gold's rise may be short lived, page-3

Not sure that people really understand the implications of what is going on in the short term and long term physical supply side. Goldfields and Barrick have both decimated their exploration groups, and of course Newcrest did this a while back. Newmont has also cut back severely, and Anglo is not travelling very well at all.

and the Juniors are battling to raise enough money to keep the lights on, and for some the lifestyle of choice. They certainly will not be going after the major greenfields discoveries.

On average it will take in excess of 25 years from the start of exploration to producing bar of gold, and that is a historical figure. If one looks at Australia the only discovery of note, has been Tropicana, which was found in 2003, after several years, and is now coming into production. The rest of the discoveries you can probably fit in the back of a 4wd,...

The Wall Street personas and the Goldman Sachs guys probably do not know that gold is actually mined from the ground AFTER it has been found. Much easier to write an IOU or CFD or another derivative. Do you blame them. Mining is a dirty business, and exploration is too risky. Much easier just to sit at your desk and write something on paper.

I'd trust an analyst as much as I would trust an economist.