FA Point of View, on Gold

UniCredit has upgraded their target price for gold from $1,250 to $1,600 by the end of 2012. The reason for the upgrade is based on three powerful trends: the fear over “money printing” at the Fed (QE), the idea that the Euro sovereign debt crisis represents a condemnation of fiat money and increasing demand for gold from China.

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“The Chinese government has encouraged consumers to invest in gold, and with great success. In the last 12 months, demand for gold totaled 532 tons. While jewelry demand is merely stagnating, investors are increasingly discovering the gold market. While as recently as 2008 only 17 tons of gold were purchased, in 2009 the figure was already 73 tons. In the last 12 months, demand was even 143 tons! Although China has evolved into the world’s largest gold producer in recent years, the annual production of most recently 330 tons is by no means sufficient to satisfy this demand.

China announced important gold market reforms at the beginning of August. Foreign companies are now permitted to offer their gold coins at the Shanghai Exchange, more banks are permitted to import gold from abroad, and more domestic, gold-based investment products are to be developed. As a result, demand of Chinese investors will increasingly be felt on the global market. But the Chinese government also has an ever greater interest in gold imports. In April 2009, China had reported an increase in its gold reserves from 19.29mn to 33.89mn troy ounces. Nevertheless, they are still at a very low 1.7% of the entire foreign exchange reserves. If China is targeting a gold reserve of, for example, 10%, it would have to purchase 6,130 tons of gold or 2.4 times global annual production. If China were to meet the demand only from domestic producers, it would take 19 years to achieve this objective. Since the gold market is per se only a very small market, further increases in the price of gold are pre-programmed.”

http://pragcap.com/3-trends-driving-gold-prices-higher