That Is Real Gold. The Alternative Is Paper Gold…Other People’s Promises

One of the best interviews we have seen about gold in recent weeks took place last week. It was a Bloomberg interview which involved Peter Hambro being interviewed by Francine Lacqua and Manus Cranny on Bloomberg Television’s “The Pulse.”

Some of the great quotations from this refreshing interview include:

• “I believe it [gold] is [still the safe haven]… [This gold coin] 2000 years ago buys the same amount of bread today as it did when Jesus Christ was born. That is a real safe haven asset…
• “That is real gold. The alternative is paper gold…other people’s promises. That is nobody’s promise. This is real. You can feel the weight of it. It’s lovely… “
• “It’s virtually impossible to get physical gold in London to ship to China and India.”
• “Are you sure it’s as good to have Comex futures as it is to have the real thing?”
• “The price of gold doesn’t vary, it’s the price of the promises that vary.”
• “There is no physical about. Instead, there are endless promises.”
• “I really worry that that paper market is something that could be stamped upon and people say ‘sorry, we’re going to have a financial closeout’ and it’s all over. If you want to be in the gold business, you want to be in the physical business.”
• “Gold is what I call wealth insurance. You have health insurance, fire insurance – this is wealth insurance…
• “The promises are the things that vary. Are you sure it’s as good to have Comex futures as it is to have the real thing? In the Shanghai market, which is the only big physical market, recently introduced by the Chinese – year on year, they delivered 55 million ounces from August to August. That’s 65 billion dollars’ worth of physical gold. That is about half of the world’s mine supply. When you add to that the gold that’s being bought by the People’s Bank of China… Chinese demand… What the Chinese have done for their people by encouraging them to buy gold, then devaluing their currency, is fantastic…”

Hambro was a bullion dealer with Mocatta & Goldsmid and from comes from a wealthy line of Anglo-Danish merchant bankers. Today he is Chairman and Co-Founder of Petropavlovsk, the second-biggest gold producer in Russia. Hambro knows more about gold than most in the industry and has that all important historical perspective.

The interview is well worth a watch and can be seen here.

DAILY PRICES
Today’s Gold Prices: USD 1105.50, EUR 977.11 and GBP 716.49 per ounce.
Friday’s Gold Prices: USD 1108.00, EUR 977.98 and GBP 716.97 per ounce.
(LBMA AM)

Gold had a marginal gain of 80 cents while silver fell 19 cents, or 1.3%, to $14.44 an ounce on the COMEX yesterday. Gold was marginally lower in gold trading in Singapore and fell a further $2 in European trading. 

Gold in USD – 10 Years

Silver bullion is underperforming and is down 0.6%, platinum’s down 0.2%, and palladium’s down 0.3% after ending yesterday down over 1%.

All the focus is on the Federal Reserve ‘will they or won’t they’ increase interest rates by a small 25 basis points. The Fed announcement is scheduled for Thursday after a two-day meeting at which it will decide whether or not to make its first interest rate increase since 2006. The interest rate increase in 2006 (see chart above) was followed by higher gold prices as were the interest rate rises of the 1970s.

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Courtesy of http://www.goldcore.com/us