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What a difference a month makes. I have been "furiously" trying
to find out what has changed in recent weeks.
Are the central banks selling their Gold?
Do we have reasons to believe that the talk about inflation has been blown
out of proportion?
Was there a story about a large Gold find that I just happened to miss?
Did the price of gold head higher because hedge funds started buying gold
in 2001?
Of course, it is foolish to think that any of the fundamentals that have been
driving this bull market have changed. If anything, the fundamental reasons
have only intensified.
Inflation concerns, for example, have grown across the board. The AARP
reported that the average wholesale price of prescription drugs rose by 3.9%
last quarter, which was four times the rate of inflation. In Germany, producer
prices shot up by the highest amount in 24 years. Back in the states, the rental
index of the core CPI was up 0.6% in May, the biggest increase in 16 years.
Globally, Central Banks are scrambling to raise rates and put a stop to inflation.
Ironically, most Wall Street economists seemed shocked by the recent news
of higher than expected core CPI numbers. Ben Bernanke has even stated that
the recent rise in the core consumer price index is an "unwelcome" development.
Personally, I don't think it was difficult to predict that inflation
was going to be a concern. Whether it was the flooding of liquidity or the
consistently high energy and raw material costs, it was only a matter of time
until the core CPI reflected this. In any event, I expect the core CPI to spike
higher and force a data dependent fed to continue raising rates.
If anything, the recent sell off in the gold market has reaffirmed to me that
people are still not buying into Gold as a legitimate asset class. In
the last several weeks, I have had conversations with self-proclaimed Gold
Bulls that decided to sell their gold coins during this recent sell off. Although
it was quite obvious that there were a good amount of speculators and technical
buyers that had entered the market within recent months, I was surprised at
how many people panicked during this recent sell-off. In truth, shaking lose
the speculators was healthy for the overall direction of the Gold market.
So where do we go from here? The long term outlook remains the same. Gold
prices will continue marching towards $1000 plus. I also believe that
we will see new recent highs before the year is over. In the short term, John
Carter of tradethemarkets.com was kind enough to put together a short 8 minute
video presentation on the technical outlook for Gold.
As a reminder, the risk of loss in trading commodity futures contracts can
be substantial. You should therefore carefully consider whether such trading
is suitable for you in light of your financial condition. Also, the opinions
expressed in the video are solely of John Carter and Tradethemarkets.com. http://www.tradethemarkets.com/video/gold/gold.html
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