Almost nothing is as good as gold Font Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print Robin Bromby | January 01, 2008
SEVEN years of gold. Seven years of gains.
Barring some unimaginable event overnight, even if gold remained static at its $US842.70 ($955.70) an ounce close on Friday, the yellow metal would have put on more than 30 per cent during 2007 - bettered only by crude oil (about 40 per cent), soybeans (60 per cent) and Minneapolis wheat (more than 110 per cent) as a traded commodities punt.
Investors are now scrambling to get aboard the gold train, with the Perth Mint reporting an extraordinary surge in global buying of its depository accounts.
"You walk in at 6.30 in the morning and the phone is ringing," says mint treasurer Nigel Moffatt.
"It doesn't stop ringing throughout the day and at night it's still ringing when you leave."
For $50,000 down (more if you live outside Australia and New Zealand) you can open a depository account, which operates just like a bank account, but, instead, the balance is in troy ounces and not dollars.
Mr Moffatt said the fast-rising price of the metal had not, as he would have expected, put investors off buying physical gold. Instead, it has spurred them on.
"It triggers in their mind the idea that the train is about to leave the station and they had better get aboard," he said.
The mint now holds about $1.25 billion worth of gold for its depository account holders.
Another 30 per cent gain this year would put the metal at roughly $US1100/oz some time in 2008 - by no means a daydream figure, with many analysts now seeing the $US1000 mark as easily achievable in the coming months.
The yellow metal continued to trade strongly in Asia yesterday at around the $US842/oz level, still just short of its January 1980 record of $US850/oz, but a world away from the $US289/oz recorded on January 3, 2000, the first day of trade seven years ago.
And, in every year that has followed, gold has reached December 31 considerably higher than it was on the preceding January 1.
But it is a mixed bag when it comes to gold stocks, with many of them still failing to be set on fire by the gold price.
Newcrest Mining added 91c to close at $33.10, but gains were more modest at Lihir Gold (up 8c to $3.61) and Resolute Mining (up 3.5c to $1.755) - both the latter companies are well off their 52-week highs.
But emerging NSW producer Hill End Gold did manage to hit its 52-week high yesterday, closing 2c up to 38c.
On the other hand, View Resources, which has revived the Bronzewing mine and is ramping up to produce 120,000oz a year, is well off its best for 2007 of 52c.
