If it’s not the Chinese, what’s driving the price of gold?

September 7th, 2009. Published under News. No Comments.

If it’s not the Chinese, what’s driving the price of gold?

ALEC HOGG: Well, that gold price is now trading at $990/oz. It has suddenly come to life. Paul Walker is the chief executive of GFMS, and he joins us from Paris. Paul, on Mineweb, Moneyweb’s international website today, Lawrie Williams wrote a story about China pushing the idea of buying gold to its 1.3bn population. There was a programme on Central China Television explaining to the public how easy it is to buy gold, and this is being interpreted – in some quarters, anyway – as part of the reason why the gold price seems to be sprinting towards $1000. Is that wishful thinking?

PAUL WALKER: Well, I don’t think as much as wishful thinking – it’s actually been a story that’s been around for some time. If you have a look at GFMS data on China, it’s been the one outstanding growth market throughout this bull rally. It’s outperformed every other gold market both in value and, most important, quantity terms from the perspective of supply and demand balances in this market. So it’s already to an extent in the price and there’s no doubt that growth in China, ongoing (more…)

Be wary of the markets – gold still offers the best insurance

May 12th, 2009. Published under News. No Comments.

Past major bear markets have seen false new dawns which have tended to be short lived and the recent big uptick in stock markets could be another of these, so don’t disinvest from gold yet.

Author: Lawrence Williams

Posted:  Monday , 11 May 2009 

NEW YORK  - 

In a week that has seen global stock markets continuing to perform positively, gold has done remarkably well given that many experts are predicting the start of a new bull market. There has been little, if any, disinvestment from gold over the period, which suggests there are many out there continuing to hedge their bets.

And indeed they may well be wise to do so. Major bear markets of the past have seen big upswings during their progress, sucking investors back in, only for the upturns to end dramatically as some further major financial collapse spooks the markets again and prices tumble. (more…)

Gold, gold, gold

March 23rd, 2009. Published under News. No Comments.

Massive Gold Sales!

From the early 1980’s and for the next 20 years gold was under the threat of massive sales from the world’s central banks.  Many commentators reported that the overhang of gold above the ‘open’ market was so great that such sales would eventually lead to central bank reserves in the developed world having no gold at all.   Central Banks had further worsened the situation by loaning gold to mining companies, through the bullion banks, allowing them to finance gold production to a far greater extent than warranted by the price of gold during that time.   This acceleration in the production of gold allowed the gold price to be pressed down $850 to $275, the point at whichBritain, at the instruction of the current Prime Minister Gordon Brown instructed that Britain sell the bulk of its gold reserves.   From the turn of the millennium this perspective changed dramatically. (more…)