[imcarthur]

From the goldbug's point of view . . .

“Emerging market central banks continued their gold buying spree in March. UBS Investment Research says that Mexico bought 16.8 tons, Russia bought 15.6 tons and Turkey added 11.5 tons. Additional small purchases were made by Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Belarus. We wrote a few months ago that central banks have begun accumulating gold reserves since the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in 2007, and HSBC Global Research expects this buying trend to continue for another five years.”

“In March, China’s gold shipments grew to 62.9 tons, which is the third largest volume of gold in a decade from Hong Kong to the mainland, according to UBS. With ongoing rising demand, China may overtake India this year as the world’s largest gold buyer.

India’s government abolished the excise duty on gold jewelry. This was one of the reasons for the jewelers’ strike, which drove gold imports to decrease 55 percent in India a few months back. Getting rid of the tax should encourage the restocking of gold and bring Indian gold buyers back to the market.”

And . . .

“The bottom line is gold’s latest secular bull almost certainly didn’t climax last summer. Such major bulls need an extreme psychological event to end them. And it comes in the form of a popular speculative mania and vertical parabolic ascent. While gold was indeed overbought last August, the resulting topping looked absolutely nothing like the previous gold-bull climax of several decades ago.

And if gold’s bull isn’t over, then gold is destined to power to new all-time highs sooner or later. And once that inevitable recovery gets rolling, capital will flood back into this metal and the stocks of the companies that bring it to market. So if you can stand strong as a contrarian and fight the popular fear gold’s latest correction spawned, there is a vast smorgasbord of incredible bargains in the precious-metals realm.”

All from Kitco links . . .

Ian