Gold

[denpal]

Read Stewart Thompson's latest on 321gold he's a good analyst and he is very happy right now with the gold sector. I am fully deployed in my goldies mainly NST as a blue-chip local producer.

[Aaron]

No one else to share my excitement re the price of gold so yippee all my gold company investments might breakeven today. I realized I have a terrible confirmation bias re the price of gold when I ignore articles that point out there is no way we can go back to a gold standard and gold is just a metal with few useful applications. As soon as I read that central banks are selling their gold holdings it might be too late to sell but for now I will take a chance and hang on for the bad times ahead that will drive gold higher and I will switch from this to cheap shares that can generate an income in a couple of years time after the crash.

[JBmurc]

Was always going happen been flatlining for so long yet the fundamentals stack up to higher Gold prices.... world geo-political issues + out of control debt - record low interest rates - mining costs under pressure from lower grades (as many major Gold miners getting to the end of higher grades needed during recent lows)

How do you depress the physical gold price? It’s quite easy… you throw $10 trillion paper dollars at it. Not only did global paper gold trading amount reach a new record in 2016, it surpassed the previous year’s total by nearly 50%.
https://srsroccoreport.com/record-10...depress-price/


The U.S. will never go back on a gold standard. The notion that a U.S. Dollar backed by gold would solve our financial problems is pure folly. Why? Because, if the U.S. Empire didn’t abandon the gold standard in 1971, it would have collapsed decades ago.
https://srsroccoreport.com/u-s-empir...gold-standard/

[Aaron]

As long as gold is still held by central banks it should have some value. Why do the central banks hold gold it is a worthless metal. Is it there as a plan B if the current model turns to s**t?

[JBmurc]

Central Banks still hold it>>> as it's never in 5000yrs+ been worthless to civilized mankind >>> don't see that changing just because it's not used as a base/backing to a nation's currency ....it's more so an insurance policy of value that unlike all Fiat currency holds it's value

-------the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry

Only 10% of the world consumption of new gold produced goes to industry,[10] but by far the most important industrial use for new gold is in fabrication of corrosion-free electrical connectors in computers and other electrical devices. For example, according to the World Gold council, a typical cell phone may contain 50 mg of gold, worth about 50 cents. But since nearly one billion cell phones are produced each year, a gold value of 50 cents in each phone adds to $500 million in gold from just this application.[48]

Though gold is attacked by free chlorine, its good conductivity and general resistance to oxidation and corrosion in other environments (including resistance to non-chlorinated acids) has led to its widespread industrial use in the electronic era as a thin-layer coating on electrical connectors, thereby ensuring good connection. For example, gold is used in the connectors of the more expensive electronics cables, such as audio, video and USB cables. The benefit of using gold over other connector metals such as tin in these applications has been debated; gold connectors are often criticized by audio-visual experts as unnecessary for most consumers and seen as simply a marketing ploy. However, the use of gold in other applications in electronic sliding contacts in highly humid or corrosive atmospheres, and in use for contacts with a very high failure cost (certain computers, communications equipment, spacecraft, jet aircraft engines) remains very common.[49]

Besides sliding electrical contacts, gold is also used in electrical contacts because of its resistance to corrosion, electrical conductivity, ductility and lack of toxicity.[50] Switch contacts are generally subjected to more intense corrosion stress than are sliding contacts. Fine gold wires are used to connect semiconductor devices to their packages through a process known as wire bonding.

The concentration of free electrons in gold metal is 5.90×1022 cm−3. Gold is highly conductive to electricity, and has been used for electrical wiring in some high-energy applications (only silver and copper are more conductive per volume, but gold has the advantage of corrosion resistance). For example, gold electrical wires were used during some of the Manhattan Project's atomic experiments, but large high-current silver wires were used in the calutron isotope separator magnets in the project.

It's estimated that 16% of the world's gold and 22% of the world's silver is contained in electronic technology in Japan.[51]

[Aaron]

Oh well if the worst comes to the worst gold might have some value for jewellery and in industry. I much prefer the $10,000 an oz gold backing the US dollar but that's pie in the sky stuff.
Looking at the chart in the SRSrocco article gold is way more popular as jewellery (49.2%) rather than investment (19%+17% CBs) but I also see the source is Wikipedia so don't know if I can rely on it. Amazing Wikipedia is probably one of the biggest sources of information globally but in reality might be a load of s**t that some a***hole felt like posting. No wonder no one knows what to believe anymore. Is Wikipedia as potentially unreliable as I imagine?

More importantly gold up over another 1% last night. Another hundred days of these type of gains and I will be a happy man, provided it doesn't mean the world is ending. Losses in the low single digits, breakeven today.

[JBmurc]

Also with the Property markets.. share-markets making record highs... bank deposits record lows ....Gold/Silver/PGM Bullion / ETF investment are a great way to diverse ones funds >>

Am myself looking to increase my Silver Bullion position currently by a few kilo's

[Valuegrowth]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the...old-2017-04-21

[Aaron]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the...old-2017-04-21

I am not a bull on gold, more like a bear on the current financial system.
Limitless currency
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-0...on-assets-2017
Negative interest rates, taxpayer bailouts of banks and lenders, robbing from savers through inflation to help borrowers, inadvertently (maybe not) increasing wealth and income inequality while doing all these things and if history is any guide heading us all toward war.
To me there needs to be changes. The only way to address wealth inequality is central government taxing rich people more and using that for programs that benefit society as a whole.
To address the explosion in debt you need to let some people go bust and experience the dreaded deflation at least until things like Auckland property prices start making sense again. I am not very smart and only repeat what I read but a lot of boomers are reaching retirement soon and many if what I read is correct haven't saved a lot so they will be very fearful of any change and in a democracy the majority rules so I think National are doing so well because they haven't made any great changes. Only advancing their neoliberal idealism in small increments like upping regressive GST to reduce progressive income tax, selling the power generators etc. I think we will carry on doing what we are doing until it doesn't work anymore. I am unsure when that might be. A wave of defaults could cause it but how can anyone default when the taxpayer guarantees all debts, central banks buy bonds and drop interest rates to zero or below in a crisis. Maybe people one day lose faith in currency when things get too ridiculous (like negative interest rates), if they do it will be very quick and in that situation with all assets already fully priced gold might be a valid alternative as a store of wealth even as an alternative to the current monetary system if it were to lose the faith of the general public.

[Aaron]

Even Jim Bolger thinks things may need to change.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...the-power-back