Gold Rally May Continue, But Not Safe Bet: Soros


Billionaire financier George Soros said Wednesday that gold prices might continue to rise after hitting record highs this week but he renewed a warning that gold is the "ultimate bubble."
Soros said that with economic and fiscal weakness crimping the developed world all investments are at risk because "this is a period of great uncertainty so nothing is very safe."
"I called gold the ultimate bubble, which means it may go higher. But it's certainly not safe and it's not going to last foreverp."

George Soros


Soros also said that after asset classes set new highs there are almost always immediate reversals that disappoint investors. Soros' hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, has been heavily invested in gold and gold-mining companies.
"Gold is the only actual bull market currently. It just made a new high yesterday. In the present circumstances that may continue," he said at a Thomson Reuters Newsmaker event.
"I called gold the ultimate bubble, which means it may go higher. But it's certainly not safe and it's not going to last forever," he said.
Soros in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, made the ultimate bubble comment. He no longer is involved in management of his hedge fund. Spot gold Tuesday hit a record $1,274.75 an ounce [XAU=X  1266.05   0.40  (+0.03%)   ], but lost some ground on Wednesday. 
As of June 30, the Soros fund held 5.24 million shares of the SPDR Gold Trust[GLD  123.94    -0.084  (-0.07%)   ], a stake worth about $650 million on Tuesday. Soros was the third-largest fund in the exchange-traded fund at the end of the second quarter.
The Soros fund also held equity holdings in miners of gold and other minerals worth almost $250 million on June 30.
Soros, one of the world's greatest investors, said he also liked steady-earning blue-chip companies that throw off lots of cash over government debt.

George Soros
Source: World Economic Forum
George Soros
Among other comments, he said Soros said he saw no sign of return to strong growth in the United States, which is struggling to emerge from its worst downturn since World War II.

"If I had to sum it up in one word, I would say: 'blah.' It may slip into double-dip (recession)or it may not, but it is going to slow down," he said.
"There is no question in my mind because the stimulus is running out, and there is great resistance to any further stimulus."
Soros said Japan did the right thing when it intervened in foreign exchange markets on Wednesday to bring down the value of the yen—a move that lifted the U.S. dollar as much as 3 percent.
"Certainly, they are hurting because the currency is too strong so I think they are right to intervene," Soros said.
Japan sold yen in the market for the first time since 2004 and said it would do so again to prevent the currency's rise from hurting exporters and threatening a fragile economic recovery.
"They had a real estate boom and then a crash in banking ... It's 20 years now, and they are still just struggling along," Soros said.


Gold Fever Strikes Mom and Pop Prospectors in US West

When John Brewer's construction business soured along with the economy, he sought to replace lost income by prospecting for gold from the river valleys of central Idaho to the wilds of Alaska.
Armed with the tools of the trade -- a metal detector, gold pan and sluice box, a series of screens that sort gold from alluvial material like sand and gravel -- the Montana man represents the new face of a pursuit that once paved the way for settlement of the Western frontier.
Getty Images
Ryan Yarborough (L) and Paul DeAndries pan for gold at Gold Prospecting Adventures on Woods Creek in Jamestown, California.
The poor economy and a record price of gold have renewed interest in prospecting in Western states where public lands are rich with deposits and small-scale operators are all but free from government regulation.
What Brewer has in common with 19th century prospectors is a drive for gold equaled in intensity only by the instinct to keep quiet about its location and volume.
"Asking a miner where they found it and what they found is like asking an angler about his secret fishing hole," said Brewer. "We're not going to tell anybody. As soon as you tell anybody, there will be a crowd—and that would be counterproductive."
Gold prices [XAU=X  1266.05    0.40  (+0.03%)   ] hit a record $1,275.20 per ounce Tuesday.
Some gold mining sites economically feasible for the first time in years, prompting mid- and large-scale operators to apply to mine on national forests and on acreage overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in the Rocky Mountains.
"When gold goes over $1,000 an ounce, everybody becomes a miner," said Russ Bjorklund, minerals manager with Salmon-Challis National Forest in Idaho.
He is among federal land managers reporting a marked resurgence in gold mining, from amateurs armed with pans to corporations working hardrock mines.
Susan Elliott, geologist with Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in Nevada, said the rush is on in a state that is the fourth largest producer of gold in the world.
Elliott linked a 75 percent increase in mining activity on the 6.3 million-acre forest to the rise in gold prices in recent years.
"We've got all types: individuals out there with pick and shovel and companies with heavy equipment," she said.
Jon Cummings, who promotes gold-mining adventures at his Idaho resort, says finding what prospectors call "color" in the pan ignites a passion.
"You start finding a little gold in the pan—that's when gold fever kicks in. It's like a drug and you're ready to work all night," he said.
International gold-mining giant Barrick Gold in February gained approval from the federal Bureau of Land Management to expand its Bald Mountain mine in northeastern Nevada.
Bald Mountain represents one of the company's 25 operating mines, eight of which are in the western United States.
Large-scale operators like Barrick must clear a number of hurdles in advance of gold mining, often a years-long process.
But Ray TeSoro, minerals specialist for the U.S. Forest Service region that includes Montana, also described an influx of "mom and pop operations."
Those small-time prospectors, like Brewer, mostly engage in low-impact, stream-side mining like gold panning and sluicing, techniques which rely on gravity to separate heavy gold from sediment.
In the mountains of central Idaho, gold fever is behind trespassing incidents.
Beverly Cockrell, a rancher near Salmon, Idaho, has confronted strangers with "sticky fingers" on her creek-side land, including one who reportedly raided a sluice box.
"We're having to run people off," Cockrell said.
And some economists take a dim view of the gold rush.
"You've got this pretty metal—what does it do?" said James Hamilton, economics professor at University of California, San Diego. "It doesn't create dividends, it doesn't create more productivity; it's a hedge against certain kinds of risks."
But it will take more than discouraging words to dampen the enthusiasm of gold hunters like Brewer, who declined to say what profit he turns from prospecting.
"It doesn't replace a full-time job with benefits, but you work hard enough at it, you might get lucky," he said.
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