Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The Coming Gold Bust: $800 Per Ounce?

CNN Money -- "Barclays Wealth in London predicts gold will fall to a fair value of $800 an ounce by 2012, as investors eventually dump it for riskier trades; Societe Generale, the French bank, in April 2009 predicted $800 gold by the end of 2010, though it has reversed its stance since then. Analyst John Nadler of gold deal Kitco predicts gold will fall to $900 in 2011. Their reasoning is simple: investors are keeping prices high even as demand from non-investors is cratering.

Take gold jewelry, which accounts for more than half of the world's gold market. Demand there fell 8% in the fourth quarter of 2009 and is likely to continue to fall amid high prices that turn off shoppers. For example, in India, the largest gold buying country, high gold prices this week kept Indians from purchasing metal for the gold-buying festival of Akshaya Tritiya, which in turn drove down prices.

Then there's price pressure from the supply side. Higher gold prices mean miners work overtime. The supply of mine gold around the world jumped 7% last year to 2,572 tons-the second largest increase in history.

Gold bullion dealer Kitco says places like China and Russia will help boost the amount of gold from mining by 4% to 6% a year through 2014. Because it costs miners about $480 on average to extract an ounce of gold, they plow ahead when prices are high, eventually leading to an oversupply situation."

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