这片长文，对黄金的基本面分析比较全面，有历史纵深和现实对比．录次备忘．

By Barry Stuppler    ；Jul 28 2008 10:44AM

(June 9th 2008) - In the month of April 2004, when the price of gold averaged $408, I wrote and published an article entitled "The Perfect Golden Storm." The article, still posted at GoldNewsToday.com, began, "An array of forces is converging to drive gold toward and probably beyond its 1980 peak of $852 per ounce, creating exceptional opportunities for investors."

Four years later, gold has surpassed its 1980 peak. On March 17, 2008, the London PM Gold Fix set an all-time record of $1011.25. Gold averaged $968.03 for the month of March. Investors who added gold to their portfolios in April 2004 at the average price were up 137% in four years — a performance that has trounced the stock market and just about any other investment alternatives.

If you are one of those fortunate investors, or you bought later during the run-up but are nevertheless showing a healthy profit, you are now faced with these questions: Hold? Sell? Buy more?

If you are considering buying gold for the first time, you too are faced with a question: Have I missed the boat? Or should I get on board?

When they look back at the previous record of $852 per ounce, many gold investors and analysts think, OK, we’ve surpassed that price in nominal dollars, but where are we if we take inflation into account? Based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which underestimates real inflation, $852 in 1980 was the equivalent of $2403 in 2007. Does that suggest we can expect gold to more than double again? If so, when? Will gold hit $2011 by 2011?

In addition to adjustment for inflation, knowledgeable investors consider several key ratios when evaluating the price of gold. For example, as "Metal Matters," a January 2008 report from Scotia Mocatta (a division of the Bank of Nova Scotia), explains, "over the past 30 years 1 oz of Gold has on average bought 17 barrels of oil. Based on this, Gold price could be as high as $1,700/oz. The average level of the Dow Jones in the 1980’s equated to 5oz of Gold; this would suggest a Gold price of $2,600/oz and in 1980 when Gold prices peaked at $850/oz, prices that year averaged $614/oz. Adjusting those prices for inflation would now give a high price of $2,000/oz and an average price of $1,450/oz."

That’s a lot of numbers, all significantly higher than the current price of gold. Let’s try to figure out what is most likely to happen, based on the forces behind the numbers.

The current bull market for gold started in 2001. My prediction in April 2004 that the bull market would continue for years was based on "interrelated forces that are merging into a perfect storm propelling the price of gold." I listed, and then described in detail, five such interrelated forces (in a somewhat different order):

• Limited supply of gold
• Decline of the US dollar
• Interest-rate bind
• Investment climate
• Global instability

Today, the same five forces are combining — with even greater fury — to drive the price of gold higher. The chart shows that, like most other investments, gold zigs and zags. But the overall direction has been up. I believe that the forces generating that rise will continue to do so at least through the end of 2011.

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Stuppler/images/jul282008_1.gif$2011 by 2011黄金：２０１１年２０１１" TITLE="(转）Gold: $2011 by 2011黄金：２０１１年２０１１" />

I will summarize what I wrote about each of the five forces in 2004, then update the analysis to 2008. First, though, we can learn a lot by comparing the current bull market in gold to the previous record run-up in 1980.

How does the current gold bull market compare to the 1976-1980 bull market?

These charts show that from a low of just over $100/oz. in August 1976, gold worked its way up to $300/oz. by August 1979. Then came a much steeper rise. By January 1980 gold had spiked to $852/oz. After taking three years to increase 200% from $100 to $300, gold rose another 180% in just five months.

The first (larger) chart above, the 10-year chart from 1988 to the present, shows that the current bull market started from a low of $252 in March 2001. Gold rose to $700 by April 2006, and to $1,000 by March 2008. Gold took five years to increase by 220%, then zig-zagged up another 43% in two years. We have not yet seen anything remotely resembling the steep 5-month, 180% run-up that began in August 1979.

What was behind the 1979-1980 spike in the price of gold? In two words, the Iranian Revolution. Since World War II, one of the unifying themes of US foreign policy has been to control the Middle East and its oil. Two pillars of that strategy were US alliances with Israel and Iran. One of those pillars was knocked down when, after a year of demonstrations, marches, and strikes, the pro-US Shah of Iran fled the country in January 1979, followed in February by the return to Iran of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeni, the defection of the Shah’s army, and the proclamation in April of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Throughout the world, people realized that a fundamental shift in the balance of power had occurred, and that Islamic fundamentalism was a new and disruptive player on the world stage. This became even clearer in October when 52 staff members of the American Embassy in Iran were taken hostage, and when a drop in Iranian oil production led to sharply higher oil and gas prices and long lines at gas stations.

Investors did what they generally do when they are panicky and uncertain about the future. They dumped paper assets such as stocks and bonds and increased their holdings of real assets such as gold. The value of stocks and bonds depends on the smooth, predictable, profitable operation of business as usual. Gold is a scarce commodity with intrinsic value that increases when inflation, economic crises, and war threaten profits and the flow of tax revenues. (A companion article to “The Perfect Golden Storm,” entitled "Own Gold Always," explains why prudent investors always include gold in their asset mix. This article is also still available at GoldNewsToday.com.)

As panic about stability in the Middle East and the effect of the Iranian Revolution on OPEC subsided, the gold price plunged even faster than it had risen, forming the down side of the 1980 spike.

Smart investors in gold sold most of their holdings before the top. How did they know it was time to sell? Gold was the talk of the town. Gold bars and bullion coins appeared on the covers of business magazines, Wall Street pundits talked up gold on TV, and the "man in the street" — taxi drivers, bartenders, clerical workers — talked about making a killing by buying gold. Gold was the "dot.com" of late 1979 and early 1980.

Nothing resembling that gold craze has taken place in the current bull market. Gold does not regularly appear on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or on the covers of Forbes, Barrons, Money, or Business Week. And the “man in the street,” focused on gasoline approaching (or passing) $4, is barely aware that gold is making record highs. Gold’s rise through $1,000 did not even make the front page of the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times — not even the front page of the business section. The current bull market has not yet had a spike similar to the one that climaxed the 1976-1980 bull market.

Today’s gold market is more broadly based

In terms of the number of participants, the gold market in 1980 was a sliver of what it is today. Two major factors have broadened the market: the growth of the Chinese economy and the advent of gold ETFs.

In 2002 individual Chinese investors were permitted—for the first time since 1949—to buy and sell gold in the form of contracts on the Shanghai Gold Exchange. The rules were further liberalized in 2005, to enable investors to buy and own physical gold bullion. In 2008 a number of products have arisen that enable Chinese citizens to trade gold futures contracts over the Internet. These legal changes came about because of the rapid growth of the number of Chinese with enough income and assets to invest, and the centuries-old tradition of investing in gold. In a country with a population of 1.3 billion, the wealthy + the middle class, while still small in relative terms, is already larger than the entire population (301 million) of the United States. Similar increases in investment purchases of gold are taking place in Russia, in Southeast Asia, and in a number of oil-rich Middle Eastern Countries.

Gold-market history was made in 2003. An exchange-traded fund (ETF) called Gold Bullion Securities began trading on the Australian Stock Exchange, under the symbol GOLD. GOLD enabled investors to buy and sell gold just as they would buy shares of a stock. One share of GOLD represents 0.1 oz. of gold held in a depository by the fund. As investors buy more shares, the fund buys more gold.

Since 2003, several other gold ETFs have begun trading. StreetTRACKS Gold Shares (GLD), which began trading in 2005 on the New York Stock Exchange, is by far the largest. As of August 2007 these funds held 628 tonnes1. of gold in storage — a far larger investment than even the World Gold Council, which initiated the funds, envisioned. At $1,000/oz., that’s a little over $20 billion worth of gold.

Tens of thousands of investors buy gold ETF shares on a regular basis, just as they would buy mutual fund shares or contribute to a retirement plan. Others buy on dips in share price. The increase in demand for gold generated by the gold ETFs tends to put a floor under the price of gold and drive the price back up when it retreats (see the 10-year gold chart above).

Now let’s see if the same five forces that have propelled the current bull market are likely to continue for several more years.

Forces driving the current bull market in gold

Huge, growing federal deficit

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Stuppler/images/jul282008_4.jpg$2011 by 2011黄金：２０１１年２０１１" />

As of mid-April 2008 the government of the United States owed its creditors $9.45 trillion.2. As a result of annual budget deficits, the national debt started growing steeply in the mid- to late 70s, surpassing $1 trillion for the first time in 1981. Since September 2006 the debt has increased at an average rate of $1.63-billion per day. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the gross national debt will reach $10.5 trillion in 2010 and $12.7 trillion in 2017.

In fiscal year 2007, the interest on the national debt was $238 billion. That’s an average of $652 million per day, seven days a week. In other words, about forty percent of the average daily borrowing of $1.63 billion is spent on paying interest on previous debt. If you were to manage your own budget this way, would you foresee doubts developing in your creditors’ minds about your ability to repay them?

Similar doubts are affecting those who loan money to the US government. Holders of dollars and dollar-denominated investments used to know that their money was backed by gold. In 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt signed legislation that denied residents of the United States the right to claim gold for their greenbacks. Foreign central banks, however, could still demand an ounce of gold from the US Treasury in return for a fixed price of $35 dollars. In the 1960s, with the war in Vietnam fueling inflation and undermining confidence in the dollar, many foreign central banks did just that. To prevent the US from running out of gold, President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. As of August 15, 1971, the dollar was backed only by the power of the US government to declare it "legal tender for all debts, public and private."

Huge and growing national debt has contributed to global skepticism about the value of the US dollar, especially given that the federal government has the unilateral power to pay its debts in a way unavailable to you. Through the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System, the government has the power to create money by increasing the supply of dollars. The transformation of the United States government from the world’s biggest creditor to the world’s biggest debtor has played a role in the rise in the price of gold to its present level from the $35 it was pegged at until August 15, 1971. No end to this trend is in sight. In fact, without huge increases in US taxes, huge cuts in federal spending, or both, growth of the US national debt is built into the structure of the federal budget3. and can only accelerate.

Huge, growing trade deficit

Every year since 1992, the United States has imported more goods and services (measured by price in dollars) than it has exported. The difference is known as the trade deficit (or, in many of the years prior to 1992, the trade surplus). A weaker dollar can lower the deficit by making US goods cheaper overseas and foreign goods more expensive here. But despite the weakening of the dollar against the euro and the yen, the deficit for 2006, the last year for which the final figure is in, was a record $764 billion, up from $716 billion in 2005. To see the trend over a longer period, here’s what I wrote in 2004: "In calendar year 2003 the United States imported almost half a trillion dollars more in goods and services than it exported. The precise figure, known as the trade deficit, was $489.4 billion. That’s a 17% increase over the previous record, set in 2002." Of course, the tremendous jump in the price of oil accounts for a significant portion of the deficit, and the developing recession in the US is starting to cut into imports while the cheaper dollar is helping raise exports. Thus the annual deficit may decrease. However, long-range, the price of oil will probably continue to rise and US manufacturing will probably continue to struggle against manufacturing in China and other areas of cheap labor in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Thus the trade deficit will remain with us for the foreseeable future, guaranteeing continued US dependence on financing from abroad.

Dependency on foreign financing

Where did US consumers (including businesses and government agencies) get the extra three quarters of a trillion dollars (in 2006) to pay for these imports? The EU, Japan, China, Korea, and other countries that export more to the US than they import from the US end up with a surplus of dollars. They invest much of this surplus in the US. For example, in addition to buying enormous amounts of Treasury Bills, Japan and China have invested billions of dollars in Ginnie Mae bonds. Ginnie Mae is the Government National Mortgage Association. Owned by the US government, it guarantees Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration mortgages. In other words, a significant part of the housing boom, which more than anything else had been holding up the US economy, was financed from abroad.

According to figures from the Federal Reserve, as of December 2007 foreign investors held $2.5 trillion of the debt issued by the US Treasury and other US government agencies. That is 46% of the publicly held debt. (A whopping $4.09 trillion is not publicly held because it is owed to US government trust funds. By far the largest borrowing is from the Social Security trust fund. These loans must be repaid, with interest, to finance future Social Security benefits.)

As of December 2007 Japan was the largest foreign holder of US treasury securities, at $591 billion. China was the second largest, with $478 billion.

There has also been an enormous influx of foreign capital into US stock markets and, a new development, direct investment in US firms by Asian and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds.

http://www.kitco.com/ind/Stuppler/images/jul282008_5.gif$2011 by 2011黄金：２０１１年２０１１" TITLE="(转）Gold: $2011 by 2011黄金：２０１１年２０１１" />