10 December 2013 - 黄金历史悠久投资组合中必不可少

Posted: 10 Dec 2013 02:57 AM PST

From: http://gold.jrj.com.cn/2013/12/10150216305241.shtml

1979年底到1980年初黄金曾经一度大热，金价达到当时创记录的850美元/盎司。但对黄金的热度并没有持续太久，到2001年金价已经跌到255美元/盎司。此后金价真正开始大涨还要从2005年开始，当时金价自20世纪80年代初期以来，第一次突破了500美元/盎司的水平，在那之后，金价每年都在上涨，直到今年。

2008年金融危机的爆发为金价上涨提供了很大的动力，到2009年10月，金价升到了1075美元/盎司。

当然，即使2011年金价达到接近2000美元/盎司的水平，这也并非真正的定点，如果算上通胀等因素，1980年850美元/盎司的金价相对于现在2300美元/盎司的金价，这离目前的金价还是有些距离的。不过2001到2011年10年中金价接近8倍的涨幅仍然是非常引入注意的。

黄金有着悠久的历史，考古学家曾在今天的伊拉克北部发现公元前3000年的金饰。古代阿拉伯、中国和欧洲都一度盛行炼金。而黄金作为货币的历史则有至少3500年。古代中国和古罗马都在很早期就开始使用金币。

到20世纪初，很多国家的货币仍然是以黄金背书的金本位，当时的金价也保持在35至42美元/盎司左右。而当金本位被推翻，金价不再受到限制，金价开始了一路上涨。

目前每年大约2500吨黄金的产量中，大部分被用来做金饰。还有约20%被作为工业应用，被放到计算机等物品中。

金价的波动有着非常多的理论，大部分则认为这和供需关系有关。当金价上涨时，分析师们就认为央行和对冲基金以及投资者们都在将资产配置到黄金上来多样化投资。而中国日渐壮大的中产阶级则被认为是实物黄金需求增长的主要原因。

此外，传统上而言，美元对黄金也有着不小的影响，基本上和黄金处于负相关的关系。一旦美元走弱，黄金的避险保值功能就会凸显。同样还有通胀，黄金也是传统上被用来抵御通胀的物品，通胀飙升则大家都会转向黄金。

金融专家一般会建议他们的客户在资金的投资组合中配置一部分黄金，一般是5%至10%。实物黄金或者纸黄金都是投资者们的选择。当然，黄金生产商的股票也是一致选择。

Source: http://gold.jrj.com.cn/2013/12/10150216305241.shtml

10 December 2013 - MUST READ: Gold – the race for the world's most seductive metal

Posted: 10 Dec 2013 02:56 AM PST

From: http://www.mining.com/must-read-gold-the-race-for-the-worlds-most-seductive-metal-67804/?

When it comes to putting together a book on a storied subject like gold, the hardest task for the writer is not gathering the material.

It is which tales to leave out.

Matthew Hart, author of Gold: The Race for the World's Most Seductive Metal, does a splendid job of transporting readers from one defining moment in the history of gold to the next.

Hart, author of seven books including Diamond and a veteran journalist who has appeared on CNN and 60 Minutes and contributed to Vanity Fair, Globe & Mail and others, had to pick his targets carefully to fit into Gold's brisk 233-page narrative.

Hart does not find the space to chronicle India's ongoing love affair with gold, the Bre-X scam of the late Nineties, or today's headline-making dispute over Europe's largest gold project in Romania, but the omissions provide Gold with admirable pacing and cohesion.

He often jumps back and forth hundreds or even thousands of years to create an arc that spans from the first gold jewellery created more than 6,000 years ago through vivid descriptions of how Inca gold transformed the European financial system, the "Nixon shock", the game-changing creation of gold-backed ETFs and right up to how the centre of the gold universe has shifted to China.

Gold is peppered with aphorisms – "Ore is a human construct, not a natural one. Nature makes metal. Ore is made by math." – and the style is emphatic: "It was a thirst that powered the first gold rush – a murderous, cruel, intoxicating, brutal adventure that swallowed an entire civilization and spat it out as coins."

In addition to interviews with the major entrants in the race for gold like explorer Mark Bristow of Randgold and Barrrick Gold's founder Peter Munk, Hart spends time discussing the also-rans.

South Africa's illegal miners who live for months at a time kilometres down working mine shafts, the artisanal miners caught up in Africa's First World War in Congo and the thousands of "carrying-ore-on-the-back-people" extracting the last ounces from China, also shine in Gold.

Although Gold sometimes reads more like a novel, it features extensive notes, missing from so much non-fiction, a handy index and an audio version.

Despite the vast scope of the work, Hart is able to include anecdotes from gold's long history like the Brink's MAT robbery in Britain, a bullion haul that at today's prices would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The 1983 heist (still begging for a Hollywood treatment) is covered in the chapter discussing ETFs, hedge funds and speculation and is used to poke holes into one of the central arguments of backers of bullion – that it's just like cash.

The robbery and the 2010 case of the 349 tonnes of gold that suddenly appeared at the Bank for International Settlements (the central bank of central banks) are examples of Hart's skill to take shorter episodes in the life of the yellow metal to illuminate many of the mysterious aspects of the gold market.

Gold's place in the world of money and monetary policy remains fiercely contested and central bankers like Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen admit they don't understand the mechanisms of the market.

Hart does not take sides in the gold as money debate, he is more interested in the motivations of those who covet the metal. He sees gold as an emotive metal that can be used to take the temperature of the human race.

With gold on the brink of its first down year in more than a decade and hundreds of dollars below its peak, one of Hart's characteristic paragraphs supplies cutting insight into how we got here:

"But gold is never peaceful. It's a fever spread by doubt. Doubt and suspicion are its pathogens. Besides jewelry and a few industrial uses, there are no other reasons to own it. If you're not suffering from the fever, you are betting that others will. Gold is inseparable from speculation about disaster, misfeasance, or manipulation. Even when the price is high, owners suffer from the fever, because what if the price goes down?"

Source: http://www.mining.com/must-read-gold-the-race-for-the-worlds-most-seductive-metal-67804/?