold Collector CoinsCollector 2009 Gold Eagle Coins SuspendedTagged as: American Eagle Gold Coins, United States Mint

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