Since I published Gold101 there have been some wonderful articles giving additional details on buying and storing physical gold.
The first, called "Gold coin shortage likely to become chronic" by Michael J. Kosares, outlines the reasons why gold bullion coins have been so hard to find at reasonable premiums, and why these forces will probably keep premiums high in the future as well. BTW, Michael's book, The ABCs of Gold Investing: How to Protect and Build Your Wealth With Gold is well worth reading if you are new to buying gold.
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Here are a few resources to help you move some of your savings into gold.
Remember that gold is a form of cash, not an investment. It doesn't grow in value, create new jobs, earn profits, or generate income for you. It is simply a currency that no government can counterfeit or debase. You should hold it as a way to reduce the volatility of your portfolio, or for long term saving. Don't imagine that owning gold will make you rich: If gold doubles in price due to massive creation of fiat currency, most of the other things you need to buy will eventually double in price as well. Gold can preserve your wealth, but not really grow it. For that you need real investments and prudent speculations.
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Gold is a type of money, just like Dollars, Euros, Pounds and Yen. Unlike these other forms of money, gold has been around for thousands of years, while many fiat systems have come and gone. Because the amount of gold in the world cannot be increased without finding and mining more of it, its value is fairly constant. This is in stark contrast to the fiat monies which can be created on command by governments and central banks.
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Yesterday the NY Times ran an article headlined, "Average U.S. Income Showed First Rise Over 2000".
The big claim is that after peaking in 2000, incomes fell, bottoming in 2003, and have now climbed back to make new highs in 2006.
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Recently I was in Vancouver, BC for the Agora Financial Symposium, which carried the tagline "A View from the Peak". There were many peaks discussed and analyzed: oil, food, water and debt, to name a few. The price of gold and silver got a lot of discussion, and forecasts abounded. Discussions and opinions were not limited to the speakers, of course – the hallways, restaurants and sidewalks were filled with animated discourse, colorful scenarios and useful information. As you can guess, I loved every minute of it!
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The first part of this interview covered Paul van Eeden's background and laid out his views on gold, inflation and interest rates. In this final segment, we'll discuss what to do about this situation – how to translate this view of the world into investment action.
More on Gold, Inflation and Interest Rates continued – Episode 5
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Last year, in July of 2007, I attended the Agora Financial investment Symposium in Vancouver, BC. There were a lot of excellent speakers and sessions covering all aspects of investment, with quite a bit of emphasis on natural resources and a strong international flavor. One of the speakers who impressed me the most was Paul van Edeen. On my return home I subscribed to his newsletter – which has since become one of my favorites.
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I recently came across a presentation made on May 20th to the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs by Dr. Benn Steil, a Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, entitled "Financial Speculation in Commodity Markets" (pdf). Dr. Steil also gave a speech the week before at the New York Hard Assets Investment Conference entitled "Is the Dollar Doomed?" (text and audio).
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I realized yesterday that it is easy to calculate the price of an ounce of silver in gold grams if you know the gold-silver ratio (Duh!) You just divide the ratio into 31.1035 (the number of grams in an ounce.) And the ratio is well documented throughout much of history. For instance, the website Measuring Worth provides annual values for the gold-silver ratio going back to 1687. I've used this data to create a new long term chart showing the price of silver from 1700 to today, and added it to the Silver chart page.
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Another fun look at the news, without the distorting effects of the US Dollar. For context, be sure to check out the charts on crude oil and gasoline.
From a March 11, 2008 story in the Associated Press:
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