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I linked Barry Ritholtz's gold bug swipe
along with other items in an Around the Web
post. Anything linked (or republished from guests for that matter) on
this site is to be taken as 100% their view, not mine. You, the reader
are tasked with using your own brain to consider, discount or ignore any of
it as you see fit.
What do I think of Ritholtz's view on gold,
personally? I think ole' Barry is picking some easy, low hanging fruit
to use up virtual ink over at Bloomberg, per his contract (real or
implied). I mean really, gold did not react to Greece and he takes that
as a negative for the metal?
The fact that gold did not do what legions of promoters
and fear mongering pitch men insist it is supposed to do is a positive, not a
negative. It brings us closer to the resolution of the bear market as
opposed to delaying it with fear mongering promotions (ref. last summer's
Russia-Ukraine-Ebola triple play of unsound 'fundamentals').
"I thought gold was an investor's best friend
during Armageddon."
Really Barry, I think that you have gotten caught up in a
personal 'back and forth' with the more unsavory of the gold bug "community",
as Daddy Gold Bug Jim Sinclair calls it. You are using the same
cartoons in reverse that the worst of the "community" uses
when it tries to stir fear and greed in naive cult
members followers.
As those of us who actually care about reality (as
opposed to media-driven hype) have tried to point out repeatedly over the
years, gold is not about Armageddon (Bird Flu, Ebola, Cyprus, Greece, war,
death, destruction or any of that crap). Gold is simply a marker, a
barometer showing the state of confidence in the financial system and its
managers (Central Banks) at any given time.
"Further reducing enthusiasm for gold is the
gradual improvement of the U.S. economy. Despite forecasts of imminent
collapse, the major economic data - including employment, wages, spending,
housing, autos and consumer sentiment - have all trended higher over the last
five years. Tales of an impending depression were greatly exaggerated."
I could not agree with you more, Barry. Back in
2012 we began gauging big breakdowns in the technical case for precious
metals and by January of 2013 we (well, NFTRH) cross referenced the ratio of
Palladium (cyclical) to Gold (counter cyclical) with a 'channel check' of the
Semiconductor Equipment industry to put forward a view that an economic
bounce - beginning in manufacturing and later to spread out to the services
sectors - was likely to come.
I am a gold bug. I saw the "improvement of
the U.S. economy" when it was appropriate to see it, ahead of
time. When you obsess on the other kind of gold bug, the media
star with the Armageddon-like predictions and inflammatory 'analysis', or
Kool-Aid drinking hate mailers, you do a disservice to your readership
because you only present the other side of something that is not real to
begin with. You in essence stand up a Straw Man and periodically set
fire to him, really to no one's benefit.
"Regardless, gold seems to [be. jeez msm, edit
much?] going nowhere fast. Feel free to send me an e-mail explaining how wrong and stupid I am. I have an archive of
all the messages warning me that gold would teach me a lesson in humility.
"You'll see" these e-mails smugly assure me, "your comeuppance
will be here any day now." My plan was to respond to each on its
fifth-year anniversary with a chart showing the performance of gold versus
all other asset classes and the details of how much money has been
lost."
Gold is going to be relevant again when confidence wanes
and the current boom cycle starts to show its age and reveal its unsound
origins. Until then, gold is a dumb rock that people can hold as
insurance and nothing more. That is all it ever was, anyway. But
that does not sell in the mainstream media to mainstream people.
Cartoon-like depictions of half insane Luddites clinging to that dumb rock
do. Media stars lampooning those Luddites do too.
NFTRH.com and Biiwii.com.
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