Concerns about inflation and weakening currencies are leading the Chinese middle classes and wealthy to again use gold jewellery, coins and bars as a hedge and store of value.
Store of wealth buyers in China today were paying a $18 per ounce premium or 1.3% premium over COMEX gold (see table below). In recent weeks they have been willing to pay as much $30 per ounce extra for gold.
The Chinese people are concerned that the same massive inflation that is affecting India, Indonesia, Brazil and other emerging markets may eventually reach China.
The U.S. Mint’s sales of silver coins are heading for a record again this year, with sales of 33 million ounces (1,026 tonnes) to late August already matching the level of the whole of 2012.
Many other mints including the Perth Mint, the Royal Canadian Mint and the Austrian Mint have also seen a fall in sales recently but are set for record or near record sales again this year.
Since 2003, we have consistently said that silver was likely to surpass its real high in the coming years. The gold silver ratio is likely to trend lower and revert to its long term average and its geological ratio of 15 to 1 as a huge amount of silver has been used in industrial applications in recent years.
It is likely that he does, as he is Chinese and was a Chinese refugee who fled to Hong Kong with his family to avoid the perils of war. Refugees who flee from their homeland to start new lives in other countries tend to have a deeper appreciation of and understand the importance of owning physical gold.
Gold, silver and brent oil rose and European stocks declined after reports of missile launches in the Mediterranean. Russian radar detected two ballistic "objects" that were fired towards the Syrian coastline from the central part of the sea.
Peak gold has yet to be considered and analysed by the international financial and investment community but there is a risk that it has happened or will happen soon with a consequent impact on the gold mining industry and on gold prices in the 21st Century.
This week will see the end of August trading and September is, along with November, one of the strongest months to own gold. This is seen in the charts showing gold’s monthly performance over different time frames - 1975 to 2011, 2000 to 2011 and our Bloomberg Gold Seasonality table from 2003 to 2013 (10 years is the maximum that can be used).
Thackray's 2011 Investor's Guide notes that the optimal period to own gold bullion is from July 12 to October 9. During the past 25 periods, gold bullion has outperformed the S&P 500 Index by 4.7%.
“… gold is the hard currency of choice, and we expect for this trend to accelerate going forward. We still believe that in the next couple of years we will be looking at a gold price of around $US3,500. As the gold/silver ratio plummets near 30, this would also suggest a silver price above $US100.”
One of the most published academics on gold in the world is Dr Brian Lucey of Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and he and another academic who has frequently covered the gold market, Dr Constantin Gurdgiev have just this week had an excellent research paper on gold published.
They have researched the gold market, along with Dr Cetin Ciner of the University of North Carolina and their paper, ‘Hedges and safe havens: An examination of stocks, bonds, gold, oil and exchange rates’ finds that gold is a hedge against US dollar and British pound risk due to “its monetary asset role.”
Premiums on the Shanghai Gold Exchange rose from $21 yesterday to $22.40 (0800 GMT) over London spot showing robust physical demand in China. Demand from the over 2 billion people, rich and poor, in China and India alone this year alone is set to be 1,000 metric tonnes which is worth over $87 billion or roughly what the Federal Reserve is printing every single month.
India has no proposal to lease gold bought from the IMF according to India’s Economic Affairs Secretary, Arvind Mayaram. His comments came in a text message.
The influential in India, Hindu Business Line newspaper, had reported earlier that the government will consider leasing out 200 tons of gold bought from IMF in 2009, citing finance ministry officials it didn’t identify.
With strains in the LBMA gold market, further pressure may be being applied to India to now help with supply after their recent draconian attempted measures to restrict demand.
Liquidated ETF gold holdings are being shipped from the U.K to Switzerland for refining into smaller one kilogramme gold bars, Australian bank Macquarie wrote in a note yesterday. These were then sent to Asia and bought by Asian investors. The note confirmed, what has been known anecdotally for some weeks.
Gold analysts are the most bullish in five months according to Bloomberg. Thirteen analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to rise next week, four were bearish and five neutral, the highest proportion of bulls since March 8.
The latest World Gold Council Gold Demand Trends report, which covers the period April-June 2013, confirms again how recent falls in the gold price were due to speculators selling paper gold rather than a decline in actual demand for physical gold.
It highlights, once again, that the price falls have generated significant increases in demand, most notably from store of wealth, jewelry, bullioncoin and bar buyers in Turkey, Dubai and the Middle East, Vietnam, India, China and the rest of Asia.
Meanwhile speculators, primarily banks and hedge funds, exited their positions in the gold ETFs and futures markets. This led to liquidations of just 402 tonnes of ETF gold worth only $18.3 billion.
