gold predictions for 2012. how did they fare?

How have the predictions by Gold bug experts faired during 2012. Gold has barely moved from last year’s close up around $100. In fact Gold is only up due to a quirk of timing. If the “end of year” were 2 weeks earlier or later Gold would have been down. However many the so called expert Gold bugs had much loftier expectations than the $100 rise for Gold during 2012. Here are some of them –

Bill Murphy, chairman of GATA, had a mega fail with his 100% increase in 90 days he pronounced in August 2012. According to Murphy his “source” at the Board of Trade predicted Gold would go nuts in August because JP Morgan was having a massive problem with their naked short Silver position. His prediction failed miserably but don’t expect that to stop him from making similar predictions in the future. This prediction had the hallmarks of many Gold predictions during the year with imminent Gold rises, imminent financial problems and tips from “insiders”. For those who don’t know the same Bill Murphy was drummed out of the futures industry when he & his brothers were engaged in non competitive trading & fraud in copper futures. The case was settled in 1993 with a big fine.

Over to the boys at King World News where the predictions flowed freely for what was expected in 2012. Needless to say they also all failed to get even close to the actual results with some of their prediction verging on the ridiculous.

Von Greyez predicted Gold would end the year between $3,000 and $5,000. One of the higher predictions made at KWN and which can be also be described as a mega fail. However this didn’t stop him making further Gold predictions throughout the year. As seems to be the case with expert predictions that turn out to be far from the mark it doesn’t seem to cause them any embarrassment or curtail their predictions for imminent big rises for Gold. For example von Greyez KWN blogs through the year were
We are moving closer to financial collapse
$100trillion+ to be printed
Bank failures, Disorder, Massive Panic & Gold
$1.5 Quadrillion bubble & Gold into the Stratosphere
Risk of systemic collapse is now enormous
etc, etc, etc

Once again the theme for von Greyez and other Gold bugs seems to be imminent financial collapse & imminent massive surges in Gold & Silver. When their forecasts fail to happen they just rehash them at a later date as he did throughout 2012. None of his numerous & dire 2012 predictions eventuated.

Another regular contributor to King World News is Steven Leeb. He forecast Gold would hit $3,000 and Silver $60 in 2012. Once again nowhere near the mark but he continued to make more forecasts during 2012 including
$10,000 Gold due to its role as a major currency
Supply Crunch to send Silver to the Stratosphere
We will see a Gold standard imposed on Europe
etc, etc, etc

Jim Rickards author of “Currency Wars” agreed with the $3,000 - $5,000 target for Gold in 2012 and also predicted the US would go to war against Iran and $200 oil would result.

James Turk, another regular on King World News made more modest forecasts in December 2011 for Gold & Silver in 2012 which nevertheless turned out to be well off the mark. He predicted $70 Silver and $2,000 Gold by the end of March 2012. Although his initial targets were more restrained he is a proponent of the conspiracy theory of Gold suppression and also believes there is little Gold in the Central bank vaults as it has all been used to suppress the Gold price. He is the founder & a director of Goldmoney.com a site that sells Gold & Silver to investors and he stands to gain from a buying rush into precious metals.

Jim Sinclair is also another big proponent of the Gold suppression conspiracy. Sinclair has made predictions of Gold going between $3,500 and $12,000. In April 2012 he predicted that “paper Gold shorts were now trapped” and Gold may gap up to $3,000 in an event he described as historic. Needless to say it didn’t happen.

Mike Maloney is a proponent of cycles and believes Gold & Silver are headed much higher. He also runs a Gold & Silver sales company goldsilver.com so he also benefits from selling Gold & Silver. He seems mainly focused on Silver and he has put out price targets as high as $1,500/oz Silver (yes that’s not a misprint .. $1,500 Silver) and $15,000 Gold. He also says by 2016 500oz of Silver will buy an average house. But then again he also predicted $10 oil when presenting at a 2010 conference.

Doug Casey is a breath of fresh air when it comes to the Gold price suppression conspiracy. He is bullish on precious metals except he doesn’t blame the conspiracy when Gold falls. Casey, who made his name in the 1970’s Gold market talks about how ridiculous the Gold conspiracy theory is in this video (starts at 21m:40sec) -

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cwc/readers-pick-doug-casey%E2%80%99s-brain

Peter Schiff became famous for forecasting the housing bubble crash & the ensuing Global Financial Crisis. He became even more famous because he was scoffed at on TV by the financial guru’s for making these predictions which turned out to be correct. He is an Austrian economics adherent. Unfortunately his track record since the GFC hasn’t been as successful as he has forecast doom & gloom with the real crash yet to happen. Another Austrian economics adherent, Michael Pento, is bullish on Gold for the same Austrian reasons as Schiff i.e. Quantitative easing, Debts, Deficits, etc. Michael Pento predicted Gold at $10,000 just a few days ago due to currency debasement caused by QE.

The performance of Gold on 2012 was a failure if you were to measure it against the predictions of the Gold bulls. Watch out during 2013 for calls by these same Gold bulls for the imminent financial catastrophe and Gold to the moon calls. You can expect there will be plenty of them just like 2012.