The year ahead promises to be very good once again for the gold market, according to Thomson Reuters’ GFMS Gold Survey 2012, presented Wednesday in Toronto.
The updated survey results forecast that gold prices will continue to increase, and predicts “gold to average an all-time high over the first half of 2013…. of well into the $1,800s (per ounce).”
A slick new infographic from Demonocracy.info provides readers with a vivid reminder of the sheer paucity of physical gold on our planet by providing a comparative visual depiction of all the gold ever mined in human history.
Space mining start-up Planetary Resources has put together quite the infographic to explain how asteroid mining will create a trillion-dollar industry.
The company says there are over 1,500 asteroids as easy to get to as the surface of the Moon. They are also in Earth-like orbits with small gravity fields, which make them easier to approach and depart.
Following rumors to the effect that have been circulating for months Germany’s central bank will recall some of its gold bullion stored in vaults around the world.
The hoard is worth more than $180 billion.
The Bundesbank on Wednesday said it will ship back home all 374 tonnes it had stored with the Banque de France in Paris, as well as 300 tonnes held in Manhattan by the US Federal Reserve.
At the moment the US Federal Reserve stores 45% of the total 3,396 tonnes and some reports suggest that the Bundesbank want much of it back because the Fed refused German officials a viewing of the bullion a couple of months ago.
The Bank of England has 13% in London and the Bank of France in Paris 11% while the remainder is held at the Bundesbank’s headquarters in Frankfurt.
Bill Gross of Pimco summed up the situation perfectly in a tweet yesterday:
@PIMCO Gross: Report claims Germany moving gold from NY/Paris back to Frankfurt. Central banks don’t trust each other?
In November 2011, Venezuela repatriated some 180 tonnes of gold held in vaults in London and elsewhere to store it with the Caracas central bank under orders from President Hugo Chavez.
Gold futures were last quoted at $1,680 an ounce in New York, down $4 on the day.
An Australian amateur prospector still can’t believe his luck as the car hood he thought he had hit when digging turned out to be a 22-cm-long hunk of gold weighing 5.5 kg.
The discovery, qualified as “extremely significant” by Cordell Kent, owner and dealer of Ballarant Mining Exchange Gold Shop, has gone far and wide. The video of the nugget, posted on YouTube late Wednesday, already had almost 440,000 views at the time this story was written.
“I have been a prospector and dealer for two decades, and cannot remember the last time a nugget over 100 ounces [2.8 kg] has been found locally,” Kent told BBC News.
After discovering the nugget, already for sale for more than $260,000, the man rushed home to tell his wife. “He is going to pay off a lot of bills and pay off his house,” Kent said. “It’s a real life changer.”
This is not the first time a massive gold nugget has been found Down Under. Last year, a photo of a boomerang-shaped object, allegedly belonging to a huge 60-kilogram yellow metal nugget, found near Kalgoorlie, also had its 15 minutes of fame.
Comments