Gold traded at new highs today however many quality gold miners have not reflected the strong gains in Gold in 2011.
Gold miners in general are undervalued, Junior Gold companies are also very attractive as we expect to see consolidation in the industry as high prices drive take-overs and buy-outs.
Spot gold was set for a second consecutive daily trading rally, up 2 percent from Friday at $1,696.56 an ounce by 1342 GMT, having hit a record $1,715.01 earlier and having traded at all-time highs in sterling and euros .
Investors have bought more gold in the last month than in the prior six months, judging from the increase in open interest on COMEX for speculators and money managers, as well as inflows into exchange-traded products.
According to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which collects information on holdings of futures and options, and to exchange traded product collected by Reuters, investors bought more than 18 million ounces of gold in the last month alone.
This corresponds to around 30 percent of total identifiable investment demand in 2010, and compares with about 8.4 million ounces in the year to early July.
Investors will be watching Tuesday’s meeting of the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee for any statement on whether the Fed will ease monetary policy further.
The Fed’s $600 billion quantitative easing programme, which ended in June this year, has been instrumental in gold’s rise, even if adjusted for inflation, the bullion price remains well below the all-time highs above $2,000 in the early 1980s.
The prospect of an even longer period of low U.S. interest rates prompted Goldman Sachs to raise its longer-term forecast for the gold price. Goldman said it had lifted its forecasts to $1,645, $1,730 and $1,860 on a three-, six- and 12-month horizon. Goldman had previously forecast the gold price peaking at $1,600 an ounce in mid-2012.
Meanwhile, gold in euros hit a record 1,199.89 euros an ounce, bringing gains in the last month alone to over 12 percent, while gold in sterling hit a peak of 1,043.76 pounds, for a gain of 9.3 percent in the same period.
In other precious metals, silver got a lift from the strength in gold as it can sometimes act as a cheaper safe-haven proxy for investors.
Spot silver was last up 2.6 percent on the day at $39.30 an ounce, while platinum rose 0.3 percent to $1,717.49 an ounce. The ratio of gold to platinum earlier fell to around parity for the first time since late 2008.
Palladium was last down 1.25 percent at $730.47. The palladium price has fallen by more than 14 percent in the last 6 trading days, since hitting a five-month high.
Shayne Heffernan
Shayne Heffernan oversees the management of funds for institutions and high net worth individuals.
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