September 2019
E D'S RANT
SOLID GOLD CERTAINTY
Any fool can make a fortune on the bullion scene, says Michael Wilson. All you need is patience, wisdom, faultless judgement, infinite knowledge, and a good pair of time-traveller’s glasses
“Y
ou know,” said my old mate Paddy, as we downed another pint of Mother McGuire’s at the Old Duck and Bucket, “the thing about gold and suchlike is that it’s not actually about what gold itself is doing – it’s more about what everyone else is doing. And never mind whether what they’re doing is actually sensible or not? That’s really not the question. Your job, my friend, is to stay ahead of the crowd. And that means staying distant and analytical.” I nodded gently, in that agreeable way that you do after a few beers and your synapses aren’t firing particularly well. If only I’d hadn’t switched my mobile off, I’d probably have jotted down a memo to self: “Inform yourself properly about what drives currency alternatives.” Not that it would have helped me very much, because it would have been a very short Google search. For reasons I’ll explain. THE GOLD RUSH OF 2019 Whatever we might think about the virtues (or otherwise) of an analytical approach to this most emotional of investments, it’s been an excellent year for gold bugs. July saw the gold price beating $1,450 per ounce by quite a
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comfortable margin, which would have made you very happy if you’d bought it at $1,200 in January, and happier still if you’d bought it, as a Briton, when sterling was stronger than it’s been during those dismal pre-Brexit summer weeks where the prospect of a sterling/euro parity was starting to look alarmingly likely. See below for more on that last depressing prospect, which has seemed a lot less likely since the US Federal Reserve has finally started to turn dovish on American interest rates. (Lower interest rates and bond yields tend, on the whole, to be bad for currency strengths and consequently good for bullion prices.)
Whatever we might think about the virtues (or otherwise) of an analytical approach to this most emotional of investments, it ’s been an excellent year for gold bugs
I FAmagazine.com
