A gold bull’s broken confidence? Not just yet.
BullionVault’s CEO, Paul Tustain, reflects on the week.
Dear BullionVault user,
My personal gold valuation has lost about 14% since 2nd April. Gold is by far my largest investment holding, so I am taking a hit.
Markets overshoot, and they correct … both ways. I don’t forget that the dizzy top of 6th September 2011 was followed by a $400 per ounce reverse in 3 weeks.
Neither do I forget that currencies with large debt overhangs, run by governments which have extreme fiscal problems, will tumble into unpredictable and spectacular failure sooner or later.
That’s neither a unique nor brilliant insight and very large numbers of people agree with me. We shouldn’t be too surprised when a few of them sell during counter-trend phases of a complicated journey.
Here’s a thought which reminds me to keep my cool:- The significant majority of the tiny number who eventually succeed in holding onto their wealth through a failure of their currency will be those who acted as the storm gathered and bought gold. By the end they will have been through the mill, having endured countless hours of anguished doubt. But when the market tests them, with temporary movements against them, they will be resolute, provided of course they have the fundamental confidence in their own judgement of the process of their national economic unravelling. This is what it takes to be a successful investor through the failure of a money system.
I believe I am still on the right side of the long term decline of Sterling, even if I also believe that market commentators will, for a while, be right as gold bears. In time I expect the upturn to be as sharp as this setback. Were I to sell before that upturn I don’t trust myself to switch fast depreciating Sterling back into gold at suddenly much higher prices. It would be just too painful.
Markets don’t offer smooth passage. They pitch up after each trough and slump over every crest. It gets rough from time to time, so you batten down the hatches, point her steadfastly to the wind, and trust she’ll take the beating. She will, if you hold your course.
In the meantime here are some BullionVault statistics from the last few days, which I think offer a useful reminder about how markets work. Remember, first of all, that for all those people who sold in a bit of a panic, someone bought...
- Monday and Tuesday were our strongest 48 hour period for new customers this year.
- Since Friday the gross value of customer bullion sales increased markedly. About 1% of gold we look after was sold back to the main market. That was characterised by a few large sellers. Holders of 99% of BullionVault inventory were not panicked.
- Those who did sell have mostly not withdrawn their cash from the BullionVault system. To me that suggests they may be intending to buy back into gold sooner rather than later.
- We normally have about 230 deposits a day (300 on a Monday) and about 100 withdrawals a day (120 on a Monday). Mondays are usually higher because they include weekend activity. On Monday we had 723 deposits versus 284 withdrawals. On Tuesday we had 732 deposits versus 150 withdrawals.
- Monday was a record day for business transacted, beating the previous peak of September 2011.
Regards,
Paul Tustain, Director
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