TruthInGold''Dollar is not your friend''

Is gold about to lose its shine? For a precious but pretty useless metal with few applications beyond the spheres of jewellery and investment, it has been in hot demand for the past 12 years. As the Chancellor, George Osborne, never tires of pointing out, Britain missed the start of a decade-long bull market in gold because his predecessor, Gordon Brown, decided to sell about 60 per cent of the UK's reserves soon after Labour took office. He sold off 470 tons at an average of $250 an ounce, close to the bottom of the market. Today, it trades at $1,648 an ounce, and it hit a record high of $1,920 in August 2011 when the latest storms in the eurozone crisis sent invest...

Prominent hedge fund manager John Paulson continued to hold significant gold investments in the fourth quarter of 2012, even as other investors pulled out. Notable institutional investors, including George Soros, Julian Robertson and Allianz's PIMCO reduced their bets on gold during the quarter, when bullion posted its biggest quarterly loss in more than four years. Paulson & Co owned 21.8 million shares in the world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Trust, at the end of December, unchanged from Sept. 30, a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission showed on Thursday. "That's a good sign as he's a big player. It shows that ...

Gold purchases by India, the world’s largest bullion buyer, surged 62 percent in the fourth quarter on expectations of higher import duties and on demand for weddings and festivals, according to the World Gold Council. Imports climbed to 255 metric tons in the three months through Dec. 31 from 157 tons a year earlier and 223 tons in the previous quarter, the producer-funded group said in a report today. Still, overseas purchases dropped 11 percent to 860 tons last year from 969 tons in 2011, it said. India tripled tax on gold imports in the past year, with the levy rising to 6 percent on Jan. 21 as the government sought to counter a current-account deficit. About 80...

National Security has arrested two senior employees of the Geological Survey Department to assist in investigations into the controversial export of gold from Ghana to Iran. Dr Thomas Adu, Deputy Director of the Geological Survey Department, and Justice Adom, Senior Technical Officer of the Department, were picked up Wednesday after preliminary investigations and will be detained. The arrest follows reports of the detention of an aircraft in Istanbul, Turkey, allegedly carrying 1.5 tonnes of gold originating from Ghana and destined for the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was rumoured earlier that said shipment was part of a covert financial transaction between Ghana...

Uncertainty about the global economic recovery has left many investors wondering what direction the gold market will take in 2013. Russian gold miners are betting that the bad economic times will continue to roll, boosting the demand for the precious metal. Russian gold production is expected to rise by 5 per cent year on year to reach 226 tonnes in 2012, continuing a rally that began during the global financial crisis. That’s according to Sergei Kashuba, head of the Russian Gold Industrialists’ Union, who spoke to beyondbrics on the sidelines of an industry conference on Tuesday. If gold prices remain strong, Russian gold production will continue to rise at a rate of ...

Gold rallied from its lowest level in more than a month as North Korea conducted its third nuclear test, spurring demand for a haven. Platinum advanced. North Korea detonated an atomic warhead underground, the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement today. South Korea’s Defense Ministry estimated the yield at 6 to 7 kilotons, bigger than the previous two tests. The test comes after the United Nations last month tightened sanctions on the totalitarian state after it launched a rocket in December. “Given the rhetoric coming from South Korea and what they’ve said about if North Korea decides to detonate, it doesn’t give them a lot of room to maneuver,” ...

While still bullish of gold in yen terms, commodities trader Dennis Gartman said Monday that investors should stay away from owning the precious metal in U.S. dollar terms. "I think gold is in very serious trouble right here – in dollar terms," he said. "I'm still bullish of gold in yen terms. You've heard the story before. I've been that way. I'm going to continue to be that way, but gold in dollars has broken down decisively." On CNBC's "Fast Money," the editor of The Gartman Letter didn't offer an explanation of why the trade was breaking down. "I'm not sure whether it's the currency war that everybody's talking about or simply technical circumstances, but non...