Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Predictions of $2,000-an-ounce Gold coming fast and furious

gold cast barImage by hto2008 via Flickr

Henry Blodget

Gold smashed through an all-time high of $1,100 an ounce on Friday, bringing some solace to gold bugs who have been losing money on the metal since the 1980s.

Gold still hasn't come anywhere near its late-1980's peak on an inflation-adjusted basis ($1,800 or so), belying the general theory that it's a great inflation hedge. As the world gold frenzy really takes hold, however, $2,000-an-ounce predictions are coming fast and furious, so there's always hope.

The NYT surveys the gold landscape, checking in on the ultimate symbol of the rush--the bars on sale at the counters of Harrods:

[L]ast month, Harrods, the 160-year-old London department store, began selling coins as well as gold bullion ranging from tiny 1-gram ingots to the hefty, 12.5-kilogram, 400-Troy-ounce bricks that are so often featured in movies and stocked inside the vaults of Fort Knox. Harrods’s lower ground floor, where the gold is peddled, has been packed with interested shoppers.

“The response has been astounding,” said Chris Hall, head of Harrods Gold Bullion. “Bars are definitely more popular than coins. The 100-gram is the most popular.”...

THE Harrods gold line is made by PAMP, a rival Swiss refiner down the road here from Argor-Heraeus, in the nearby town of Castel San Pietro. And demand for bars weighing 100 ounces or less for individual investors is up 80 percent, said Marwan Shakarchi, the chairman of MKS Finance, a Geneva company that owns PAMP. Read the whole thing >

One reason people are buying gold? You can hide it from tax authorities. Just buy a few 400-ounce bars from Harrods and store them in your Harrods safe-deposit box (230 pounds a year), and the bastards won't be knocking on your door demanding capital gains taxes. (Unless they get you when you sell the bars back to Harrods for cash).

Courtesy of the NYT, here's a peak at gold's inflation adjusted performance over the years.

And here's more info about how to cash in on the craze at Harrods:

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