Gold advanced in Asia, rebounding from its biggest decline in more than a week, as concerns that the global economic recovery is faltering helped fuel investor interest in the metal as a store of value.

Gold for immediate delivery rose 0.2 percent to $1,229.73 an ounce at 1:16 p.m. in Singapore, after dropping 0.4 percent on Aug. 20 as the dollar jumped as much as 1 percent. December- delivery futures gained 0.2 percent to $1,231.40 an ounce.

“Gold may attempt to build a base above $1,220 before continuing on its upward trend,” said Ong Yi Ling, Singapore- based investment analyst with Phillip Futures Pte Ltd. “Concerns over the economic recovery will continue to support gold prices.”

Nineteen of 24 traders, investors and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, or 79 percent, said the metal will gain this week. Four forecast lower prices and one was neutral. Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators increased their net-long position in New York gold futures in the week ended Aug. 17, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data.

Speculative positions, or bets prices will rise, outnumbered short positions by 204,228 contracts on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the Washington- based commission said in its Commitments of Traders report. Net- long positions rose by 13,541 contracts, or 7 percent, from a week earlier.

Gold strengthened 12 percent this year, reaching an all- time high of $1,650.30 an ounce in June, as investors sought to protect their wealth against financial turmoil in Europe and the prospect of currency debasement. European Central Bank council member Axil Weber said on Aug. 19 that the ECB should help banks through liquidity tensions before determining in the first quarter when to withdraw emergency lending measures.

‘Well Supported’

The euro traded near a five-week low against the dollar ahead of European data that may show growth in the 16-nation region’s services and manufacturing industries slowed in August. Reports this week forecast to show U.S. existing home sales fell and Japan’s export growth slowed in July.

Time is running out for the dollar

Gold is linked to the US dollar and in a simple equation strong dollar = weaker gold, weak dollar higher gold price. The future strength of the dollar depends on the economic prospects for America and they are not good, therefore the dollar will weaken and gold strengthen. On top of these there are moves afoot to remover the dollar from its status of reserve currency which to date has been a factor supporting for the dollar.

Earlier I reported that Europe can no longer support its very expensive social welfare programs and the shrinking working population will not be able to support the growing pensioners with there over generous pensions and of course the ugly head of unemployment.

I also indicated that the US viewed the European situation with derision as its old fashioned ideas dictated that its time was over.  “Judge not lest you be judged” as written in Mathew 7.1 is very applicable to the American situation.

The prosperity of the USA after World War II led to an explosion of population  who were labeled the  baby boomers  and they total some 78 million. These now approach retirement and will collect benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that, on average, exceed per-capita GDP. The annual costs of these entitlements will total about $4 trillion in today’s dollars.

The U.S. is bankrupt, tax, retirement benefits and health care are in a mess

Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.  With a $4 trillion fiscal gap the US have three courses of action or a combination of the three – reduce significantly the benefits of the “baby boomers” – huge tax increases – print more money, which is the current policy.  Realistically printing money needs to be supported by the reduction of benefits and increases in taxes.

Additionally last month the IMF has effectively pronounced the U.S. bankrupt by stating  “The U.S. fiscal gap associated with today’s federal fiscal policy is huge for plausible discount rates.” It adds that “closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of U.S. GDP.”

Rather than be judgemental of Europe the U.S. should look at themselves and realize they are potentially in a worse financial state than Greece

For some time now both Russia and China have been pushing for an alternative to the dollar as the reserve currency. While the West has been forced to sell  off assets to compensate for loss or to pay off debt, cash rich China has been buying assets, in particular gold and using those assets as a form of currency to offset the increasing fragile dollar. This is all part of a long term strategy to boost their own currency the Yuan to become an internationally accepted currency.

If that was not enough in the last few weeks the United Nations report “World Economic and Social Survey 2010: Retooling Global Development” called for the creation of a new global reserve currency to replace the U.S. dollar as the single major reserve currency.
“The dollar has proved not to be a stable store of value, which is a requisite for a stable reserve currency,” it said.
It suggested that the reserve should be based on  the existing  Special Drawing rights  (SDRs) created by the IMF to supplement member countries reserves: but with a new basket to reflect the changing weight of global economies  and include emerging countries currencies ( the Yuan) thus downgrading the importance of the dollar.
“To summarize, reducing dependence on the dollar through increased use of a created currency made up of a basket of currencies such as the SDR could be a significant step towards greater stability in the world economy,” the report concluded.

Compare the dollar to the British Empire, once the greatest the world has known, which  has now out lived its usefulness and faded into the memory of once what was. The dollar has not yet fallen that far but it is well on its way and gold will become more important and stronger as a result.

Maurice Hall

We need to go that way to avoid the rocks

The European Union is facing an economic and political crisis that threatens the single currency, exposes greed, bureaucratic strangulation, unsustainable social welfare programmes, raises questions on protectionism and the very fabric of the free market. If that was not enough, the weakness of its leaders becomes apparent and two of the giants France and Germany support a different solution. There is a very English phrase “ to muddle through” and that is what European leaders have been doing and hope they can continue doing so as not to put emphasis on radical change that can upset the apple cart either internally or externally. Muddling through depends on growth.

The European Union is still the world’s largest economy supporting over 500 million people of diverse race, cultures and languages. However, the EU is facing both an economic and a political crisis as governments and companies cannot easily borrow money and the euro wobbles. Initially the weakness of the euro was shrugged off as speculation and Anglo-Saxon conspiracy, but the real problem is that social welfare in many countries is so protected and expensive that it is strangling the economies. Europe has to grow just to maintain its welfare systems and innovation just to pay for increasing old age pensions and unemployment is not inspirational. Of the 27 countries in the EU only Poland managed positive growth in 2009, while it is true that recently many have now turned positive, but it can only be described as mediocre. Outside of Europe the perception is that the protectionist policies for citizen welfare indicate that there is no longer the guts to tackle the problems. A sick Europe benefits nobody and arguably, were it healthy, then the worst of the global crisis would be over.

It is the courage of Europe’s leaders to initiate structural reform that comes into question. As Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg, said memorably in 2007-  “We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.”  Many of Europe’s problems stem from election seeking misallocation of public spending with years of subsidizing powerful interest groups, increasing civil service payrolls, early retirement schemes, job protection and unemployment benefits. Between 2005 and 2030 the working-age population of the European Union will shrink by 20m, and the number of those over 65 will increase by 40m. In Belgium only 35% of citizens over the age of 55 work. It is almost impossible to sack a person in Spain, great for those in work but for the 40% youth unemployment that it generates, it is immoral.   European leaders underestimate the realism of the voters and proposals in the UK and Netherland to raise the retirement age to as high as 70 have met with moans but no angry protest.  In France, according to an opinion poll proposals to increase the retirement age were unjust and did produce the usual French protest, few disagree that the current state pension scheme faces insolvency.

The single market does not truly exist and the EU is almost a third less productive than its American counter parts in services, because countries hide behind national barriers and so do not gain full economies of scale. Anyone who has worked in a multi national industry knows how difficult it is to get policies implemented, products introduced or to comply with a European directive that has been interpreted 27 different ways into national law. No company with any sense would open a factory or an office in France, Italy and some other EU countries, where protectionist employment laws could kill that company. I personally know of a case where a multi national company was trying to tighten its purse strings to remain solvent and Italian law forced that company to increase the salary of Italian employees and maintain periodic pay rises. In desperate times protectionism has raised its head. In France with Mr. Sakozy suggesting that French cars for French drivers should not be made in former Eastern bloc countries and the EC had to intervene to stop Germany offering incentives to a consortium proposing to buy the failing Opel company, to keep the German factories open to the detriment of more cost effective plants elsewhere.

This crisis has the ability to pull countries closer together or pull them further The key is Germany where they are furious that they have to bail out other countries until they realize that they created the situation in the first place. Germany companies have done very well and the economy has grown with exports particularly to Greece where they have risen by 130% in the last 10 years. So how did Greece pay for these exports. with loans from German banks. Therefore, it is essential that they and the French to a lesser extent rally around the single currency as they are sat on a large amount of southern Europe sovereign debt. That has been the pattern the industrious north has done well but those around the Mediterranean have been affected by the sun leaving the idyllic life but unable to pay for it. Great for a holiday but not for life, in fact Greece has become the most obese in Europe where once they had one of the healthiest diets.

The alternative approach is to a number of separatist theories with retraction from the Euro or a North South divide where the super efficient North have a strong euro and the languid south another. Which would France join?

Practically what can EU leaders do and which direction can they take and what have they done so far?  To date there have been last gasp austerity measures that may well in the short term pacify the bond market but is a risky course of action. These measures will inevitably lead to a weakening growth rate and increased unemployment. The same arguments were the difference between Labour and the coalition in how to solve the UK’s financial problems where at least there is time as the UK’s debt has the longest due date of all in Europe. Now Spain, Greece and Portugal face a log hard struggle to rebalance their economies

Markets have lost faith in the euro and the hope was that the economies of the 16 countries that use the euro would converge. The struggle to regain creditability with markets has lead to a divergence on the course to be taken by Germany and France. Germany has gone for stricter rules and discipline on borrowing and spending, sanctioning governments who fail to toe the line to the extent of freezing funds for EU mega projects and suspension of voting rights. The French favour a system of redistribution from richer to poorer members with some fiscal and social harmonization.

Germany’s proposals are unworkable, the reaction to losing voting rights is unacceptable particularly to the former communist countries where there has been such hard work to lead to democracy. Stopping funding on EU mega products where they cross boarders could penalize other countries. To redistribute, as the French recommend, to save the euro would require an equally unacceptable step towards political union.

What is the likely outcome?. It is likely to be a  form of compromise with temporary rescue packages, informal and semi formal discussions and agreements – in other words a muddle through.

It is possible for the EU to agree and force through essential legislation when it is a matter of survival. A key demand to European business is an EU wide patent that has been stuck for years over the status given languages in Spain and Italy. On 1^st July the EC forced this through to be valid in all 27 countries. Another example of the power of the EU market is where Germany was told it could not spend taxpayer’s money to protect Opel jobs in Germany without the same support to other countries. It is possible that the people understand the need for a free market economy better than their leaders where in a recent pole 73% of Germans and 67% of French said they were better off in a free market. Interestingly a greater percentage than in the middle of the boom and greater than America. We have already mentioned the need to pay for pensions and the less than feared reaction to raising the pension age. In the countries brought to the brink of disaster, the civil unrest was much less than expected and dominated by public sector workers with safe jobs. The leaders should have courage as this crisis gives the excuses for radical reform and there are hints that citizens are prepared to take there medicine.

However, the best bet would be a muddle through and hope for the growth that is needed to sustain it. An opportunity lost.

Maurice Hall

Originally the regulators, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS), were only to look at the biggest European banks but they expanded the list to include 91, after there were some worries over some medium sized banks.  Collectively these 91 banks represent 65% of the European banking sector and the number and size of banks vary from country to country but must be at least 50% of each countries banking sector.

The failure rate was lower than expect as many experts predicted that as many as 12 would fail. Of the seven that failed 5 were from Spain (Diada, Espiga, Bianca Civica,Unnim and Cajasur, one from Germany (Hypo Real Estate) and one from Greece (ATEBank).

By conducting these tests it was hoped that international confidence would be restored to help finance economic recovery and to overcome the worry that European banks were either not strong enough to withstand a double dip recession or have large exposure to countries that might default on their debts. Also to identify any vulnerable bank so steps can be take to strengthen them. The aim is to continually test out the resilience of banks in the EU periodically and undertake a continuing program of improvement.

The banks were tested in scenarios where different assets might fall significantly in value, such as the collapse of a property market and if this resulted in losses so great that the banks capital was wiped out, then insolvency would result. E.g. if a loan cannot be recovered the bank writes down its capital by the amount of the loss and the investors take that loss and if the banks assets cannot repay all of its borrowings then insolvency follows.

The banks that failed will have to agree a plan over given time period to resolve their shortcomings.  The five Spanish banks to fail were regional savings banks with heavy losses due the downturn in the Spanish property market, but savings banks have been undertaking a restructuring process by the Bank of Spain so the overall picture in Spain is was considered sound.

The British Bankers Association said that work had already been  put in to strengthen UK banks and the four major UK banks RBS, Lloyds, HSBC and Barclays exceeded the standards set.  Also tested and passed was the Spanish giant Santander who own Abbey, Bradford and Bingley and the Alliance & Leicester in the UK, as was the Bank of Ireland who provide the banking services for the UK Post Office.

There are market concerns as although the EU set the parameters for these tests, they were conducted by national regulators who may have been lenient on their own banks. The test is against a ratio of tier one capital (capital of the highest quality) which is a core measure of the banks financial strength and a measure of insurance against loss. The trouble is that some of the forms of capital used in the test proved useless against losses in the recent crisis, thus the measure is more favourable to the bank. This pales into insignificance against the real problem with these tests and that is there is no test against sovereign debt, which is what brought us to crisis with Greece on the verge of bankruptcy.  So this appears to be more of a political exercise, as the EU will not even contemplate that a country within it, would default on its debt

However, the test that confidence has returned will be if today, the interbank lending market makes it easier for banks to borrow.

Read full report and results

Maurice Hall

During World War II the British sovereign was the only tangible and reliable currency in Greece and they were hoarded and hidden in every conceivable place. A girls dowry would often include a cache of sovereigns.  They were parachuted in to fund the Greek resistance to the German occupation. War is a crisis but now the Greek population face the crisis of being unable to repay its debts and once again they turn to the sovereign as the currency of choice.

It is remarkable and a tribute to the sovereign that it remained legal currency long after the war due to the unstable drachma until eventually in 1965  the Greek government placed restrictions on trading resulting in many hoarders cashing in their stocks. Even so at the slightest hint of uncertainty, and there have been many, the Greeks turned to their favourite foreign gold coin.

Greece has not really had a true period of financial stability for decades and markets are wondering whether they will default on repaying their debt given past behaviour  so the uncertainties  are understandable. The population is in panic resorting to strikes and riots and fear that Greece may leave the eurozone.

Once again  have returned to their known safe haven, the sovereign, as a hedge against financial collapse causing the the demand to increase year on year and the price to rise dramatically. For weeks citizens have been queueing at Athens central bank to buy sovereigns and have been prepared to pay the highest prices. It is estimated that in the first 4 months of the year 50,000 sovereigns were sold legally and as the demand increased so did the black market  and at least 100,000 were sold illegally with price up to €300 (£252).  The uncertainty and fear has driven people to pay a huge premium of almost 40% over the current value of the gold content to protect their wealth.

Without doubt the British sovereign has been the gold coin that has world wide recognition as mechanism for survival  whether it be a financial or physical crisis – see our article “Gold sovereigns open doors”

Maurice Hall

There are two camps of how to return the UK economy to growth and reduces our heavy debt, spend and cut or simply cut. What ever your personal view the new coalition government has decided that we will swallow the austerity pill with drastic cuts.  This has gone down well and the pound is at its strongest against the euro since November 2008 and the euro itself strengthened after the European central Bank has tightened monetary conditions.

We have seen a pull back in the gold price, but is this down to austerity which is the new buzz word in the UK and Europe. So as we start to live within our means does that mean that the need for gold as an insurance is weakened ?. We are rightly entangled in European economics as this is what affects our daily lives, but we found in 2008 that greed and subsequent collapse in America created an economic crisis in Europe, the worse since 1929 and the great depression. We are still feeling the affects and the steps taken to pump the economy lead to unprecedented sovereign debts and the collapse of economies in southern Europe. However, gold is intrinsically linked to the dollar so nothing has changed as the US try and spend there way out of the downturn, print more money to devalue the currency and have huge sovereign debt.

In the UK with CPI above 3% and more significantly the RPI above 5% it is virtually impossible after taxation  to get a ROI that does not lose money over the year. So that combined with economic fragility that could still lead to contagion means the case for gold is still strong.

What we are seeing is the seasonal adjustment that has been running for the last 40 years.  Gold has followed both seasonal and super cycles for decades and we are in the summer adjustment as predicted by my article on this blog in March (When is a good time to buy gold ?). However, gold has been stronger than my prediction by more than $100 per ounce, driven by more exposure to the fragility of world economies and unprecedented demand.  In fact we reached the end of year high I predicted before going into the summer recess so I would expect the price to now rise in Q4 to beyond $1300.  Traditionally investors who bought in summer made money by selling in Q4 a simple short term gain that has been repeated time and again.  Look also to the supercycle where the cycle and the seasonality meet in Q4 2011 and expect at least $1500 per ounce for the longer term investment.

The case for gold has not weakened and now is the time to buy gold the bull has a long way to run. Think also about ROI as gold and particularly legal tender gold coins (sovereigns and Britannias) stand out as a way to beat inflation and taxation. We have the best conditions in the UK for investing in gold coins no VAT or TAX applied.

Maurice Hall

In June our sister site (L’Or et l’Argent) has run a series of articles that follow the theme of a “house of cards” starting with Greece whose only resources, tourism and olive oil are not enough to lift them out of bankruptcy and a similar situation in Portugal. The next contagion is Spain, an economic giant in comparison, where unemployment is rife and debt would reach €225 billion in 2010. Although Spanish debt continues to grow, it remains lower than France which is the largest in the euro zone. Outside of the Euro Great Britain is cited as a contender for a “house of cards” following austerity measures announced at the budget and the marginalisation  of the GBP as we through national pride refused to join the eurozone.

This is an interesting take from a European prospective and draws attention to the two trains of thought in economic growth. The 2008 economic crisis still affects us today, we in the UK and most of the western world are in an era of fragility that needs to be stabilised. We could attempt to spend your way out of it as and stabilise growth before taking cost cutting measures as was the policy of the labour party or cut back immediately and risk stifling any growth. Meanwhile across the Atlantic Barack Obama seems to believe that the US can just spend their way out of it and print more dollars.

To me, if likened to a house hold, first you must recognise your debt and here in the UK we have gigantic debts to overcome, then you must take action. Spending on plastic has its day of reckoning and eventual you must cut your card in half, review expenditure and come up with a budget  that enables you to pay essential bills  and gradually repay your excesses with money saved. The economy of the country is no different, to improve your credit rating you cut wasteful spending, improve efficiency and live within means to gradually ease the sovereign debt. Austerity measures in the UK seems to have won respect in world markets as GBP has risen both against the Euro and the USD and the FTSE 100 has recovered to over 5100. More importantly the economy has grown marginally in the manufacturing section.

I have to say I have been pro Euro particularly when we could have joined in a position of strength but now I am in many ways glad we are still separate. Despite the Euro’s recent rally there is too much of a divide between the countries in the Euro zone, the efficient North and the chaotic South to the extent that the Germans would like to get out of the Euro as they feel they do not want to support the fragility of countries in crisis such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy.

Do not the French and other eurozone countries recognize that the cost of pensions will drive many countries to bankruptcy. When many Europeans look at the UK, they scoff particularly at the raising of the pension age that is likely to reach 70 over a period of time.  There average ages of retirement age varies but in most countries people retire in their fifties and in Italy and France only 12%  are working beyond 60 years old.

Citizens should realise that there is a pensions time bomb with the average continental EU state pension equating to almost 60% of salary and with a much longer period of retirement, governments cannot afford it and it will drive many countries to bankruptcy.  A recent survey of 25 countries scored the UK highly and the affordability and sustainability of our pensions and France at the bottom. Those countries with such generous pensions and early retirement ages simply can no longer afford them and it will drive them to ruin. There needs to be a massive reformation, not only to increase working age  but to reduce the actual value, which would be so unpopular that one wonders if the their governments have the guts to take the action necessary.

In another time we should be screaming at our government at the unfairness of our pensions which are the lowest in Europe but with the aging population, the ratio of workers to pensions set to double and the current crisis we are in a stronger position to survive than our neighbours. Meanwhile proposals to raise the retirement age in France have typically been met with mass protests for what is a diminutive step to fight debt.

I am not suggesting by any means that there is reason for complacency in the UK situation and there is still danger of stalling economic growth as the cuts bite deeper but at least we have recognised the seriousness of sovereign debt while other bury their heads in the sand.

In the fragile countries of the eurozone, where sovereign debt could precipitate a financial collapse and even  in countries that fear the contagion, people are turning to gold as a protection and nowhere more so than in the strongest economy, Germany, where there is unprecedented investment in gold. In Britain we do not have a history with private individuals turning to  gold but rather we might buy a gold coin for commemorative purposes.  We are fortunate that we have so far not suffered hyper inflation, major currency devaluation or physical invasion so we do not hoard gold or in general even understand how gold can protect family wealth even though we have some of the best conditions in the world for gold investment. No VAT, no Capital Gains Tax on legal tender gold coins and up to 40% tax relief if we use gold within a Self Investment Pension Plan (SIPP). We need to save more to pay for our retirement and make wise investments, diversify our portfolios, utilise SIPPs and last but not least be aware of the potential of gold to protect our wealth.

Maurice Hall

I was listening to a programme on BBC Radio which is always an informative station and my ears pricked up on a discussion on the 2009 Bordeaux vintage which is reputed to be the best in 60 years.  I like wine very much but the grand Grands Crus of Bordeaux which have long catered for the discerning tastes of the elite in the western world are beyond my means. However, I thought it would be an interesting to understand why the wines are so great and if I had a rush of blood to the head and splashed out, what would be the best value for money. To my surprise there was little in the way of comparison of the various producers but a great deal on the destination of the very best of French wine

From the baroque tasting room of Chateau Mouton Rothschild, to the grand hall of the Union des Grands Crus, Chinese delegations declared their intent to siphon off huge quantities of first growths, the very best wines.  The price of the first growths are likely to cost £4000 per 12 bottle case and even as high as £1000 per bottle.  According to the Chinese importers money does not seem to be a problem and Lafite-Rothschild is said to be the tipple of choice for the Chinese industrialist.  Private companies are soaring and property values are rising fast so people have a lot of money.

You may wonder why I am writing about wine on a blog whose main interest is gold. Whilst critics were in raptures with the top wines from Haut-Brion, Margaux and Latour it seems to matter little to the Chinese consumer who are reported to glug their wine or dilute even the most expensive bottles with lemonade. The reason is one of economics, no longer do these famous vintages end up in the cellars of the rich in the western world and particularly recession hit America; but they have become prestigious gifts amongst Chinese business people.

Throughout history, all great powers have their day Egyptian, Greek, Roman. More recently countries such as Spain, France, and Great Britain all had periods of unrivalled power. Today, the United States still reigns as the world’s sole superpower but it is on the brink and is being credibly challenged by rising powers in Asia, India and more importantly China who have designs on world financial dominance. It is a process that will have huge implications for investors over the coming years. It is no surprise India is the greatest consumer of gold and China the largest producer.

The balance of power is swinging eastwards. First the West exported industrial plant to Asia leading to investment in technology in the East which coupled with a cheap workforce produced a number of startups. Their cost effectiveness captured markets normally supplied from the West and eventually western domestic markets were flooded by cheaper imports leading to a decline in the manufacturing base and vast trade deficits. Now we find our selves in a situation where we are even being financed by the East. Iconic UK brands MG and Jaguar are Chinese owned and the new Californian bullet train was not only funded by money borrowed from China but built by a Chinese company.

Sovereign debt is threatening the fabric of western society and dragging down our currencies. It reminiscent of the 1930s as austerity measures have been running in Ireland fore some time, problems in Greece and Spain have lead to strikes and a general strike is threatened in Italy. Portugal is in the same mould as Spain and Italy, later additions to the EU from former Eastern Europe are in great difficulty particularly Hungary, France has to tighten its belt and Germany is in a domestic struggle over the Euro. Outside the Euro zone, the UK debt is of a greater GDP of all but Spain and its only because our repayment has a longer time span that we are not in quite the same mess as Greece. If the June budget does not show sufficient promise to bring down our deficit our triple –A rating maybe under threat.

So how does the American superpower stand?. The economy is the country’s top concern, with persistently high unemployment the greatest threat the public sees. Eight of 10 Americans rate joblessness a high risk to the economy in the next two years, outranking the federal budget deficit, which is cited by 7 of 10. An increase in taxes is named as a high risk by almost 6 of 10. Fewer than 1 in 3 Americans think the economy will improve in the next six months….Only 32 percent of poll respondents believe the country is headed in the right direction, down from 40 percent who said so in September.” (Bloomberg).

The U.S. debt will top $13.6 trillion this year and climb to an estimated $19.6 trillion by 2015, according to a Treasury Department report to Congress. ( Reuter 8^th June). Economic contraction will continue with record numbers of foreclosures, personal bankruptcies, the highest rate of unemployment with millions more jobs to be lost as purse strings tighten.

Going back to the origination of this theme if Chinese businessmen can afford to mix lemonade with £1000 bottles of Bordeaux to impress friends and associates then there truly has been a swing to the East and that is where the demand for Gold will be driven. Currently the USD is the reserve currency but as power is being challenged so is the dollar as  both Russia and China are pushing for alternatives where gold may play a part.

Read the china Gold Report on this blog

Maurice Hall

In the credit crisis of 2008, gold went down with everything else. Gold stocks were hammered as the world deleveraged. But gold and gold stocks were also among the first to rise from the ashes. They made their low in November 2008, while the major Western stock indices carried on declining until March 2009.

Gold was not the safe haven it was touted to be. However, this only reflects what was happening in the paper markets of stocks, futures and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

In the ‘real world’, bullion dealers reported unprecedented activity. Such was global demand, that there was a Krugerrand supply crunch in South Africa; the US Mint was unable to supply gold and silver coins; and Tony Baird of Baird & Co, one of the UK’s main dealers, confessed to me that he could have had ten times the number of people working for him and still not have had enough staff.

And something similar is happening again today.

Germans are buying up gold fast

The FT ran a story on Saturday, headlined: ‘Germans lead gold rush frenzy’. It seems Germans are panicked by the inflationary implications of last week’s €750bn eurozone bail-out. They have been buying up gold coins and small bars at a faster rate than during the Lehman bankruptcy of autumn 2008. Krugerrands are now commanding a premium of about 8% above the spot price of their gold content.

“We have some extraordinary sales to German customers,” says Deborah Thomson, treasurer at the Rand refinery in South Africa. “The refinery,” writes Jack Farchy in the FT, “which usually sells 2,000 coins to each customer at a time, says that last week it received an order from one German bank for 30,000 coins. Another bank requested 15,000 coins”.

We seem to be threatened with another bout of deleveraging. But this time, unlike in 2008, gold has remained strong in the futures markets. In fact, it is sitting at a vital inflection point. Against the euro and the pound, both of which have been exceptionally weak, gold has gone near parabolic and has long since broken out to all-time highs.

Here we see gold against the pound. It costs nearly £850 an ounce – it was just £570 last summer.

And here is gold versus the collapsing euro:

Against the US dollar, however, it is trading at or barely above the all-highs of December 2009 at $1,224 an ounce.

The futures markets are where the price of gold is, largely, determined.

If I was a futures trader – and I’m not – I would be long gold (betting on the price to rise) in the belief that it could easily go parabolic from here, as has happened in euros and pounds when it broke out.

But, assuming that I have enjoyed a nice run, I wouldn’t want to give too much profit back, so I would also have my stops very tight, perhaps at just below $1,220 (near the old high). If not there, I might have them just a little lower, a little beneath the $1,200 mark.

Other traders might not think like me, but there is the danger, in my opinion, that just a small sell-off here could easily trigger a load of stops and drive the price down.

Why would gold sell off?

But why would gold sell off, given the circumstances? Well, for several reasons. First, sentiment – as demonstrated by the Germans – is wildly bullish. It is hard to find a gold bear out there. That is often a bearish sign.

Second, gold’s move has not been confirmed by silver. Silver, trading at $19 an ounce, is still $31 off its all-time high of 1980, and $3 – or 15% – off its more recent high of $22 set in spring 2008. I know silver has, for various reasons, a tendency to be rather, shall we say, errant, but like me at school, it should be doing better.

Third, gold’s move has not been confirmed by the gold stocks. These are still trading below their highs of March 2008 and December 2009. Perhaps that makes them a buy here, but purists like to see gold stocks leading gold.

Fourth, open interest on the futures exchange is extremely high, with the commercial traders short a worrying 282,644 contracts. These are often levels concomitant with a top.

Now, I am not calling a top here by any manner of means. I remain wildly bullish about gold in the long-term and think we are eventually going to go back to some kind of botched gold standard as the only solution to this ballooning monetary crisis that just won’t go away.

And in the event of ‘another bout of 2008′, I don’t think gold will be hit so hard. What was a credit crunch largely in the private sector is now morphing into a full-blown sovereign currency crisis. That should be bullish for gold.

But as I noted above, there are some grounds for ’short-term concern’, and it doesn’t do any harm to be aware of them.

A report by Dominic Frisby London 18th May 2010

We are well aware of France as the leading gold hoarder in Europe both in the central bank with second highest reserve and by private citizens who are reputed to have over 3000 tonnes in private hands. French gold is mainly in the form of gold Napoleons widely distributed as safe haven for family wealth. Whereas Italy is a consumer of gold whose jewellery industry is the world’s leader a tradition that goes back to Roman times; but they are not lacking in gold reserves either.  It is certainly worth exploring the Italian gold situation.

Central banks

The gold bullion stored beneath Rome’s Palazzo Koch stands at 2,451.8 tonnes, the fourth  largest central bank hoard in the world, just behind France as third in Europe. It has been unchanged at 2,451.8 tonnes for the last 11 years or more making Italy the only Eurozone nation not to sell any of its gold reserves since 1998. It’s also the only signatory to the Central Bank Gold Agreements of 1999 and 2004 not to sell any gold either. Italy’s fellow CBGA signatories, in contrast, have shrunk their gold reserves by more than one quarter on average.

Central Bank Holdings

Country                      Tonnes

USA                            8133.5

Germany                     3412.6

IMF                             3217.3

France                         2487.1

Italy                            2451.8

Gold Jewellery

Italy has a large jewellery industry contributing to a considerable portion of Italy’s economy and is located in the regions of Veneto, Toscana, Lombardia, Lazio and Piedmont. About 45,000 workers engaged in this sector and there are two major clusters located in Vicenza and Arezzo where there are over 2500 companies employing around 22,000 workers.

Fine Italian gold jewellery in both its handmade and mass manufactured designs generally continues to hold the lead in customer appeal for a variety of styles and products. Many Italian gold designs reflect hundreds of years of influence while still appealing to those who value trendy style, romance and quality. The country remains as largest producer of gold jewellery in the world and its exquisite designs date back to the fifth century. Over 400 tons of the precious metal a year is processed and shaped into beautiful bracelets, necklaces, earrings, rings, medallions, broaches and other items that are worn with pride by both men and women in every corner of the globe.

The home of the country’s first goldsmith organization is in Vicenza and dates back to the early 1300’s. From that time until the present, artisans have passed the trade down to subsequent generations. The city is also known to produce the best machinery for producing precious metal chains used in some of the finest pieces world wide. Combining machinery and handcrafted techniques, a goldsmith may produce only approximately 12 inches a day of chain to be later fashioned into necklaces or other finished pieces.

This technique takes years to learn and goldsmiths who achieve success in the art of chain production in Vicenza produce products that are adored by many jewelry connoisseurs.

Italy has faced substantial competition from lower-cost manufacturing centers in China, Turkey and India in recent years and its fabrication has declined. Its domestic market has suffered too as consumers, against the background of a sluggish economy and increased competition.

Despite this, Italy remains the undisputed leader of fashionable and high quality jewellery design and the city of Vicenza hosts the leading trade fair each year. This is not a position of complacency  as Turkey has the skill, a growing market is determined to overtake Italy  While demand for basic products is declining, that for more innovative and high quality pieces is now showing healthy growth.

Vincenza Oro’s fair for yellow gold remains a high selling point, and this year’s fair paid tribute to the market with Gold Expressions, a collaboration between the World Gold Council, the Vincenza fair, and sixty-nine premier Italian goldsmiths. The exhibit featured new and creative works (almost all in yellow gold) by the goldsmith artists invited to participate. The works are now scheduled to tour the China, the Middle East, and the United States as part of an international marketing campaign

The sector is coming from a very long and deep recession. The demand for gold and jewellery in 2009 recorded a steep fall of about 18% at world level with very marked downturns in the United States (-17%), in the Arab countries and in Europe. The sole sign of solidity came from the Chinese market where there was a 12% increase in the demand for gold and 8% growth in jewellery.
The forecasts indicate a market recovery for 2010, the scale of which will however be linked to the performance of the economy in the various parts of the world.

Gold Expressions is a collaboration between the World Gold Council, the Vincenza fair, and sixty-nine premier Italian goldsmiths. The  tour of China, India, the Middle East, and the United States as part of an international marketing campaign was successful particularly in the worlds greatest market, India, where the quality has attracted the new rich Indians.

Italian Gold Coins

20 Lire Victor Emanual

Italy for a large period of time was in the form of a number of states with different governing bodies, because of which various kinds of coins as currency were used. However, “fiorino d’oro” or the gold coins of the republic of Florence were probably the first European coin to be made and used in larger quantities. The time of the birth of the first Italian gold coin is estimated to around 1252. This gold coin had approximately 3.5 grams of gold content. Apart from fiorino d’oro, many other famous gold coins used as currency were ducat, scudo d’oro and sovranos. Italy began using the currency Lire from 1861 and were in production until 1940. The most readily available of modern Italian gold coins is the 20 lire of Victor Emanuel and Umberto 1

Italian Gold Coins as a safe haven

The Italian gold coins have now attained the status of being a collectors’ item. People buy and sell these coins and investors take them as safe investments because of rising prices of gold. Whilst the economy of Italy is not in such a dangerous state as Greece, it is incorporated in the Southern European euro demise.  An Economy Ministry document trimmed the forecast for 2010 gross domestic product growth to 1.0 percent from 1.1 percent and slashed the 2011 forecast to 1.5 percent from 2.0 percent. As fears grew of contagion from Greece’s debt crisis to other euro zone countries, Rome raised its public debt forecast to 118.4 percent of GDP this year, up from a forecast of 116.9 percent made in January. The 2011 forecast was hiked to 118.7 percent from 116.5 percent and 2012 raised to 117.2 percent from 114.6 percent.

In times of impending crisis families who understand the situation will try and protect their wealth in intangible gold.

Maurice Hall

People are questioning whether the bull  run on gold over the last decade reached its climax with the December 2009 high of $1227 and we are on a downward slope. Let’s compare the conditions in 1980 with today and we will find that they are quite different.

1980

In 1971, the United States suspended the free exchange of U.S. gold for foreign-held dollars, then in 1974 lifted its four-decade ban on the private purchase of gold. At that time, gold bullion was being traded in European markets at highs approaching $200 an ounce. In 1975, the U.S. government began to sell some of its holdings on the open market and in 1978, along with most other nations, officially abandoned the gold standard. After being released from government control, the price of gold soared and touched $850 in January 1980.  In the three years before 1980 gold price grew eightfold  as the result of mainly fear but also greed

In Dec 2009 the gold price soared to $1227 per ounce. So was this the zenith and comparable to the 1980 high? Was this the end of the bull market that was running for almost a decade?.

There are many differences between 1980 and today not least of which the world is not the same following the most significant financial crisis since the great depression of the 1930’s, global warming threatening our existence and the economic balance between East and West swinging to the East. In 1980 the cold war still raged, the Berlin wall separated East and West Germany, and Eastern Europe was in soviet control, the Russian bear was feared. We must also remember that gold in real terms is trading at only half of the high reached in 1980 as the $850 to day equates to approximately $2200 when inflation is applied.

Political Fear – The Soviets had  signed a “bilateral treaty of cooperation” with Afghanistan in 1978, but by the next year relations had deteriorated and  the Soviet Invasion of Afganistan, which began around Christmas 1979, was a terrible global shock., Russian forces seized all major governmental, military and media buildings in Kabul, including their primary target – the Tajbeg Presidential Palace, where they killed President Hafizullah Amin and announced on Radio that Afghanistan had been liberated

It was a slap in the face to a cold war America.

At the same time the Russians were building up their strength  in southern Yemen close to Saudi Arabia and the oil fields. Also in Bulgaria’s border with Yugoslavia, a liberal communist country, whose 87 year old president Tito solely responsible for binding the  Serbs, Croatians and Muslims together since the end of WWII was very ill.

Iranian fundamentalists took over the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979 anther slap for America.  Ayatollah Khomeni became supreme leader in December and relations ships with Sadam Hussein’s Iraq were at an all time low eventually leading to the Iran –Iraq war.

Economic Fear – The 70’s were a period where inflation was spiraling out of control, stagflation unemployment, oil embargoes and subsequent spike in oil prices spread gloom and despair.  In 1979 inflation in the US was at 12% and was in double figures in most western countries  In the UK the winter of 1978-9 was known as the “winter of discontent” and during 1979 nearly 30 million working days were lost due to strikes.  Debt in the USA had risen to almost $1 trillion and the dollar was weak.

Another catalyst that shook the markets was Bunker Hunt’s run on silver. Hunt, an oil billionaire, his brother and friends by October 1979 had bought up all the silver paper propositions to the tune of 192 million ounces.  In early January 1980 , it became evident that COMEX intended to change the rules to only allow 10 million/oz of contracts per trader and that all contracts over that amount must be liquidated before February 18th. Of course, the CFTC promptly backed up the ruling. The escape hatch for the Hunts and some of the other large longs was simply to convert their futures contracts into physicals, On January 17th silver hit $50/oz, Bunker had continued to buy. At that point in time the Hunt’s silver position was worth $4.5 billion dollars. This caused chaos as there was no silver to be had to supply and the Hunts were driven to ruin.

Oil revenue to Gold – The rapid rise in oil price produced a sudden surge of wealth in  Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States  and enormous sums were diverted into gold. This was further accelerated by the fall of the Shah which exposed vulnerability of people in power in the Middle East and led them to protect their positions. It was common for Saudi dealers to bid for 50-100,000 ounce in a morning and one bank was asked to buy 300,000 ounces for a single client.  Speculators also used the opportunity to dupe the market to increase the price of gold by bidding for huge sums  through a Gulf bank giving the impression that Arabs were pouring money into gold, a story carried by media for some time.

Greed – Of course speculation reached the phase of public awareness which is always the last phase close to the peak just before the decent.

The world was in turmoil and inflation was out of control so everyone was scared. When people are scared fiat currency is not enough. They return to traditions going back to the beginning of civilization to secure wealth in physical gold that gives portability and liquidity. During times of crisis and fear gold rises and individual governments can’t stop it; but in peaceful times governments are able to maintain control. The future of the American economy and American power did not feel at all certain. As a safe haven in times of panic and strife, gold simply reflected that fear. As soon as the emotion subdued and rationality returned  the buying panic quickly subsided and turned to selling phase taking down the price.

The Fall – Prices will rise as supply cannot meet demand but in 1980  when the price touched $850 all over the world people began dishoarding their coins and  old jewellery in an unprecedented scale to the extent that dealers were running out of money to pay for the re cycled gold and Refinieries  had more than enough scrap gold. Thus supply quickly out grew demand.

In early 1980, Paul Volcker’s (Fed Chairman) new Fed policy began to bite. U.S. interest rates began to skyrocket. As they rose, the Dollar first slowed its descent, then stopped falling, and then began to rise. Both the public and the investment community which had stampeded into Gold was lured back into paper by this huge rise in interest rates – and by the prospect of a higher U.S. Dollar. The threat of financial meltdown was averted. There was a rush out of Gold and back to Dollars. The Dow was already rising in 1979 and really took off in 1982.

The gold price dropped off dramatically after its January 1980 high in short because people lost their fear as inflation the bane of the 1970s was finally coming under control, interest rates and the stock markets rose making other investments more attractive. Supply was greater than demand and the Middle abruptly exited the gold market.

2010

The financial crisis that rose its ugly head in 2008 and continued through 2009 is comparable to the fear generated in 1979-80 and was one of the reasons for the rise in gold as people sought a safe haven. The dollar has been weak, a norm for a corresponding high gold price and this was catalyzed by India buying 200 tonnes from the IMF to drive the price to the December high.

The Future – The difference between 1980 and today is that in 1980 we were exiting a terrible decade and the future looked bright economically. Today the future is far from bright and whilst we have managed the worst financial crisis since the depression and are even complacent; but the truth is we are not out of the crisis. The economy is recovering slowly and is still very volatile and in the UK we have £1.4 trillion in sovereign debt to face. According to the IMF spiralling sovereign debt in Europe, the US, and Japan has emerged as the top threat to the world economy and risks setting off a fresh financial storm. The eurozone is heading for one per cent growth this year, limping out of recession under the threat of a sovereign debt crisis. The main risk is that, if unchecked, market concerns about sovereign liquidity and solvency in Greece could turn into a full-blown sovereign debt crisis, leading to some contagion. The economies of Ireland, Spain and Portugal will shrink. The US’s ratio of total debt to GDP is likely to exceed 90% this year, making it more indebted even than Spain and Portugal. It is similar to Weimar Germany but for different reasons and has printed trillions of dollars of fiat currency which will eventually lead to debasement. The dollar is weak and is likely to get weaker. The Chinese Yuan is undervalued but it is not in China and the worlds interest to drop the dollar just yet but the time will come and dollar will fall. The Chinese are on the unmistakable path towards challenging the dollar and the ultimate aim is financial supremacy The dollar’s status as the worlds reserve currency is under threat and both Russia and China are pushing or an alternative in which gold must surely take a part.

Today we have a world of low interest rates where it is almost impossible to obtain an interest rate that does not lose on the capital invested each year when taking into account inflation and tax. With the right gold product tax on profit can be eliminated.

In 1980 Central banks were auctioning off gold, today central banks are turning to gold as many countries increase their gold reserves. Last year India bought 200 tonnes from the IMF to meet its international commitments. China has increased its reserves to 1054 tonnes and announced its intent to continue buying.

India is currently the largest consumer, China the largest producer and second largest consumer and Russia were not players in 1980 and it is these countries where the demand is currently driven. China is consuming all it can produce and quietly everything it can buy with out upsetting the price.

Public Awareness – In 1980 public awareness led to speculation and to frantic selling of gold, de hoarding which was contributory to the drop in price as the amount of scrap gold created an over supply. Today you can hardly open a newspaper or watch television without seeing an advert to persuade you to sell your old gold. This is the reverse of 1980 as the refineries need the re cycled gold to ease the demand. Also investment has not yet reached the public awareness stage. From the chart below  you will see that there is no slide just a correction which is normal

In conclusion gold is still a safe hedge, the world is uncertain with threats of sovereign debt, inflation and the weakening of the dollar. Gold is finite all the gold ever produced would fit into a 20 metre cube. As mining becomes more difficult production costs are rising to almost $800. The demand from the East cannot be met so demand is greater than supply and there will be more pressure on supply as the gold fields dry up. I have seen an analogy where more gold can be extracted per ton by harvesting old mobile phones than the majority of modern mines. Were are currently in a period of correction fed by a certain amount of complacency but trends indicate that we should see a breakthrough of $1300 by Q4 2011.

Maurice Hall

Over the past few years, China has experienced economic prosperity and rapidly increasing wealth.  During the same period, the Western world faced deep recession and is only now beginning to recover.  Today China has an insatiable appetite for gold which looks likely to continue in an environment where domestic mine supply lags behind demand. According to the latest World Gold Council Analysis, Chinese demand for gold is set to double in tonnage terms within just ten years. Over the past 5 years the demand for gold has risen by and average of 13% per annum and there is significant untapped potential in the Chinese gold market.

The rational behind the belief that a doubling of demand comprises of a number of elements:

1. China’s need to diversify from USD assets without destroying the dollar as it holds 2.4 trillion in reserves
2. China’s intention to increase it’s gold reserves from its current 1.6%
3. Sustained GDP and subsequent wealth creating a higher saving rate
4. China’s gold consumption per capita is very low in comparison with other gold consuming nations
5. The growth in jewellery ownership is expected to take off in relation to the increase in spending power
6. Citizens are encourage to put a proportion of their savings into gold and similarly the Central Bank is looking to diversify
7. Gold demand is increasing as is production but according to WGC research reserves account for only 4% of known global gold mining reserves and could be exhausted in 6 years
8. Its is likely that demand will outpace domestic supply with subsequent impact on the global gold market

1. Diversification

One factor that the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC) will consider is the future performance of the US dollar. Over the last 12 months, the US dollar has depreciated against major currencies and has not fared well as a preserver of capital. China, along with Japan, are the biggest single holders of US Treasuries and will certainly not benefit in precipitating a US dollar crisis since this will further devalue their trillions of US dollars in reserves and adversely impact the purchasing power of the US consumer – their major export customer. PBoC has been purchasing local gold mine production and local refining of recycled gold in local currency. The PBoC prefers not to be seen switching out of the US dollar at this juncture when such a large proportion of China’s foreign exchange reserves are already in dollar-denominated assets. A withdrawal of such significant volumes out of the gold-hungry domestic market would also further increase the domestic supply-demand gap in the Chinese private sector and escalate the “snowball” effect in China. Hence, we would not be surprised to see the PBoC proceed on a gradual strategy ( see article on China’s strategy and dilemma) , if it decides to increase its allocation. The media has stated that China should allow its currency to appreciate against the US dollar this year. This, in turn, would be bearish for the US dollar and positive for real asset prices, such as gold, that are denominated in dollars.

2. Reserves

The State Council advisor Ji Xiaonan believes China should start investing in at least 1,000 tonnes of gold per annum for its official reserves. Mr Ji has been quoted in the Chinese media as suggesting that the nation’s gold reserves should reach 6,000 tonnes in the next three to five years and perhaps 10,000 tonnes in eight to 10 years. The adjustments could be motivated by the following reasons:

• Increasing gold as an essential component of PBoC’s book could help the country meet future requirements in terms of safety and diversification of the portfolio;
• Purchasing gold using reserves would allow PBoC to withdraw billions of Yuan now in circulation, decrease the proportion of its US$2.4tn foreign currency reserves held in US dollar-linked investments and ease pressure on the appreciation of the Yuan. If the PBoC were to rebalance its reserve portfolio back to its recent peak ratio of 2.2%, we estimate that the incremental demand from taking this action would amount to around 400 tonnes at today’s gold price. Even an increase of 10% on its current gold reserve holding would translate to approximately 100 tonnes.

3 GDP

The Chinese economy grew at an unexpectedly high growth rate of 8.7% in 2009, with GDP reaching 10.7% in the last quarter. The country also saw rapid growth in foreign direct investment, fixed asset investment, new loans and rising money supply Continuous improvements in living standards, higher savings rates amongst private individuals and rising income levels are expected to generate robust gold demand in China. The World Bank (WB) recently raised its China GDP growth forecast for 2010 from 9.0% to 9.5%33. WB said that Chinese trade and household consumption should continue to grow strongly as the stimulus is withdrawn. The ongoing structural shift in Chinese gold demand and supply, as well as the structural trends within the world’s second largest gold market potentially creates a brave new world for China’s gold industry.

3. Consumption per capita

Chinese consumers are catching up relative to the Western world in terms of gold ownership. This is because market liberalization tends to have a dramatic impact in a local market. In India, for example its gold consumption more than doubled from roughly 300-350 tonnes in the early 1990s to over 700 tonnes at the end of 2008. Chinese gold demand has increased by 106% from 2002 to an estimated 443 tonnes in 2009, or an average of 8% per annum during the same period and 13% pa over the last 5 years. Nevertheless, the country has one of the lowest gold consumption intensity rates compared to Western economies, and to countries with similar gold cultures. In 2009, per capita gold consumption in China was 0.33gm, up from 0.17gm in 2002. WGC estimates that total incremental demand based on 2009 consumption and IMF population forecasts, ranges from 1,000 tonnes at USA and Japanese per capita consumption levels to more, if Chinese consumption per capita were to rise to Taiwanese levels.

4. Jewellery

China’s gold jewellery market is unique; local consumers are well aware of gold’s benefit as a store of value. Gold jewellery (especially 24 carat gold jewellery which accounts for at least 80% of total gold jewellery demand in China) has always been regarded as an investment by the Chinese. However, in recent years, there has been a shift of demand into 18 carat jewellery with Italian inspired design, which has been a success in attracting younger, urban cosmopolitan consumers to gold jewellery. During the last ten years, China’s jewellery off-take has averaged 250 tonnes of gold per annum. In 2009, the country ranked second in the global gold jewellery market, behind India. found per capita consumption of 0.26gm in 2009 to be low. If gold jewellery were consumed in China at the same rate per capita as in India, Hong Kong or Saudi Arabia, annual Chinese demand could increase by at least 100 tonnes to as much as 4,000 tonnes in the jewellery sector alone. There is also a significant potential for growth in Chinese gold jewellery demand,

5. Investment

Net retail gold investment is still developing in China. Investors looking to protect their wealth, and institutional and retail investors looking to manage portfolio risk are increasingly turning to gold. PBoC is also playing an increasingly supportive role on the demand side. We believe the reasons why central banks such as the PBoC would want to own gold are the same as the reasons why investors would want to own gold –namely its diversification properties, insurance against unexpected events and gold’s ability to outperform during crises. If PBoC  decides to rebalance its books back to its recent peak gold holding ratio of 2.2% at Q4 2002, we estimate that the incremental demand would amount to a further 400 tonnes at the current gold price. The ratio is nevertheless a fraction of the other key economies such as the USA (70.4%) and Germany (66.1%).

During China’s Eleventh Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010), gold investment among private individuals in China has been developing rapidly as Chinese investors catch up with their foreign counterparts in terms of gold ownership. There is a growing interest among the Chinese in commodity investment, stimulated by a high savings ratio, but also because there are not enough domestic investment opportunities available to Chinese investors. Chinese consumers are high savers, having accumulated wealth since 1978 when the Chinese government shifted the burden of retirement income to individual households. The Asian currency crisis added additional impetus to this savings culture. One should not forget that less than nine years ago there were regulatory restrictions on gold trading, ownership and investment in China. In 2001, the Chinese central bank announced the abolition of China’s long-term government monopoly of gold. Over the last century, the deregulatory tide in economic governance has helped to reduce the number of barriers to gold ownership around the world. In some cases the results have been spectacular. For example during the 1990s in India, when the liberalisation process was in full swing, Indian gold demand more than doubled from around 300-350 tonnes in 1992-93, to over 700 tonnes at the end of 2008. Chinese net retail investment in gold has increased from 65.9 tonnes in 2008 to 80.5 tonnes in 2009 (up 22% year-on-year). We expect this level to rise further despite recent gold price performance. In the WGC’s Gold Demand Trends Report for the fourth quarter and full year 2009, it was highlighted that Chinese consumers continue to buy gold in a rising gold price environment. Investment in China in the form of gold coins and bar hoarding has shown a strong growth momentum in recent years, although this market still accounted for less than a third of total domestic gold demand in 2009. The amount of Chinese gold coins and bar hoarding holdings in private hands is much less than in countries such as India and Vietnam. Chinese consumers are currently in the process of accumulating them, which may suggest that they are less willing to sell back their holdings as the gold price rises, compared to consumers in other parts of the world.

6. Internal Supply

Chinese mine production has been driven by gold prices. Despite being the largest producer in 2009 at 314 tonnes, the Chinese gold industry is simply not responding fast enough to bring in new supply. During the period from 2006 to 2009, average annual gold mine output grew by 8% per annum in China. This is more than targeted growth rate of 5% set out in its Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2006-2010) and it is more than three years since China moved three of its larger gold mines into production. On a longer term basis, supply issues such as higher mine development costs, rising input costs and potential threats relating to supply disruption, tougher safety regulations and depleting ore bodies could put a much higher floor under the gold price than was previously the case. During the last decade, Chinese gold miners have boosted output by 84 percent, but the nation’s known reserves account for just 4 percent of the total global gold reserves. China may exhaust its domestic supply within 6 years

7. Demand

Demand from China’s two largest sectors (jewellery and investment) reached a combined total of 423 tonnes in 2009 but domestic mine supply contributed only 314 tonnes during the same year. Chinese gold demand has the potential to double from today’s levels within a decade. Assuming that long term gold demand growth is in line with the supply growth target of 5% per annum (as set out in the Eleventh Five Year Plan), China could experience strong demand for decades to come. Demand growth looks set to continue to outpace global and domestic production capacity. The limited range of gold reserves and resources forecasts may restrict new supply, especially if existing domestic production lags behind demand. This shortfall creates a “snowball” effect as China’s gold industry may not be able to catch up with the annual leap in domestic consumption. This would effectively extend the gold cycle in China.

Conclusion

Over the past few years, China has experienced economic prosperity and rapidly increasing wealth. The Chinese economy grew at an unexpectedly high growth rate of 8.7% in 2009, with GDP reaching 10.7% in the last quarter. The country also saw rapid growth in foreign direct investment, fixed asset investment, new loans and rising money supply. During the same period, the Western world faced deep recession and is only now beginning to recover. Continuous improvements in living standards, higher savings rates amongst private individuals and rising income levels are expected to generate robust gold demand in China. The World Bank (WB) recently raised its China GDP growth forecast for 2010 from 9.0% to 9.5%. The ongoing structural shift in Chinese gold demand and supply, as well as the structural trends within the world’s second largest gold market potentially creates a brave new world for China’s gold industry. Today China has an insatiable appetite for gold which looks likely to continue in an environment where domestic mine supply lags behind demand. Looking further ahead, WGC expects Chinese gold demand to double from today’s levels over the next decade. Jewellery and investment growth are expected to be the chief drivers of this demand. The motives that drive demand in those sectors can differ: Jewellery is cyclical, and investment demand has both a cyclical and counter-cyclical element to it. There is a strong growth opportunity in the gold jewellery market given the very low per capita consumption of gold jewellery in China, which has almost doubled since the deregulation of the market. The recent financial crisis has also increased caution in Asia and made Asian investors aware of the need for a hedge against the possibility of further weakening in the US dollar, to which they are heavily exposed. Gold’s dollar hedging properties make it both appropriate and ideal for this purpose.

With ongoing uncertainties surrounding the economic recovery, currency and inflation, the search for alternative international asset choices for both investors and the central bank should clearly involve consideration of gold. The real value of gold for investors lies in the reliable diversification it provides and to consistently  deliver a lower average volatility than most mainstream assets and commodities.

Gold can be seen as an insurance policy, as an effective hedge and gives investors the confidence to manage unknown risk. Its value holds in good times and bad and show resilience during extreme conditions. Gold as an asset class has performed impressively for nearly a decade, both in China and internationally. Today, the combination of a healthy outlook for gold demand and its relatively inelastic supply creates a bright future for gold.

WGC report summarised by Maurice Hall

If you search the web for information on when and how to buy gold and in what format you will get a wealth of advice on both the indicators and how to get the best return on your investment.  You may also see warnings from fake coins, tungsten in gold bars to loss of value on resale as dealers take there cut.  More of this later as there are certainly pitfalls that are easily avoided.

You may be driven to gloom and despair when you come across many hypotheses on the dangers of Fiat currency, whereby central banks are printing money and devaluing currencies be that USD, GBP or the Euro. You will certainly not be comforted by articles on Sovereign Debt £1.4 trillion coming up in the UK, the greater and more dangerous debts of the US, Japan, and the current difficulties with Greece, Italy,  Spain and Portugal in the Euro zone. We have already seen the collapse of Iceland and some former eastern European countries and Ireland on the brink (UK citizens who hold money in our Post Office should be aware that this is directly with the Bank of Ireland who is now 1.9 billion in debt). If you delve further you will see more political manoeuvring in the East and Russia, where there is a drive to move away from the USD as the reserve currency, additionally China has a long term strategy for financial domination. You may be forgiven for feeling that the world as we know it will come to a halt as you listen to many experts predicting an inevitable systemic crisis that would make  2008 pale into insignificance and global contagion would cause capitalism itself to collapse.

I am not saying we should ignore those warnings, far from it but the optimist would have some faith that the western world could stabilise, otherwise we will not be concerned with gold and money but food and weapons, and yes you will find that advice already common amongst the growing number of survivalists in the USA.  There will no doubt be rocky roads to follow, financial difficulties, pressures on currencies, but currency is not money.  There is no doubt that many people will be looking for a safe haven, an insurance policy and the only world wide respected haven is gold.  This gold must not be in the form stocks, un allocated gold at a bank or certificates but physical gold which is tangible either held secured at your residence or in a vault where you own it.  Even the survivalists after the guns and ammo recognise that a stash of gold coins would be necessary as a medium to exchange for supplies.

I would say that the majority of investors are optimistic enough to believe that we will overcome a financial crisis to a greater or lesser extent and not be plunged back into the third world. There is no doubt that we are in an investor “safe haven” and even the most optimistic are and should be hedging by diversifying part of their portfolio into gold.  We in the UK have always believed in our currency otherwise we would be part of the Euro zone, we have not been successfully invaded for almost 1000 years hence we have no country wide safe haven investment history. Twenty two miles across the channel, our nearest neighbour France, following a century of invasion, dramatic devaluation understand the safe haven that gold provides.  Families have survived through crisis because they put their wealth into gold napoleons and today French citizens have 3000 tonnes held privately in gold coins. Should a new crisis occur then many French families will be able to ride out the storm whereas hardly any in the UK would be in a similar position. There is a lesson to be learned here.

I have researched long and hard and think I understand the drivers, the risks the patterns.  The case for owning gold is clear but investors will always be looking for Return On Investment so clearly the timing of buying and selling is essential.  We saw in December 2009 the gold spot touch $1227 per ounce and is now holding around $1100. Where will it go is the big question and what are the drivers and is their anything to be gleaned historically or seasonally.

Let’s take a look at the drivers that keep the price low:

• The West has become complacent and does not have the level fear of financial crisis that it perceived a few months ago. The truth is that we are not out of the crisis the economy is recovering very slowly and is very volatile and we have the £1.4 trillion sovereign debt to face
• The West although no longer fearing a crisis is still tightening is belt and there is not the money around to spend particularly on jewellery. People are taking note of the volatility, companies who have vacancies are fearful of taking on new staff and unemployment is still a huge issue
• The USD has been relatively strong recently and as we al know a strong dollar weakens the gold price. Interestingly the GBP and Euro price has risen from the all time high dollar spot price due to weakening exchange rates.
• India’s private demand dropped in 2009 as people did not buy as much jewelry due to the high price although India’s central bank bought 200 Tonnes off the IMF to back its international commitments
• China is now the largest consumer and the greatest producer of gold but is playing a very political game as it is determined to increase its reserves and shed dollar assets but it does not want to do anything to increase the price of gold or weaken the dollar while it holds $2 trillion of dollar assets
• It is believed if demand continues at the current rate it will not overstretch supply.

What will drive the price up?

• At some point inflation will incur and the dollar will weaken as more money is printed
• It is likely that there will be another financial crisis that will send all the gold bugs scuttling to protect their wealth
• China, Russia and India will take up any slack in demand particularly China who want to increase their gold reserve but also have encouraged their citizens to save gold
• Central banks do not find holding foreign currencies attractive so they can only turn to gold
• There is a finite supply of gold all that has been produce in the world to date would fit in a 20m cube. It is more difficult and costly to mine and the ability to supply is falling off.

The new drive will come from the East as their central banks diversify from dollar assets and the new found prosperity of their consumers will lead to purchase of gold for jewellery and investment. Eastern currencies will appreciate as the dollar losses its status thus driving up the price in dollars over a period of time.

When is gold bought and sold?

• Seasonally – Over the last 30 years the gold price has been at lowest with remarkable consistence in the northern hemisphere summer as European jewellery fabricators and customers are on vacation with the biggest drive in the fourth quarter. This coincides with harvest and wedding festivals in the East. On average throughout this period gold bought in summer turned profitable by the end of the year. Professionals tend to sell at the beginning of the year.
• Historically – Gold has reached a high in cycles followed by quite severe corrections and periods of consolidation. In fact in the last several years gold’s peak highs have followed a super cycle of around 22 months.  Gold reached its famous high in 1980 at $850 which equates to around $2200 when adjusted for inflation so there is a very strong argument that gold still has a long way to go before it reaches its previous high and now we have in addition Russia, China and India as major players. Bearing in mind that cycles constrict and expand please look at the chart below where the next predicted super cycle high will be around 21 months from the high in December 2009 and that will be Q4 2011 and this also coincides with the seasonal trend.

When to buy and when to sell:

All the indicators point a period of consolidation, both seasonally and historically gold should reach a 2010 low in July to August probably $1050 – $1060 and that is probably the time to buy. Do not expect  an immediate significant rise but the trends show that there will be an increase towards the end of the year and probably another period of consolidation in early 2011 so time to hold your nerve.  Late in 2011 the seasonal and the super cycle trends combine and we shall reach the next peak. Conservatively that would be in excess of $1300 but many experts are expecting the next peak to be $1500 or higher. If you are a speculator you may want to take your profit now but if you consider your gold to be your insurance policy then you will hold on to it. If you are in the later category then you will hold your gold until there is a stabilisation and that would not happen until we stop printing currency and take our contractory medicine. See the article on When should we sell gold for more details

What to buy and how?

I mentioned in the opening paragraph that there are pitfalls to avoid and it is not too difficult. Apart from fakes, which can easily be avoided by using reputable sources and not trusting to buying through private individuals through auction site, everything else is designed to take away you profit.

Buy:

• Investment gold(1) to avoid VAT
• Investment gold to include in your SIPP so the UK government will pay you back 20% or 40% depending on your income tax bracket
• Legal tender gold coins(Sovereigns and Britannias) to avoid Capital Gains Tax on profit
• From a reputable source

Avoid:

• Dealers or companies that charge a high premium
• Proof coins that can have a premium of almost twice the gold value
• Any gold coins that demand a high initial premium
• Numismatic coins as they are best left to the experts in that field
• Large bars that are difficult to liquidate
• Removing your gold from the professional system as it immediately depreciates by 10-15%

Sovereign Elizabeth II Obverse

Buying gold bullion is good because the premium is low but we would recommend gold investment coins and in particular semi numismatic coins can attract a premium differential over the gold price particularly in times of crisis. Coins have greater liquidity than bullion bars which can be difficult to split.There is  quite a choice  and that may be appropriate to the country in which you live. The Krugerand is one of the oldest and well known bullion coins and can be purchased with little premium over a bullion bar. In the UK, the British sovereign is in my opinion is the best investment,  ”safe haven” and emergency coin in the world and can be bought at very little premium from the right source with added attraction of owning a beautiful historic coin with aesthetic value.

There is clearly a case for a platform that enables the discerning investor to incorporate the factors that removes the risk and reduces purchase premium and commissions to the minimum. This mechanism did not exist until a unique platform was developed to enable the buying and selling of gold in real time with best prices and secure storage,  in France in 2008 AuCOFFRE.com.  The  UK website is currently under development and will be available very soon.

(1) Investment gold is

(a) gold of a purity not less than 995 thousandths that is in the form of a bar, or a  wafer, of a weight accepted by bullion markets or:

(b) a gold coin minted after 1800 that:

¨ is of a purity of not less than 900 thousandths

¨ is, or has been, legal tender in its country of origin; and

¨ is of a description of a coin that is normally sold at a price that does not exceed 180% of the open market value of the gold contained in the coin; or:

(c)  an investment coin as specified in Notice 701/21A Investment gold coins.

Maurice Hall

We spend much time thinking about what to buy and when to buy it, when in fact knowing when to sell is more important. The case for owning gold is clear enough.

Gold, like all other commodities, is inherently speculative. Unlike well chosen stocks which you buy to hold to take advantage of their wealth-compounding properties, you only ever buy commodities to sell later. With this in mind, when should you sell gold?

Some would say the time to sell is now. Gold just isn’t the misunderstood, widely shunned asset it was a few years ago. Isn’t the gold bull market now long in the tooth, with better opportunities to be found elsewhere?

Willem Buiter called Gold a 6000 year bubble ft.com. The late and great Peter Bernstein subtitled his book about gold “the History of an Obsession”. But much as I admire these two great minds, such loaded phraseology implies there to be something irrational about owning gold and I think that’s just plain wrong. The fact is that there is a fundamental need for a medium of exchange. Early civilisations used pebbles or shells. Prisoners have used cigarettes.

Having a medium of exchange makes life easier than under barter economy and societies have always organised themselves around the best monetary standard they could find. Until industrialisation of the paper printing process, that happened to be gold, which is small, malleable, portable and with no tendency to tarnish. Crucially, it’s also relatively finite and this particular characteristic (in combination with the others) can be very useful in environments characterised by monetary mischief.

I view it primarily as insurance against such environments. It’s a lump of metal with no cash flows and no earnings power. In a very real sense it’s not intrinsically worth anything. If you buy it, you’re forgoing dividend or interest income and the gradual accumulation over time of intrinsic value since a lump of cold, industrially useless metal can offer none of these things. That forgone accumulation of wealth is like the insurance premium paid for a policy which will pay out in the event of an extreme inflation event.

Is there anything else which will do that? Some argue that equities hedge against inflation

because they are a claim on real assets, but most of the great bear market troughs of the 20thcentury occurred during inflationary periods. A more obvious inflation hedge is inflation linked bonds, but governments can default on these too. More exotic insurance products like sovereign CDSs, inflation caps, long-dated swaptions or upside yield curve volatility all have their intuitive merits. But they all come with counterparty risk. Physical gold doesn’t. Indeed, during the “6000 year gold bubble” no one has defaulted on gold. It is the one insurance policy which will pay out when you really need it to.

There is nothing mystical about gold and I don’t consider myself a gold bug. In fact, I’m not sure I’d even classify gold as an investment’ in the strictest sense of the word. Well chosen equities (not indices) will act as wealth-compounding machines and are likely to make many times the initial outlay in real terms over time. These are investments because so long as the economics of each business remain firm, you don’t want to sell. As they say in the textbooks, you buy to hold. But gold isn’t like that. Like all commodities, it’s intrinsically speculative because you only buy it to sell it in the future.

The reason I own gold is because I’m worried about the long-term solvency of developed

market governments. I know that Milton Friedman popularised the idea that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon but if you look back through time at inflationary crises from ancient Rome, to Ming China, to revolutionary France and America or to Weimar Germany you’ll find that uncontrolled inflations are caused by overleveraged governments which resorted to printing as the easiest way to avoid explicit default (whereas inflation is merely an implicit default). It’s all very well for economists to point out that the cure for runaway inflation is simply a contraction of the money supply. It’s just that when you look at inflationary episodes you find that such monetary contractions haven’t been politically viable courses of action.

What causes the political winds to change? A government crisis. In 2008, Ireland came very close to going the way of Iceland. They had their crisis. And historians today still refer to the inflation fatigue” in Britain by the end of the 1970s. This was our crisis. So what we learn from these experiences and others like them is that a fiscal crisis is required to force a majority acceptance of the implications of an overleveraged government. But the political winds in countries with central banks are a long way from blowing in the direction of fiscal rectitude. And while it’s true that more people are at least talking about it, talk is very cheap and no one is yet close to walking the walk. Such steps remain politically unpopular because we haven’t had our crisis yet. Given the clear unsustainability of government finances and the explosive path government leverage is on, a government funding crisis is both inevitable and necessary. Dubai and Greece are merely the first claps of thunder in what is going to be a long emergency.

Eventually, there will be a crisis of such magnitude that the political winds change direction, and become blustering gales forcing us onto the course of fiscal sustainability. Until it does, the temptation to inflate will remain, as will economists with spurious mathematical rationalisations as to why such inflation will make everything OK (witness the IMF’s recent recommendation that inflation targets be raised to 4%). Until it does, the outlook will remain favorable for gold. But eventually, majority opinion will accept the painful contractionary medicine because it will have to. That will be the time to sell gold.

Extracted  from SOCIETE GENERAL Gross Asset Research Popular Delusions by Dylan Grice

Karl Heinrich Marx

For the Soviet system, inspired by Marx, currency was the manifestation of social evil, the relationship with commodity production.  There were certainly some countries where this practice was even more radical than the Soviet system.  This was particularly true of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge, where trade itself, including bartering, was the objectification of evil itself.  To some degree, it surpassed even Marx’s theories.  In his book the “Critique of Political Economy,” Marx spoke about exchange values and not exchange itself.  It is for this reason that André Malraux called “PolPotism” the Marxism of imbeciles.

That said, the conclusion that Pol Pot and his friends and family made from Marx’s theories, is not that far away from Marx’s ideas, because for Marx the historical process itself results in the production of useful values.  For this reason, Pol Pot’s followers condemned the production of exchange values; therefore exchange itself.  This explains the terrible reality of the demographic collapse in Cambodia during the implementation of what some have called a “murderous utopia.”  The dismissal of exchange can only lead to the disappearance of all systems for satisfying needs; therefore an empire of death, collective suicide.  Of course, in this system characterised by the dismissal of production for trade, access to goods and services has always been conditioned by a hierarchical order of socialist societies, the needs of leaders, including their ostentatious needs, were covered by society.

Boris Yeltsin, who was the first president of Russia after the fall of communism in the 1990’s, declared in October 1987, in a speech to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: “Yes comrades, it is not easy to explain to a factory worker why in the seventieth year of political power, he is forced to queue to buy sausages in which there is more starch than meat whilst on our tables there is sturgeon and caviar and all sorts of fine meats obtained without any problems from a place which he is not even allowed near.  In these special shops reserved for the nomenklatura (the ruling bureaucratic elite of the former Soviet Union), “the prices of goods were inversely proportional to the position the “customer” had in the nomenklatura.  The higher your position in the hierarchy, the lower the price was.”.  More precisely, this means that for members of the nomenklatura money was certified, that is to say that the higher up a person was in the nomenklatura the higher the value of their money.
EXTRACT FROM THE BOOK by Norman Palma and Edouard Husson –  Capitalism is sick of its currency

According to this book – It has often been said that it was not possible to predict the economic and financial crisis that is currently sweeping across the world.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  At the root of the crisis is an International Monetary System that has been seriously affected by the dollar standard system.  For several decades, informed minds had warned of the possible devastating effects on the world economy as a result of the American Federal Reserve’s issuing policy.  As Maurice Allais, the French Nobel Prize Winner for Economics, emphatically said with general indifference “what will happen will happen” What has happened today always happens with paper money systems: after the euphoria of increasing credit without any restrictions the crash arrives.  This is why the dollar is heading towards total depreciation.”

Although every effort is being made to postpone it, we cannot avoid the collapse of the dollar and currencies which unwisely held it up.  To limit the effects of this unavoidable catastrophe, if it is at all possible, we must urgently create an International Account Unit which is a basket of major paper currencies to which we must add gold in order to restore vital credibility to paper money.  Then, we should not be content with returning to a gold reference system, which will in any case impose itself on the market, no matter what top political and economic leaders think.  Due to limits on the quantity of gold, it will be necessary to return to its vital circulating complement: silver, which ruled alongside gold, during the historical rise of the wealth of nations.  With this diagnostic put forward, and with the only possible remedy analysed, all that remains is for an immense reform to be implemented by a politician largely responsible for the situation, who has nothing planned and whose actions will in all respects be judged by this present tragedy.