Gold Price Hits New High Today

[LivinLOS]

i LOVE THIS THREAD.

Lots of people who have made masses of money.

My only question is , if you have all made so much money trading in gold,

What are you doing online in a (relatively) small forum telling everyone how to trade.

If I had made huge amounts on gold, I wouldnt tell anyone here, I would be sitting back in my 75 Mill condo

having my cappucino brought to me by one of my 12 beautiful thai maids !!!!!

Freddie

You must be new here. Thaivisa might be small forum but attacts the most successful investors in the world. Scarely anyone here has ever lost money on a trade nor failed to optimally time a market trend.

Thats why I said go check the posts.. Tripxcore, myself and a few others have had plenty of evidence explaining exactly why the credit fueled insanity from bubbles Greenspan would end in tears.. Posts are time stamped as are gold calls, housing market tops, and 14k dow top calls.. Cant argue with time stamped posts.

[LivinLOS]

Last thing.. Just found comments from Richard Russell about the fed.. Says it so much better than I..

I still can't get over the whole Federal Reserve racket.

Consider the following - - let's take a situation where the U.S. government needs money. The U.S. doesn't just issue United States Notes, which, of course it could. These notes would be dollars backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. No, the U.S. doesn't issue dollars straight out of the U.S. Treasury.

This is what the U.S. does - - it issues Treasury Bonds. The U.S. then sells these bonds to the Fed. The Fed buys the bonds. Wait, how does the Fed pay for the bonds? The Fed simply creates money "out of thin air" (book-keeping entry) with which it buys the bonds. The money that the Fed creates from nowhere then goes to the U.S. The Fed holds the U.S. bonds, and the unbelievable irony is that the U.S. then pays interest on the very bonds that the U.S. itself issued. (With great profit to the private owners of The Fed - - Ed. Note) The mind boggles.

The damnable result is that the Fed effectively controls the U.S. money supply. The Fed is …not even a branch of the U.S. government. The Fed is not mentioned in the Constitution of the United States. No Constitutional amendment was ever created or voted on to accept the Fed. The Constitutionality of the Federal Reserve has never come before the Supreme Court. The Fed is a private bank that keeps the U.S. forever in debt - - or I should say in increasing debt along with ever rising interest payments.

How did the Fed get away with this outrage? A tiny secretive group of bankers sneaked through a bill in 1913 at a time when many in Congress were absent. Those who were there and voted for the bill didn't realize (as so often happens) what they were voting for (shades of the shameful 2002 vote to hand over to President Bush the power to decide on war with Iraq).

Why is this allowed to continue ?? Why is the population paying these secret bankers for this non service.. It baffles me..

To get a better understanding of this, it is necessary to realise how close the financiers of the time and the government became after a series of economic and financial crises in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early 20th century. There is no way I can give a detailed account of these events here (books have been written on these topics) - but to summarise as much as possible: several booms, busts and stock market crashes occured. The banking industry (and in particular JP Morgan) "rode to the rescue" of the US economy on several occasions - most famously at the height of the Panic of 1907. The Fed was created mainly in response to these events. Apparently it seemed natural at the time for those with money and power in government to "reward" the financiers by allowing their privately owned institution to have control over the issuance of the currency. Another view is that giving ownership of the Fed to the financiers was compensation for taking away a very big source of income from them: arguably, many of the aforementioned events were caused directly or indirectly by the actions of the banking industry (eg. a fight for control of major railroad assets that JPM was financing, which led to the crash of 1901), and in organising subsequent "rescues" they enriched themselves even further (eg. the resolution of the gold crisis of 1895)

Well from all I have read on the creation of the FED.. It was a bill snuck into another that sneaked through congress's (almost ??) last session before holidays, when many in congress were actually absent from the vote and those that were there did not understand what they voted for.. A total con job..

President Wilson then signed the Federal Reserve Act into law in 1913, reportedly he said, “I am a most unhappy man, I have unwittingly ruined my country…a great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of credit…the growth of the nation, therefore, and all of our activities are in the hands of a few men…”

Since then the fed has managed to destroy 97% of the dollars purchasing power, keep the US continually in debt to the fed for which it pays interest on money (bond issues) the fed creates for nothing, and let the US citizenship pay this secret cartel of bankers every time.. Again why is this tolerated ??

[Abrak]

Who said anything about replacing gold ? I said there are alternatives. Having studied economic history in depth I am very well aware of the reasons people buy gold, and it's long history. And it's because of my awareness of these things that I don't consider it a kind of holy grail that many people seem to do. It forms a (rather overweight) part of my own investment portfolio along with a large range of commodities and other asset classes.

I understand exactly the point you are getting at.

The sophistication of today's markets means that golds 'portability' is no longer a great plus when it comes to investment. Why not invest in grains or oils - you couldnt do that in the past but you can now. Fair enough, that is why gold will never be as important as a store of value as it was in the past. However, the very fact that it still forms a rather 'overweight' part of your portfolio should tell you a lot. But, I like you cannot find another commodity that I would place so much faith in (especially in the current economic scenario).

[VegasVic]

i LOVE THIS THREAD.

Lots of people who have made masses of money.

My only question is , if you have all made so much money trading in gold,

What are you doing online in a (relatively) small forum telling everyone how to trade.

If I had made huge amounts on gold, I wouldnt tell anyone here, I would be sitting back in my 75 Mill condo

having my cappucino brought to me by one of my 12 beautiful thai maids !!!!!

Freddie

You must be new here. Thaivisa might be small forum but attacts the most successful investors in the world. Scarely anyone here has ever lost money on a trade nor failed to optimally time a market trend.

Thats right, thaivisa members always buy at the bottom and sell at the top and when a company is in trouble or closing in on bankruptcy, a post magically appears how a particular thaivisa member or members shorted said stock at the exact 52 week high OK back to reality now As far as gold goes it is heading for a blow off top. I have never seen so many regular investors (non gold bugs) buying gold, even hedge funds newly set up for gold, all the while the underlying fundementals for gold haven't changed or have slightly worsened, gold just might be the perfect contrarian play. Industrial demand for the precious metal has actually declined slightly and the extraction price (around $250/ounce, thats without figuring the ancilary benefit of the copper that is extracted at the same time) has remained fairly constant for many years now. So why is gold at $900/ounce? Basically it is the same reason that Enron once sold for $100/sh or that Mickey Mantle baseball cards once sold for $1000/ea, it is a type of mass hysteria better known as the greater fool theory! When you have slowing economies like we currently have in Europe and America, discresionary income is rarely used to buy gold jewelry, and when the Chinese equity markets make their major correction (or crash) this year and those paper profits dissapear all of a sudden for millions of investors, then a good deal of that gold that has been horded by by the chinese and other asians will start hitting the market. It appears that many thais have already started to sell their horde, as one of the previous posts here indicate (a good move on their part) , this is just the begining as gold in other SE asian countries will find their way to market and then later this year in China. Some here will remember that in august of 2007 I was negative on an investment in gold for the long term (as I am currently) and I freely admit that a gold trade between then and now has been a great trade (if indeed you sold and are not still holding), but I did say back then if you must get some exposure to gold then buy Yamana Gold (AUY), then at about $9.50/sh and currently at around $16/sh, this stock has far outpreformed the metal itself. If anyone did buy Yamana back then then I would certainly advise to take a nice chunk off the table now (at least get your original investment back and ride the free shares for a little longer). I would liken my call in august to those few that had warned people about Enron at $70/sh, it didn't look like a good call when Enron proceeded to $100, but it sure looked good when Enron went sub dollar! No I am not saying that gold is going to zero, it will always have some commercial-industrial use and some intrinsic aesthetic value, but worldwide currencies are not going to go back to a gold backing and sometime this year the fundementals will prevail over the hysteria, just as it always does. Good luck to all of you out there, I sincerely hope that you all sell at the top

Vic,

Yamana was one of Cramer's picks. Almost every night on "Mad Money" he emphasized that you should buy it unless you wanted to spend your golden years "drinking cheap Scotch on a cold linoleum floor". I'm going to assume that one can substitute Sang Som for the Scotch.

KD, I have heard Cramer mention Yamana recently (and obviously I disagree with him on where gold is going from here) now that it is a high flyer, however I am not so sure that Cramer was talking about Yamana when I mentioned it on one of the thaivisa gold threads back in the middle of August, when it was at $9 and change. I have to admitt that I am not much of a cramer fan, but if he was talking about Yamana back then I give him kudos (it just goes to show that even Cramer is right once in a while). There may very well still be a trade in gold left, but given the rapid rise, the weak fundamentals and the overall euphoria and hysteria in the gold markets I see the downside risk (and gold has a very substantial downside risk once it is out of favor again) outweighing any possible upside potential from its current level. The one negative long term thing about gold that I failed to mention in my previous post is that one of the reasons that gold has been so sought after over the milenia is that gold does not corrode or decay in any way, so every ounce of gold ever mined in the history of the world is still with us and there are millions of new ounces of gold mined every year hitting the market and with the price at current levels there are hundreds of both old and new mines that are being opened and reoped. This market has been driven up on pure speculation with no regard to underlying fundamentals, and as history tells us situations like this have a very bad endings. The gold bugs will likely hold on and watch as gold moves back to the $400/ounce range, but its the people that have been roped in during the recent frenzy in the gold market thinking that gold is actually a good investment that will get hurt, I just hope some of them get out in time when gold begins its downturn.

[AlexLah]

Hi all,

I predicted in the beginning of 2007 that the gold price to be around 13000 Baht end of 2007.

Recieved all kind off PM's saying I was crazy.

And what happened, it went up to 13.100 end of 2007

End of this year it will be around 21000, mark my words.

Time stamped and proven.

The question is: How did I know......

[kdvsn]

i LOVE THIS THREAD.

Lots of people who have made masses of money.

My only question is , if you have all made so much money trading in gold,

What are you doing online in a (relatively) small forum telling everyone how to trade.

If I had made huge amounts on gold, I wouldnt tell anyone here, I would be sitting back in my 75 Mill condo

having my cappucino brought to me by one of my 12 beautiful thai maids !!!!!

Freddie

You must be new here. Thaivisa might be small forum but attacts the most successful investors in the world. Scarely anyone here has ever lost money on a trade nor failed to optimally time a market trend.

Thats right, thaivisa members always buy at the bottom and sell at the top and when a company is in trouble or closing in on bankruptcy, a post magically appears how a particular thaivisa member or members shorted said stock at the exact 52 week high OK back to reality now As far as gold goes it is heading for a blow off top. I have never seen so many regular investors (non gold bugs) buying gold, even hedge funds newly set up for gold, all the while the underlying fundementals for gold haven't changed or have slightly worsened, gold just might be the perfect contrarian play. Industrial demand for the precious metal has actually declined slightly and the extraction price (around $250/ounce, thats without figuring the ancilary benefit of the copper that is extracted at the same time) has remained fairly constant for many years now. So why is gold at $900/ounce? Basically it is the same reason that Enron once sold for $100/sh or that Mickey Mantle baseball cards once sold for $1000/ea, it is a type of mass hysteria better known as the greater fool theory! When you have slowing economies like we currently have in Europe and America, discresionary income is rarely used to buy gold jewelry, and when the Chinese equity markets make their major correction (or crash) this year and those paper profits dissapear all of a sudden for millions of investors, then a good deal of that gold that has been horded by by the chinese and other asians will start hitting the market. It appears that many thais have already started to sell their horde, as one of the previous posts here indicate (a good move on their part) , this is just the begining as gold in other SE asian countries will find their way to market and then later this year in China. Some here will remember that in august of 2007 I was negative on an investment in gold for the long term (as I am currently) and I freely admit that a gold trade between then and now has been a great trade (if indeed you sold and are not still holding), but I did say back then if you must get some exposure to gold then buy Yamana Gold (AUY), then at about $9.50/sh and currently at around $16/sh, this stock has far outpreformed the metal itself. If anyone did buy Yamana back then then I would certainly advise to take a nice chunk off the table now (at least get your original investment back and ride the free shares for a little longer). I would liken my call in august to those few that had warned people about Enron at $70/sh, it didn't look like a good call when Enron proceeded to $100, but it sure looked good when Enron went sub dollar! No I am not saying that gold is going to zero, it will always have some commercial-industrial use and some intrinsic aesthetic value, but worldwide currencies are not going to go back to a gold backing and sometime this year the fundementals will prevail over the hysteria, just as it always does. Good luck to all of you out there, I sincerely hope that you all sell at the top

Vic,

Yamana was one of Cramer's picks. Almost every night on "Mad Money" he emphasized that you should buy it unless you wanted to spend your golden years "drinking cheap Scotch on a cold linoleum floor". I'm going to assume that one can substitute Sang Som for the Scotch.

KD, I have heard Cramer mention Yamana recently (and obviously I disagree with him on where gold is going from here) now that it is a high flyer, however I am not so sure that Cramer was talking about Yamana when I mentioned it on one of the thaivisa gold threads back in the middle of August, when it was at $9 and change. I have to admitt that I am not much of a cramer fan, but if he was talking about Yamana back then I give him kudos (it just goes to show that even Cramer is right once in a while). There may very well still be a trade in gold left, but given the rapid rise, the weak fundamentals and the overall euphoria and hysteria in the gold markets I see the downside risk (and gold has a very substantial downside risk once it is out of favor again) outweighing any possible upside potential from its current level. The one negative long term thing about gold that I failed to mention in my previous post is that one of the reasons that gold has been so sought after over the milenia is that gold does not corrode or decay in any way, so every ounce of gold ever mined in the history of the world is still with us and there are millions of new ounces of gold mined every year hitting the market and with the price at current levels there are hundreds of both old and new mines that are being opened and reoped. This market has been driven up on pure speculation with no regard to underlying fundamentals, and as history tells us situations like this have a very bad endings. The gold bugs will likely hold on and watch as gold moves back to the $400/ounce range, but its the people that have been roped in during the recent frenzy in the gold market thinking that gold is actually a good investment that will get hurt, I just hope some of them get out in time when gold begins its downturn.

Vic, Cramer was definitely pushing Yamana back in that timeframe but there were an awful lot of other stocks that he had/has equally bombastic opinions about. He's not exactly a goldbug though, despite his strongly worded opinions about the merits of the gold stock that he picked (Yamana, at the moment) he never recommended gold stocks for more than a small portion of one's portfolio. Despite all his bluster and his self-confidence in his ability to pick winning horses, he also trumpets the benefits of diversification. Cramer manages a portofolio of about 20 stocks online by subscription (he emails out "buy" and "sell" signals to subscibers each day on each of the stocks in the portfolio and he buy/sells using his money at the same time). For at least the past 4 years he's had one or two metals stocks in that portfolio. I know that around 2004 he had Newmont and Phelps Dodge in his portforio; at some point he jetissoned Newmont for Yamana; not sure what he did with Phelps Dodge or whether he added any other metals since then.

BTW, I'm not exactly a Cramer fan either, it's just that he's on TV so much and is so flamboyant that it's hard not to notice him. I do think that he really believes in the advice that he gives and don't doubt that he was a very successful trader when was a hedge fund manager, but I think that most people would be better off just putting thier money in an index fund rather than to ape his stratedgy of making 2 or 3 trades per day on 20 or more stocks. Maybe his subscribers are able to turn a buck by doing exactly the trades he says to do when he says to do them, but anyone watching his TV show and buying/selling based upon what he says on the air when he's in Crazy Eddie mode seems sure to get hurt.

[tropo]

Buying gold and selling gold is a rip off in Thailand (unless bullion) as the shops make you pay for 24ct but give you 23ct, pocketing the difference. then you pay for "work" which is fair enough. But when you want to sell, they won't give you the 24ct buy price rather a very discounted price which they then want to adjust downwards for "work". They then put it back in the shop window.

I asked them why on earth they would deduct for work if they were indeed smelting it and the thieving bugger had no answer.

This is not true. You pay for 96.5% gold. You're paying the spot price for gold on the day for the amount of gold you're purchasing. If you don't want to pay for manufacture, then just by the gold bars that every gold shop has for sale.

Obviously if you sell the jewelry back to a shop they're not going to pay you the manufacture cost of the item, but only the market price for the gold in the item on the day which, is advertised clearly in every window and in the newspapers. The gold price will be less to sell than to buy...it's called the gold dealers margin which is payable anywhere in the world you buy gold.

How do you think that gold dealers make money buying and selling gold? It's similar to the commission you pay a broker to buy and sell shares.

You're totally out of line calling them "thieving buggars" just because you don't have clue what's going on.

[tropo]

Hi all,

I predicted in the beginning of 2007 that the gold price to be around 13000 Baht end of 2007.

Recieved all kind off PM's saying I was crazy.

And what happened, it went up to 13.100 end of 2007

End of this year it will be around 21000, mark my words.

Time stamped and proven.

The question is: How did I know......

It was in the high 12's back in 2006. 13,000 was not much of stretch from there. Anyone knows that in times of economic panic gold goes up, but it's still way off its inflation adjusted high of 1980 at well over $2000.

[kdvsn]

KD, I have heard Cramer mention Yamana recently (and obviously I disagree with him on where gold is going from here) now that it is a high flyer, however I am not so sure that Cramer was talking about Yamana when I mentioned it on one of the thaivisa gold threads back in the middle of August, when it was at $9 and change. I have to admitt that I am not much of a cramer fan, but if he was talking about Yamana back then I give him kudos (it just goes to show that even Cramer is right once in a while). There may very well still be a trade in gold left, but given the rapid rise, the weak fundamentals and the overall euphoria and hysteria in the gold markets I see the downside risk (and gold has a very substantial downside risk once it is out of favor again) outweighing any possible upside potential from its current level. The one negative long term thing about gold that I failed to mention in my previous post is that one of the reasons that gold has been so sought after over the milenia is that gold does not corrode or decay in any way, so every ounce of gold ever mined in the history of the world is still with us and there are millions of new ounces of gold mined every year hitting the market and with the price at current levels there are hundreds of both old and new mines that are being opened and reoped. This market has been driven up on pure speculation with no regard to underlying fundamentals, and as history tells us situations like this have a very bad endings. The gold bugs will likely hold on and watch as gold moves back to the $400/ounce range, but its the people that have been roped in during the recent frenzy in the gold market thinking that gold is actually a good investment that will get hurt, I just hope some of them get out in time when gold begins its downturn.

Vic,

Also, I take your point about gold the amount of gold on the market increasing over time but it's not actually true that every ounce of gold ever mined is still with us and that it does not corrode or decay in any way. A fair amount of gold is used in manufacturing and is not economical to recycle afterwards. For example, there is gold bonding wire inside the majority of integrated circuit packages and it's widely used on surfaces of electrical contacts. Most of that gold heads straight to a landfill at the end of the life of whatever electronic product it's inside. Also, while not many things attack gold and it doesn't oxidize, it's not that case that it doesn't react with anything. Using the electronics example again, one of the common reliability problems in integrated circuits is aluminum diffusing into the gold bonding wires and forming one or more AuAl compouds and becoming brittle and in some cases corroding. There's plenty of other things that it will react to, do a google search and you'll find quite a few phase diagrams of gold vs various other metals. Or, try a little experiment and pour some potassium cyanide on on of your Krugerrands and observe happens to it. Probably though it is true that most of the gold that is mined reamains in circulation, but certainly not all.

Edited January 14, 2008 by kdvsn

[sonicdragon]

Last thing.. Just found comments from Richard Russell about the fed.. Says it so much better than I..

I still can't get over the whole Federal Reserve racket.

Consider the following - - let's take a situation where the U.S. government needs money. The U.S. doesn't just issue United States Notes, which, of course it could. These notes would be dollars backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. No, the U.S. doesn't issue dollars straight out of the U.S. Treasury.

This is what the U.S. does - - it issues Treasury Bonds. The U.S. then sells these bonds to the Fed. The Fed buys the bonds. Wait, how does the Fed pay for the bonds? The Fed simply creates money "out of thin air" (book-keeping entry) with which it buys the bonds. The money that the Fed creates from nowhere then goes to the U.S. The Fed holds the U.S. bonds, and the unbelievable irony is that the U.S. then pays interest on the very bonds that the U.S. itself issued. (With great profit to the private owners of The Fed - - Ed. Note) The mind boggles.

The damnable result is that the Fed effectively controls the U.S. money supply. The Fed is …not even a branch of the U.S. government. The Fed is not mentioned in the Constitution of the United States. No Constitutional amendment was ever created or voted on to accept the Fed. The Constitutionality of the Federal Reserve has never come before the Supreme Court. The Fed is a private bank that keeps the U.S. forever in debt - - or I should say in increasing debt along with ever rising interest payments.

How did the Fed get away with this outrage? A tiny secretive group of bankers sneaked through a bill in 1913 at a time when many in Congress were absent. Those who were there and voted for the bill didn't realize (as so often happens) what they were voting for (shades of the shameful 2002 vote to hand over to President Bush the power to decide on war with Iraq).

Why is this allowed to continue ?? Why is the population paying these secret bankers for this non service.. It baffles me..

To get a better understanding of this, it is necessary to realise how close the financiers of the time and the government became after a series of economic and financial crises in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the early 20th century. There is no way I can give a detailed account of these events here (books have been written on these topics) - but to summarise as much as possible: several booms, busts and stock market crashes occured. The banking industry (and in particular JP Morgan) "rode to the rescue" of the US economy on several occasions - most famously at the height of the Panic of 1907. The Fed was created mainly in response to these events. Apparently it seemed natural at the time for those with money and power in government to "reward" the financiers by allowing their privately owned institution to have control over the issuance of the currency. Another view is that giving ownership of the Fed to the financiers was compensation for taking away a very big source of income from them: arguably, many of the aforementioned events were caused directly or indirectly by the actions of the banking industry (eg. a fight for control of major railroad assets that JPM was financing, which led to the crash of 1901), and in organising subsequent "rescues" they enriched themselves even further (eg. the resolution of the gold crisis of 1895)

Well from all I have read on the creation of the FED.. It was a bill snuck into another that sneaked through congress's (almost ??) last session before holidays, when many in congress were actually absent from the vote and those that were there did not understand what they voted for.. A total con job..

President Wilson then signed the Federal Reserve Act into law in 1913, reportedly he said, "I am a most unhappy man, I have unwittingly ruined my country…a great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of credit…the growth of the nation, therefore, and all of our activities are in the hands of a few men…"

Since then the fed has managed to destroy 97% of the dollars purchasing power, keep the US continually in debt to the fed for which it pays interest on money (bond issues) the fed creates for nothing, and let the US citizenship pay this secret cartel of bankers every time.. Again why is this tolerated ??

It is tolerated because an overwhelming majority of the electorate are completely ignorant about it. To the best of my knowledge, the quote you attributed to Wilson upon signing the legislation is a kind of urban legend - the second part is an amalgum of some passages from a book written by Wilson, and there is no record of the first part at all.

[LivinLOS]

Who said anything about replacing gold ? I said there are alternatives. Having studied economic history in depth I am very well aware of the reasons people buy gold, and it's long history. And it's because of my awareness of these things that I don't consider it a kind of holy grail that many people seem to do. It forms a (rather overweight) part of my own investment portfolio along with a large range of commodities and other asset classes.

I understand exactly the point you are getting at.

The sophistication of today's markets means that golds 'portability' is no longer a great plus when it comes to investment. Why not invest in grains or oils - you couldnt do that in the past but you can now. Fair enough, that is why gold will never be as important as a store of value as it was in the past. However, the very fact that it still forms a rather 'overweight' part of your portfolio should tell you a lot. But, I like you cannot find another commodity that I would place so much faith in (especially in the current economic scenario).

But grains and other commodities are used for something, they decay, they expire, thier value fluctuates as they are easily created to fulfill greater demand. Gold is none of those things and hence is a far better store of wealth.

[LivinLOS]

i LOVE THIS THREAD.

Lots of people who have made masses of money.

My only question is , if you have all made so much money trading in gold,

What are you doing online in a (relatively) small forum telling everyone how to trade.

If I had made huge amounts on gold, I wouldnt tell anyone here, I would be sitting back in my 75 Mill condo

having my cappucino brought to me by one of my 12 beautiful thai maids !!!!!

Freddie

You must be new here. Thaivisa might be small forum but attacts the most successful investors in the world. Scarely anyone here has ever lost money on a trade nor failed to optimally time a market trend.

Thats right, thaivisa members always buy at the bottom and sell at the top and when a company is in trouble or closing in on bankruptcy, a post magically appears how a particular thaivisa member or members shorted said stock at the exact 52 week high OK back to reality now As far as gold goes it is heading for a blow off top. I have never seen so many regular investors (non gold bugs) buying gold, even hedge funds newly set up for gold, all the while the underlying fundementals for gold haven't changed or have slightly worsened, gold just might be the perfect contrarian play. Industrial demand for the precious metal has actually declined slightly and the extraction price (around $250/ounce, thats without figuring the ancilary benefit of the copper that is extracted at the same time) has remained fairly constant for many years now. So why is gold at $900/ounce? Basically it is the same reason that Enron once sold for $100/sh or that Mickey Mantle baseball cards once sold for $1000/ea, it is a type of mass hysteria better known as the greater fool theory! When you have slowing economies like we currently have in Europe and America, discresionary income is rarely used to buy gold jewelry, and when the Chinese equity markets make their major correction (or crash) this year and those paper profits dissapear all of a sudden for millions of investors, then a good deal of that gold that has been horded by by the chinese and other asians will start hitting the market. It appears that many thais have already started to sell their horde, as one of the previous posts here indicate (a good move on their part) , this is just the begining as gold in other SE asian countries will find their way to market and then later this year in China. Some here will remember that in august of 2007 I was negative on an investment in gold for the long term (as I am currently) and I freely admit that a gold trade between then and now has been a great trade (if indeed you sold and are not still holding), but I did say back then if you must get some exposure to gold then buy Yamana Gold (AUY), then at about $9.50/sh and currently at around $16/sh, this stock has far outpreformed the metal itself. If anyone did buy Yamana back then then I would certainly advise to take a nice chunk off the table now (at least get your original investment back and ride the free shares for a little longer). I would liken my call in august to those few that had warned people about Enron at $70/sh, it didn't look like a good call when Enron proceeded to $100, but it sure looked good when Enron went sub dollar! No I am not saying that gold is going to zero, it will always have some commercial-industrial use and some intrinsic aesthetic value, but worldwide currencies are not going to go back to a gold backing and sometime this year the fundementals will prevail over the hysteria, just as it always does. Good luck to all of you out there, I sincerely hope that you all sell at the top

Vic,

Yamana was one of Cramer's picks. Almost every night on "Mad Money" he emphasized that you should buy it unless you wanted to spend your golden years "drinking cheap Scotch on a cold linoleum floor". I'm going to assume that one can substitute Sang Som for the Scotch.

KD, I have heard Cramer mention Yamana recently (and obviously I disagree with him on where gold is going from here) now that it is a high flyer, however I am not so sure that Cramer was talking about Yamana when I mentioned it on one of the thaivisa gold threads back in the middle of August, when it was at $9 and change. I have to admitt that I am not much of a cramer fan, but if he was talking about Yamana back then I give him kudos (it just goes to show that even Cramer is right once in a while). There may very well still be a trade in gold left, but given the rapid rise, the weak fundamentals and the overall euphoria and hysteria in the gold markets I see the downside risk (and gold has a very substantial downside risk once it is out of favor again) outweighing any possible upside potential from its current level. The one negative long term thing about gold that I failed to mention in my previous post is that one of the reasons that gold has been so sought after over the milenia is that gold does not corrode or decay in any way, so every ounce of gold ever mined in the history of the world is still with us and there are millions of new ounces of gold mined every year hitting the market and with the price at current levels there are hundreds of both old and new mines that are being opened and reoped. This market has been driven up on pure speculation with no regard to underlying fundamentals, and as history tells us situations like this have a very bad endings. The gold bugs will likely hold on and watch as gold moves back to the $400/ounce range, but its the people that have been roped in during the recent frenzy in the gold market thinking that gold is actually a good investment that will get hurt, I just hope some of them get out in time when gold begins its downturn.

Do you have any idea how long it takes to get a mine into operation ?? 5 - 10 years time delay behind the market..

Gold shines when other investments look risky.. The global financial system is looking risky.. America is looking into the face of a rescession.. Inflation is raging and possible to get worse.. How are those not good 'fundamentals' for safe haven asset buying ??

[sonicdragon]

Who said anything about replacing gold ? I said there are alternatives. Having studied economic history in depth I am very well aware of the reasons people buy gold, and it's long history. And it's because of my awareness of these things that I don't consider it a kind of holy grail that many people seem to do. It forms a (rather overweight) part of my own investment portfolio along with a large range of commodities and other asset classes.

I understand exactly the point you are getting at.

The sophistication of today's markets means that golds 'portability' is no longer a great plus when it comes to investment. Why not invest in grains or oils - you couldnt do that in the past but you can now. Fair enough, that is why gold will never be as important as a store of value as it was in the past. However, the very fact that it still forms a rather 'overweight' part of your portfolio should tell you a lot. But, I like you cannot find another commodity that I would place so much faith in (especially in the current economic scenario).

But grains and other commodities are used for something, they decay, they expire, thier value fluctuates as they are easily created to fulfill greater demand. Gold is none of those things and hence is a far better store of wealth.

LivinLOS, I was mainly referring to other precious metals when I talked about alternatives. Silver, platinum, palladium....

Abrak, I am overweight in precious metals and agricultural commodites, and that's why I'm also overweight gold. Actually I have started to reduce my exposure to gold, since I feel that the exposure I have through various funds I own is getting too high relative to the other commodities in those funds Thus I am now selling ETF and other paper gold I own (citibank Gold Manager).

[LivinLOS]

Who said anything about replacing gold ? I said there are alternatives. Having studied economic history in depth I am very well aware of the reasons people buy gold, and it's long history. And it's because of my awareness of these things that I don't consider it a kind of holy grail that many people seem to do. It forms a (rather overweight) part of my own investment portfolio along with a large range of commodities and other asset classes.

I understand exactly the point you are getting at.

The sophistication of today's markets means that golds 'portability' is no longer a great plus when it comes to investment. Why not invest in grains or oils - you couldnt do that in the past but you can now. Fair enough, that is why gold will never be as important as a store of value as it was in the past. However, the very fact that it still forms a rather 'overweight' part of your portfolio should tell you a lot. But, I like you cannot find another commodity that I would place so much faith in (especially in the current economic scenario).

But grains and other commodities are used for something, they decay, they expire, thier value fluctuates as they are easily created to fulfill greater demand. Gold is none of those things and hence is a far better store of wealth.

LivinLOS, I was mainly referring to other precious metals when I talked about alternatives. Silver, platinum, palladium....

Abrak, I am overweight in precious metals and agricultural commodites, and that's why I'm also overweight gold. Actually I have started to reduce my exposure to gold, since I feel that the exposure I have through various funds I own is getting too high relative to the other commodities in those funds Thus I am now selling ETF and other paper gold I own (citibank Gold Manager).

No harm in locking in profits.. No one went to the poorhouse doing that...

Tho at this moment I am staying in with a watchful eye.. I feel of the 3 stages, accumulation, appreciation and mania we are only entering stage 2 as the general market wakes up, when everyone you speak to starts recommending thier favourite jnr mining share thats when the mania arrives and I will start to feel edgy..

Plus as someone much smarter than me said, you always long something.. Right now I dont feel good about being long any fiat currency given monetary expansion (and hence inflation) and its not yet time to get back into property / land.. I think this next 1 - 2 years could have some really scary ecomonic pictures and real estate collapses.. If that does as I think and gold spikes further it will probably be time to sell out the gold and buy large scale land / commercial property / profit performing estate (back in the west of course) at pennies on todays pound.

[tropo]

Do you have any idea how long it takes to get a mine into operation ?? 5 - 10 years time delay behind the market..

It won't take that long, but you can be sure that some older pre-existing and previously unprofortable mines will be kicking back into operation. Escpecially in South Africa.

[kdvsn]

Do you have any idea how long it takes to get a mine into operation ?? 5 - 10 years time delay behind the market..

It won't take that long, but you can be sure that some older pre-existing and previously unprofortable mines will be kicking back into operation. Escpecially in South Africa.

I bet that the US Treasury is able to ramp up money supply much quicker than any miner is able to ramp up gold production.

Edited January 15, 2008 by kdvsn

[lapamita]

GOLD go further up until the day comes the BOMB of.........making BUM

1. national DERIVATE problem ,only JPM has 80 trillion USD outstanding

2. Creditcrisis

3. shrinking industrialporduktion

4. high inflationrates compare to low intrestrates and high moneysupply M3 and M2

5. extremly high govermentdepts and consumerdepts.

i want to see the DERIVATE problem exploding,,there are NO meassures outside to help,even the FED is not able to help.

at the day this happen,,the goldprice would peak,,,and pappermponey is ????? whatever worse

www.nowandfutures.com

[Jai Dee]

Gold ornament price stays at 14,550 baht

The Gold Traders Association of Thailand announced yesterday (January 15th) that one baht of gold ornament, or 15.2 grams of gold, is bided at 13,841.08 baht and offered at 14,550 baht. At the same time, a gold bar is bought at 14,050 baht and sold at 14,150 baht.

The gold price in the United States has hit another high today, mainly due to the depreciating US dollar and the investors' anticipation of the FED’s interest cut. The gold price in US is at 903.40 US dollars per ounce, increasing 5.70 US dollars, or by 0.6 percent.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 16 January 2008

[Jai Dee]

Gold ornament price stays at 14,650 baht

The Gold Traders Association of Thailand announces today (January 28th) that one baht of gold ornament, or 15.2 grams of gold, is bided at 13,947.20 baht and offered at 14,650 baht. At the same time, a gold bar is bought at 14,150 baht and sold at 14,250 baht.

The price increased by another 50 baht during the afternoon trade session.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 28 January 2008

[Jai Dee]

Gold ornament price hit 14,800 baht

The Gold Traders Association of Thailand announces today (January 29th) that one baht of gold ornament, or 15.2 grams of gold, is bided at 14,098.80 baht and offered at 14,800 baht. At the same time, a gold bar is bought at 14,300 baht and sold at 14,400 baht. The price increased by another 50 baht during the afternoon trade session.

Gold merchants indicate that the constant high prices of gold are in line with the gold trade in New York, the United States of America. Investors expect that the US Federal Reserves will likely trim the interest rate down between 0.25 and 0.50 percent, and this will cause the US dollar to depreciate.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 29 January 2008

[Abrak]

I am a relatively new investor in bullion like many people - buying in last October. I bought GLD, SLV, CEF (Central Fund of Canada). All have done fine.

My big disappointment has been Newmont Mining (NEM). How an unhedged mining share should perform quite so badly when the gold price is going up I dont quite get. I cant quite decide whether it is just a dog or I should really buy some more.

[Jai Dee]

Gold ornament price stays at 14,600 baht

The Gold Traders Association of Thailand announces today (February 4th) that one baht of gold ornament, or 15.2 grams of gold, is bided at 13,901.72 baht and offered at 14,600 baht. At the same time, a gold bar is bought at 14,100 baht and sold at 14,200 baht.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 04 February 2008

[Abrak]

Some of the people rubbishing gold investment really dont get it.

Nobody is saying that there is anything so special about gold now that you should have it. Its price performance is merely a reflection of a complete lack of confidence in currencies such as the dollar. It really is hard to argue that - given the fundamentals - dollar cash will outperform gold. That has been true for a while.

Personally, as a short term trade, I think the opposite might be true. I am tempted to take some profit from some of my bullion positions and sit on cash for a while - simply on the basis of (1) price performance and (2) the fact that I think the worst of the panic is out of the way in markets for a while.

I always thought the Fed would have to drop rates significantly to ease the sub prime/bad debt problems in the US but I didnt think they could achieve this while maintaining some confidence in the dollar. All credit to them...

[andreme]

Record highs are impressive, but it seems there's a dizzying array of ways to invest and every gold enthusiast seems to have their own theories. I've become obsessed with this question while researching an article I wrote on the subject for Mahalo.com. If anyone reading this post has any knowledge in this area, please have a look at the article and send some feedback. It's online, so never too late to revise, and I'm wary of spreading falso info.

Here's the link:

http://www.mahalo.com/How_to_Invest_in_Gold

Here's an excellent WSJ article I found too:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120...5.html?mod=blog

[BigSnake]

I for one don't care to buy gold. It's to easy to sell if stolen. Insurance company want cover it. So if someone break into your home, office or car and steal it, you are fresh out of luck. It can be a good investment but the risks are high.

[Jai Dee]

Gold ornament price stays at 14,500 baht

The Gold Traders Association of Thailand announces today (February 15th) that one baht of gold ornament, or 15.2 grams of gold, is bided at 13,841.08 baht and offered at 14,550 baht. At the same time, a gold bar is bought at 14,050 baht and sold at 14,150 baht.

Source: Thai National News Bureau Public Relations Department - 15 Febuary 2008

[Jai Dee]

Gold prices at new record high

The price of gold ornaments hit a new high yesterday, reaching Bt14,900, while gold bar price touched Bt14,500.

Gold Trader Association president, Jitti Tangsithpakdi, said the high prices would chop gold transactions by 50-60 per cent this year, on assumption that the gold prices would remain above Bt14,000.

"It is difficult the price will soften in light of US economic slowdown and surging oil prices which boost gold demand in the global market," he said

However, he believed that without irregular situation, gold prices in Thailand would not breach Bt15,000 level due to the stronger baht.

Source: The Nation - 27 February 2008