REFLECTIONS ON GOLD AS AN ASSET CLASS

REFLECTIONS ON GOLD AS AN ASSET CLASS

Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist

Gold is hotter than ever.  You can’t turn on the TV these days without seeing a gold commercial.   Several well known hedge fund managers have leveraged up positions in gold while John Paulson even went so far as to start his own gold hedge fund.  As an asset class gold has outperformed just about everything over the last 10 year period.  It’s been an impressive run.   But is it all justified?  Bear with me for a bit while I take a long-term macro look at gold as an asset class….

After having experienced deflation through much of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 the economy began to reflate as the Fed’s printing press (or button pressing if you prefer) went to work.  Asset prices began to stabilize and bank balance sheets were suddenly flush with cash as the Fed provided liquidity like it was going out of style.  The inflationistas immediately began crying wolf.  All of this extra cash was certain to cause inflation.  And that meant one thing: buy gold and short dollars.  Right?

All was not what it seemed, however.  Underneath the surface, there was no real reflation – only continuing signs of deflation or at best, very benign inflation.  Asset prices surged as money flowed out of low risk assets (for which investors were no longer rewarded) and into high risk assets.  This herding of the Federal Reserve has given many the impression that the economy is “recovering”.  But underneath the surface lies the continuing problem of double D’s (and not the good kind) – debt and de-leveraging.  While asset prices have improved the liability side of the ledger remains in tatters in the U.S. economy and around the world.  De-leveraging continues and demand for more credit remains subdued.  Yet, the price of gold rallied.  I believe a large portion of the move is based on the misconception of gold as an asset class.

When analyzing the price of gold it’s important to understand that gold prices do not move like most other commodities.   It has certain built-in unquantifiable characteristics that drive price.  The price of gold is actually a function of four things: 1) its replacement potential for the U.S. dollar; 2) the future rate of inflation, 3) Sentiment – generally fear based and 4) true supply and demand.  Let’s take a look at each.

Nouriel Roubini recently quoted Keynes in describing gold as…

Read the original story at Phil’s Stock World