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Tocqueville Asset Management/John Hathaway/01-05-17
[T]here is a shortage of physical metal at current prices that promises to deepen, masked only by the supply of synthetic gold not backed by physical. Given full transparency, the shortage would argue for a much higher gold price based on price discovery unimpeded by synthetic-gold trading. The progressive hollowing out of the (mostly Western) synthetic price-setting mechanisms and institutions is not a headline-grabbing process. The only clue is the steady seepage of bullion from Western storage vaults into Asian hands, where it is welcomed at bargain prices and utilized within a far friendlier institutional and political context. Advocates of this point of view must have been cheered (as were we) by the fact that GLD, the largest gold ETF, resorted to borrowing 29 tonnes in Q1 2016 from the Bank of England to connect the inflow of money flows with the physical metal necessary to back the trust instrument (from the Q1 10Q). As Trump might tweet, “Not good!!!” With the passage of time, the disparity between real (physical) and imaginary (speculative) fundamentals continues to widen. The longer it persists, the greater the likelihood that it will be resolved in epic fashion. In the end, we fully expect physical gold to trump its feeble paper facsimile.
PG View: A thorough year-end look at the fundamentals by Hathaway that generally bode well for gold — particularly of the physical variety — over the longer-term. Once again, it would behoove investors to carefully consider the vehicle they choose to gain exposure to the gold market.
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