The Day People Will Need Insurance, Gold Will Not Trade At $1200

The Day People Will Need Insurance, Gold Will Not Trade At $1200

The Day People Will Need Insurance, Gold Will Not Trade At $1200

This is an excerpt from the latest edition of Grant Williams his newsletter Things That Make You Go Hmm.

I have written article after article and given presentation after presentation about the dichotomy between paper and physical gold and have regularly highlighted the magnitude of the flow of gold out of the West and into strong Eastern hands. In the previous edition of this publication (“How Could It Happen?”), I imagined a future in which this stunning relocation of physical gold had finally mattered; and between publishing that piece and penning this one, a couple of interesting things have happened. Firstly, my friend Barry Ritholtz took a big, fat shot at me in a Bloomberg column entitled “The Gold Fairy Tale Fails Again.” Barry’s article (which was entirely consistent with his very public and oft-stated thinking and was, as is always the case with Barry, very well-written) took apart what he sees as the various failed narratives in the gold markets. He began with gold’s link to QE:

(Barry Ritholtz): [T]he most popular gold narrative was that the Federal Reserve’s program of quantitative easing would lead to the collapse of the dollar and hyperinflation. “The problem with all of this was that even as the narrative was failing, the storytellers never changed their tale. The dollar hit three-year highs, despite QE. Inflation was nowhere to be found,” I wrote at the time…

… moved on to the recent SGI:

Switzerland was going to save gold based on a ballot proposal stipulating that the Swiss National Bank hold at least 20 percent of its 520-billion-franc ($538 billion) balance sheet in gold, repatriate overseas gold holdings and never sell bullion in the future. This was going to be the driver of the next leg up in gold. Except for the small fact that the “Save Our Swiss Gold” proposal was voted down, 77 percent to 23 percent, by the electorate….

… then hit upon the recent Indian import restrictions and reports of gold shortages, which Barry clearly feels are spurious, before eventually finding his way to yours truly:

Perhaps the most egregious narrative failure came from Grant Williams of Mauldin Economics. He imagined a conversation 30 years from now about China’s secret three-decade-long gold-buying spree, dating to November 2014. Well, we only need to wait 30 years to see if this prediction is correct.

Now, in response to the lighting up of my Twitter feed after Barry’s article was posted (and my thanks to all those who kindly pointed it out to me), I would say this: Barry is right on all counts. For now.

I am delighted to be able to call Barry a friend and have absolutely no problem with his calling me out on what I said. Those of us who possess sufficient hubris to deem our thoughts worthy of distribution wider than the inside of our own heads are absolutely there to be taken to task should others disagree with us. We make ourselves fair game the second we hit the wires.

Sadly, none of us actually KNOW anything. How could we? We all take whatever inputs we find and then use them to reach our own conclusions based mostly on probability, and more often than not those conclusions are wrong.

HOWEVER… if your logic is sound and your thought processes rigorous, being wrong is often a temporary state — something that can also be said about being right, of course. In my humble opinion, the issue with gold today is not one of narrative, as Barry suggests, but rather that the extent of the current interference in markets by our friends at the various central banks around the world has meant that being wrong (no matter which part of the financial jigsaw puzzle you may be concerned with) has never been easier — even though being right has never, in my own mind at least, been more assured in the long term, certainly as far as gold is concerned.

As I slumped against the literary ropes, Barry threw one more punch when he suggested that the reader would “only need to wait 30 years to see if this prediction is correct,” but this is where I stop covering up and finally flick a jab or two of my own.

I think the chances of having to wait 30 years to see the gold conundrum resolve itself (in materially higher prices, I might add) lie close to those of Barry’s being invited to give the opening address at the next GATA conference. The evidence is crystal clear that significant quantities of physical gold have been pouring into Eastern vaults (due to both private and public-sector activity); and gold is, after all, a finite resource. Not only that, but the “weakness” in gold (which remains roughly 500% above its turn-of-the-century low, despite the recent 30% correction) is confined to the paper market.

Whilst this distinction between paper and real gold hasn’t mattered up until now, there will come a day when it absolutely does — to everybody — and at that point, anyone not positioned
correctly will be in a world of hurt.

(Charts below courtesy of Nick Laird at Sharelynx and Koos Jansen)

weekly gold shanghai 2009 2014 physical market

Russia Gold Reserves October2014 physical market

Tightness in the physical market has increased consistently as the likes of Russia continue to stockpile ever-increasing amounts of gold and as Chinese imports as well as withdrawals from the Shanghai Gold Exchange maintain a torrid pace. The only missing piece of the puzzle is the lack of any official acknowledgement that the Chinese have been doing the same thing to a far greater degree; and, as I wrote in “How Could It Happen?”, there is a curious demand for absolute proof from those who dispute official figures, whilst the principle of reasonable doubt continues to hold sway on the other side of the argument.

I suspect that imbalance will right itself — possibly very soon — and when it does there will be absolutely no putting the genie back into the bottle.

In the meantime, as Barry so confidently predicted, the Swiss Gold Initiative failed, but that was overshadowed (in my mind at least) by a couple of very interesting developments that were covered beautifully by two of my buddies, Willem Middelkoop (author of The Big Reset — a phenomenal read) and Koos Jansen.

Firstly, Koos reported on the increasing drive to allocate the gold held within the Eurosystem:

(Koos Jansen): [M]ost of the Eurosystem official gold reserves are allocated, and since January 2014 (which is as far as the more detailed data goes back) the unallocated gold reserves are declining, as we can see in the next chart. Unfortunately we do not know what happened prior to 2014.

eurosystem gold reserves 2014 physical market

Note, allocated does not mean the gold is located on own soil, but it does mean the gold is assigned to specific gold holdings, including bar numbers, whether stored on own soil or stored abroad. Unallocated gold relates to gold held without a claim on specified bar numbers; often these unallocated accounts are used for easy trading… The fact the Eurosystem discloses the ratio between its allocated and unallocated gold and, more important, the fact that the portion of allocated gold is far greater and increasing, tells me the Eurosystem is allocating as much gold as they can.

Secondly, another repatriation request was unearthed — this time made by perhaps the least likely source imaginable:

(Koos Jansen): In Europe, so far, Germany has been repatriating gold since 2012 from the US and France, The Netherlands has repatriated 122.5 tonnes a few weeks ago from the US, soon after Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National party of France, penned an open letter to Christian Noyer, governor of the Bank of France, requesting that the country’s gold holdings be repatriated back to France; and now Belgium is making a move. Who’s next? And why are all these countries seemingly so nervous to get their gold ASAP on own soil?

Funnily enough, the answer to Koos’ rhetorical question about who’s next was answered just a few days later:

(Bloomberg): The Austrian state audit court says central bank should address concentration risk of storing 80% of its gold reserves with the Bank of England, Standard reports, citing draft audit report. Court advises central bank to diversify storage locations, contract partners. Austrian central bank reviewing gold storage concept, doesn’t rule out relocating some of its gold from London to Austria: Standard cites unidentified central bank officials. Austria has 280 tons gold reserves, according to 2013 annual report. Austrian Audit Court Will Review Nation’s Gold Reserves in U.K.

Say what you want about the gold price languishing below $1200 (or not, as the case may be, after this week), and say what you want about the technical picture or the “6,000-year bubble,” as Citi’s Willem Buiter recently termed it; but know this: gold is an insurance policy — not a trading vehicle — and the time to assess gold is when people have a sudden need for insurance. When that day comes — and believe me, it’s coming — the price will be the very last thing that matters. It will be purely and simply a matter of securing possession — bubble or not — and at any price.

That price will NOT be $1200.

A “run” on the gold “bank” (something I predicted would happen when I wrote about Hugo Chavez’s original repatriation request back in 2011) would undoubtedly lead to one of those Warren Buffett moments when a bunch of people are left standing naked on the shore.

It is also a phenomenon which will begin quietly before suddenly exploding into life.

 

 
Courtesy: Goldsilverworlds

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