{"id":339,"date":"2009-07-07T15:02:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-07T15:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/blog\/?p=339"},"modified":"2009-07-07T15:02:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-07T15:02:00","slug":"la-febricula-del-oro-y2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/la-febricula-del-oro-y2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gold Febricle (y2)."},"content":{"rendered":"
(Continued from The Gold Flake (1)<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Gold has often been compared to shares. Although it may not be particularly significant, there is one example that is frequently cited. In November 2005, Rick Mun\u00e1rriz of Motley Fool.com<\/a> raises the question of whether a Google share or an ounce of gold represents a better investment. At that time, both were trading at around $700. On 4 January 2008, the price of an ounce of gold exceeded that of a Google share by 30.77%. At the end of the year, Google closed 2008 at $307.65 per share, whilst gold closed the year at $866 per ounce.<\/p>\n

What determines the value of gold? At present, the price of gold is, ultimately, determined \u2013 like so many other commodities \u2013 by supply and demand. However, unlike most other commodities, hoarding and disposal play a much greater role in influencing the price, because most gold mines are still in operation and can increase their output in line with the price.<\/p>\n

However, given the enormous amount of gold held in reserves, compared with annual global production \u2013 which is small \u2013 the price of gold is primarily influenced by changes in market sentiment rather than changes in annual production. Global demand for gold not met by production is ultimately met by sales from central banks and the International Monetary Fund, which by the end of 2004 held 19% of gold. The Washington Gold Agreement (WAG<\/a>), signed in September 1999, limits gold sales by its members (Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia, the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund) to less than 400 tonnes a year.<\/p>\n

Other central banks are buyers. For example, in early 2006, China \u2013 which holds only 1.3% of its reserves in gold \u2013 announced that it was looking for ways to improve the return on its official reserves. Some speculators are hoping that this is a sign that China might convert some of its reserves into gold, in line with other central banks.<\/p>\n

Investors in gold who use fundamental analysis generally analyse the macroeconomic situation, which includes international economic indicators such as GDP growth rates, inflation, interest rates, productivity and energy prices. It is also worth analysing the annual global supply of gold against demand.<\/p>\n

Global demand for gold soared by 38% in the first quarter of 2009. Three years ago, investment demand for gold accounted for just 10% of global gold demand, whereas today it stands at over 30%. That represents a very significant increase in investment demand.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The problem, however, as noted earlier, is that the price of gold often fluctuates depending on the perception of security surrounding other currencies, rather than on the macroeconomic situation \u201cper se\u201d. Just over a year ago, one could find books predicting the end of the euro and the dollar and the supremacy of gold. Or families investing in Swiss francs because of the backing of the Swiss National Bank\u2019s gold reserves (which, incidentally, has been one of the major sellers of gold). Therefore, whilst gold production is unlikely to change in the short or medium term, Private supply and demand are highly liquid and subject to rapid changes, unlike almost all other commodities.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We must not forget that if we strip gold of its strong speculative element, current levels are probably already very high. And the gradual easing of systemic risk \u2013 though not of the crisis itself \u2013 is on the horizon. The (slow and arduous) recapitalisation of the global banking sector is a priority and has already been initiated by the most capable players, even though we are yet to see the skeletons of many institutions lying by the wayside. In a scenario where banks are recapitalised and the strongest nations remain solvent \u2013 with or without inflation \u2013 systemic risk will disappear. There is no historical precedent to draw upon for a scenario such as the one described. However, the easing or disappearance of the factors driving the \u201cflight to quality\u201d in gold should be decisive in reversing this trend. As always, the secret lies in knowing when.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: Strategically speaking, neither here nor there\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Viene de La Febr\u00edcula del Oro (1)) Se ha comparado mucho el oro con las acciones. Aunque puede ser no significativo, hay un ejemplo que se repite mucho. En noviembre de 2005, Rick Mun\u00e1rriz de Motley Fool.com plantea la cuesti\u00f3n de si representa una mejor inversi\u00f3n una acci\u00f3n de Google o una onza de oro. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categorizar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}