Guess what was the best performing mutual fund sector last month in January in Canada?
If you guessed precious metals then you get a gold star.
7 of the top 10 best performing mutual funds for January were precious metal related(mostly gold) and 9 of the top 12 were precious metal related......Is the financial community finally realizing what all of us realize is happening??
Furthermore, January was the worst month on record EVER for the US stock market.....Not sure about the TSX but I would hazard a guess that it probably is as well.......Hmmm......wonder if this all is significant??!!......I think all what has transpired lately is a major turning point which will be making precious metals a star once again.......This is just the beginning of the wild ride folks!
Here also is an interesting tidbet about IMF gold sales......showing what general idiots they really are:
Reuters: G7 approves IMF gold sales
“The Group of Seven rich nations on Saturday approved the sale of gold by the International Monetary Fund from April as part of a broad reform of its budget, Italian Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa said.
“‘There was an acceptance among the G7 that resources should be raised by selling gold,’ Padoa-Schioppa, who is also the head of the IMF’s steering committee (IMFC), told reporters after a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Tokyo. ‘The current gold price means a flow of income can be ensured,’ Padoa-Schioppa said.
“Morgan Stanley analyst Stephen Jen said the Fund held 103.4 million ounces of gold worth some $92 billion at current market prices. That was up from $23 billion just five years ago. ‘The IMF is rich, if it wants to be,’ he wrote in a recent note to clients, issued before the G7’s approval of the gold sales. ‘This is arguably a good time to consider selling some of these gold holdings and investing the proceeds in financial securities with positive yields.’”
Source: Gavin Jones, Reuters, February 9, 2008.
Chris Powell (GATA): Mobilization of IMF gold a sign of central bank desperation
“Before panicking about the Reuters story [above], reporting that the G7 conference in Tokyo likes the idea that the IMF should raise money for itself by selling some of its gold reserves, consider a few things.
1) The prospect of gold sales by the IMF has been hanging over the gold market for years.
2) For almost a decade now central bank gold sales have been accompanied by higher gold prices, not lower prices. Gold demand has been exceeding gold production by about a thousand tonnes per year, the gap being covered only by central bank dishoarding. Even with the rising price gold production is declining, the price still not being high enough to make greater production generally profitable.
3) Mobilization of IMF gold suggests that individual central bank gold reserves are nearing exhaustion or that individual central banks are no longer willing to dishoard what they have left.
4) There’s no assurance that the IMF has the gold attributed to it and no report as to where the gold is kept.
5) Though it is never questioned by the financial press, the rationale that continues to be offered for selling the IMF’s gold is plainly ridiculous. That rationale is, as the Reuters story here reports, that the IMF gold should be liquidated and the proceeds invested ‘in financial securities with positive yields.’ But what ‘yields’ could be more positive than the ‘yield’ acknowledged for the IMF gold, an increase in value of 400% in five years? Is the IMF supposed to be happier with government bonds paying 4% per year against inflation rates several times that?
6) Those who want gold restored as the independent arbiter of the international financial system should be thrilled if all central banks and the IMF dishoarded all their gold at once and got out of the gold market for good. Until then, there really won’t be a market price for gold, just a desperately manipulated one, a price well below the cost of production – still a bargain.”
Source: Chris Powell, Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, February 9, 2008.
Jim Sinclair: IMF has history of selling gold at wrong time
“It is important to note that their sales all have taken place at times when major bull markets were either just beginning or, as in 1976 to 1980, at the start of the major parabolic move to then all time highs.
“That is the only implication IMF sales have to the price of gold. It has been the most powerfully bullish event every time they have done it, and will be again.
“If any newcomer to gold sees the IMF news as a reason to sell gold these newcomers are as DOPEY as the IMF has proved to be every time, time and time again.”
Source: Jim Sinclair’s MineSet, February 10, 2008.
Goldmoney: Silver set to outperform gold
“The price of gold and silver rarely move at the same rate. The reason for this outcome is that their respective demand is fundamentally different. To put it into economic terms, the demand for gold is inelastic, while that for silver is elastic. In other words, the demand for silver is very sensitive to changes in its price, while in contrast, the demand for gold is relatively insensitive to changes in its price.
“The result is that in precious metal bull markets, the price of silver typically rises faster than the price of gold, and vice versa in precious metal bear markets.”
Source: James Turk, GoldMoney, February 10, 2008.
