A Recurring Dream About Gold
- $250 gold!
- Gold from the ocean, for dollars an ounce
- When to buy gold, for real
I’m sitting in my home, and I get an email from my cousin Tom, an espoused gold investor, with the subject line “gold prices!”
I look over the assortment of news feeds on my laptop, and sure enough, gold prices have fallen by half - and they’re showing no signs of slowing.
Before I can even pick up the phone, gold is bottoming out at $250 an ounce, a multi-decade low.
Without hesitation, I dial my precious metal vendor of choice, and have my wife call up the backup vendor.
I tell her, “Cash out all of the bonds we have, and buy as much gold as you can!”
I panic, as my gold vendor’s line is busy. I redial once, twice, ten times, trying to get a hold of anyone who will take my dollars in exchange for more physical gold.
While I dial, I think “why is gold tanking?” and then I take a step back and start searching for a valid reason. Did Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announce some unthinkable deflationary policy? I don’t understand. How could gold fall so far, so fast?
I’m racking my brain for any phenomena that would cause such a massive devaluation in gold prices: a huge new discovery of easily mineable gold? No...there hasn’t been a major gold discovery in at least a decade.
Maybe it’s a new gold-recovery technology that officially lets any outfit mine tons of gold from the ocean with little energy input? Hmm, nothing in the news about that either.
A total wipeout of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet as part of some kind of New-World-Order reset of the banking system?
Even if that did happen, it wouldn’t seem to be very bearish for gold prices.
And then I realize: I’m dreaming. Only in a dream would gold devalue so quickly and for no reason.
Back to reality: gold will likely experience some massive devaluation, but it’s not likely to happen anytime soon. You’ll be likely to buy gold on 5% dips - so forget a 50% drop or a 95% slaughter.
The point of my story is to avoid making my dream-world mistake: you shouldn’t be waiting for some calamitous and highly unlikely event to make gold purchases. You should buy regularly, on substantial dips for as long as world banks act in a way that favors currency devaluation.
Even with gold’s meteoric climb over the past decade, it’s still my firm belief that we’re more likely to see $5,000 gold than we are to see $250 gold in the next decade. When gold DOES re-set to a more normal trading range, it probably won’t get too far below $1,000 an ounce.
And, sure it would be awful to take a 40%+ haircut, but there’s just nothing on the horizon that makes me long term bearish on the price of gold.
So don’t wait for a dream-world scenario. Buy gold on dips until something changes about the world in which we live. For now, there’s not a single person in power at a Central Bank who’s willing to pursue policies that will strengthen world currencies.
Good investing,
Kevin McElroy
Editor
Resource Prospector
disclosure: long silver and gold
