Auguries — EU, Then US
January 5, 2012
By Kevin Michael Grace

Gold was up (at press time) $82.60 (+5.4%) for the week to $1,623.40, and silver was up $1.89 (+6.9%) to $29.27. The Wall Street Journal attributed gold’s rise to bargain hunting. “People who were jittery about owning gold probably [cashed out] at the end of 2011,” said Adam Klopfenstein, a market strategist with Archer Financial Services. “At these [price] levels, it’s regaining a little more investor interest.”

The Journal attributed gold’s 10% December drop to “worries about a potential financial crisis in Europe [that] led investors turn to the flexibility of the US dollar for safety.” Ah, the frying pan/fire conundrum. It’s not as if Europe’s fundamentals show any indication of improvement. Reuters reports that terrified Greeks and Italians have taken to burying their Euros underground.

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