Gold
The following chart (thanks to Kitco) shows the continued drop in the price of gold this year. From a high of $1,900 US in 2011, gold has continually drifted lower.
If you haven’t noticed, the price of an ounce of gold continued its fall in June. It hit a low of $1,180 US in June as ETF’s and gold funds continued to liquidate their positions. This was almost a 40% drop from its high, and in technical terms, most drawbacks from a high comes close to the 40% mark. In technical terms, this re-tracement in the price of gold is quite normal in a normal market.
As the investing world turned against commodities and gold, investors withdrew their money from the funds that bought gold. This reversed a multi-year trend during which the demand for gold drove the gold price ever higher.
If you want to understand what happened, read why the commodities market crashed. This was an event that compounded upon itself into a vicious cycle.
Why Gold Fell so Dramatically
In a short explanation, some powerful traders picked a time and drove the price of gold dramatically lower almost instantly. They made fortunes doing this. When the price fell, investors got frightened and started to redeem their investments in gold funds. In order to give investors back their money, the funds sold gold, thereby creating an imbalance whereby there were more sellers than buyers, and the price of gold fell further.
This continued until all reason had left the market. If you want a picture to illustrate this, the following chart (again from Kitco) shows this phenomenon of gold being snapped up in ever increasing amounts to meet investor demand.
Unwinding this massive position created a temporary oversupply of gold, and the price of gold fell.
Gold is Recovering
Look at the top chart. Gold fell too far, and too fast. When there is a decline in the value of something in the market, it is rapid, vicious, and more times than not, overshoots the bounds or reason. Gold fell too far and too fast. It did a double bottom, and bounced up. At today’s close, it was $1,345.00, or an increase of $165 or 14%, and is showing signs of more strength.
I have often written on how investors had to take a longer term view of the market. When markets fall, they invariably fall too far. Investors invariably react too severely and the smart money uses these events to make super profits. Whether it be Warren Buffet, or Baron Rothschild, the advice is the same. Buy when fear pervades the market and bargains abound.
Gold and gold stocks are on sale right now. A great time to buy.
Everyone is watching gold imports by India and China to project the future short term price of gold. Last week, India released official numbers showing that 262 tons of gold had been imported. This caused a flurry and a day later this figure was revised to 172 tons, and then to 26 tons of gold. China had equally distorted numbers released.
Today, there was fear because India has put new restrictions on the import of gold. Yet the price of gold did not fall. For the market to react to these distorting numbers, is just fluff. Look past the headlines – look into the trend.
The simple facts are that
- the correction in gold was within the normal parameters of a normal correction in the market (40%),
- in spite of tremendous selling pressure from gold funds the price of gold is now moving up
- India is putting curbs on gold imports because too much gold is being imported
- the cost of production of an ounce of gold is now approaching the selling price of an ounce of gold
Buy When There is Blood in the Streets
If you wait for Boxing Days sales to shop, this is Boxing Day. Prices of gold miners and producers are moving up and the downtrend has reversed. Look at our stock picks.
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