Gold Drivers 2005 preview
Introduction
When I started working on an update of the Gold drivers 2004 report I quickly realized that the volume of the new report would make it unusable for an easy read. Therefore I’ve decided to publish each chapter one by one over an 6 week time-span which makes it easier to digest. So what to expect from the Gold drivers 2005 report ? Key drivers for Gold such as the US dollar, demand/supply, negative real rates etc.. will be discussed in each chapter separately. This preview will shine a light on each chapter and gives a good impression of things to come.In the end (mid December) the entire report will be available in pdf format. Readers can drop a mail in order to obtain the entire report.
Chapter I Gold & US$
Projections about a declining dollar due to an ever increasing twin deficit supported by many investment veterans (Buffet, Soros, Rogers,Templeton etc..) are met by much denial from as well politicians as well as from investors. Dick Cheney for example publicly said that deficits don’t matter and that the world is happy to continue investing (and thereby financing these deficits) in the US. Sure, as long as foreigners are willing to pour in the amount of $2 billion dollars every working day the dollar won’t crash. But if foreign confidence were to wane, the US dollar will be heading south. Already rumors are surfacing (source Financial Times) that China is selling US dollars and buying Asian currencies in readiness to switch the renminbi's dollar peg to a basket arrangement, something Chinese officials have increasingly hinted at. However some analysts argue that the mountain of US debt should work as a ‘synthetic short position’ in the dollar which would result in a sharp appreciation of the dollar. This chapter deals with these issues in detail and will show that no matter how you look at the US twin deficits and America’s future fiscal liabilities, this problem is huge and some painful adjustments not only seem to be necessary but unavoidable as well. It should be obvious that one of these major painful adjustments will be a massive devaluation of the US dollar. It seems that the idea of a dollar devaluation is gaining support from the FED when the president of the Dallas Fed, Robert McTeer recently said :
“over time, there is only one direction for the dollar to go – lower."
Former ECB president Wim Duisenberg quoted by Spanish Newspaper El Pais recently said :”A dollar devaluation seems inevitable due to the tremendous US Current Account deficit.” Furthermore he recently said on Dutch television that we can only hope and pray for a smooth economic transition in the US. END. Well, I can’t help but to think that he’s afraid of a dollar crash. Why is this so important ? Simple, the US dollar is the primary key driver for Gold, as the dollar goes, so will gold but in opposite direction, gold is the anti-dollar with a high inversed correlation to the dollar ! In the end, gold is still a monetary asset and trades like a currency.