Wednesday, February 11, 2009

IMF out of cash, Bond market to Crash and Gold going to $3000?


On Febr. 4, Paul Wolfowitz, the former president of the World Bank, said the IMF and similar institutions are incapable of coping with the global financial crisis because they do not have enough resources.

The market appears to have turned on U.S. Treasury debt. Analyst Adrian Douglas issued a report on Sunday titled "Bond Market Collapse Unfolding." He used his proprietary Market Force Analysis on the price of the 10-year U.S. Treasury Note. Last September and October, as the value of Treasury debt was falling, it looked almost certain that the U.S. Treasury entered the market to purchase its own debt! This had the effect of boosting the price of Treasury bonds.
In an interview on www.commodityonline.com released Monday, Marc Gugeri, the Fund Manager and Advisor to both Gold 2000 Ltd and the Julius Baer Gold Equity Fund, was asked about the price of gold. He stated, "The majority of investors purchase Paper-(Gold)-Futures at the COMEX. The sellers or counterparties of those Gold-Futures are just a few dominant players. Some of them have an in-official close link to the U.S. government. So far most of the investors didn't exercise the gold futures and have accepted cash instead of physical settlement. This is about to change. I believe that the COMEX will default and the entire paper gold market will 'crash' and gold could rise very quickly to 2,000 [or] 3,000 U.S. dollars. When this happens it will be too late to exercise or to try purchasing physical gold."

It normally is rare to find such doom-and-gloom commentary appearing in general financial circles. It is even more uncommon for commentators to reveal that some of the dominant players in the gold market have a close link to the U.S. government or that the price of gold could soon double or triple. Lately, mainstream financial analysts have been much more willing to talk about gold, to recommend owning gold for having better appreciation prospects than other assets, and to specifically recommend purchasing physical gold rather than shares in gold exchange traded funds or gold "certificates."

The tide has been turning toward gold for the past eight years, partly because it has been one of the top performing of all asset classes. Still, the proportion of Americans who own gold is minuscule - estimates I have seen range from only 3-9 percent of all U.S. investors. There is much more room for future appreciation despite how far prices have already climbed this decade.

The money supply of all of the world's major currencies is now increasing by 10-30 percent annually. With the gold supply increasing by less than 2 percent annually, it is a virtual certainty that all currencies will fall in value against gold.

In the past several weeks, several investment advisors have become more positive about gold because of the relative strength in the price of silver! In the past, silver has led the way for higher precious metals prices, which is just what has been happening so far this year. Late last year, the gold/silver ratio was over 80. Now it is under 70 and falling. I like the prospects for both silver and gold (though I continue to expect silver's price to outperform gold).

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