Bracing for the gold boom – Gold Fields
m1.mny.co.za
By: Stewart Bailey
Posted: 2002/03/21 Thu 21:33 | © Miningweb 1997-2002
PERTH - Chief executive designate of Gold Fields, Ian Cockerill, today threw
his weight behind the growing momentum in the gold market, with an
unashamedly bullish speech touting gold's return to the heady bull market of
twenty years ago. Cockerill said increasing numbers of investors across the
spectrum were taking defensive positions in gold stocks, proving bullion's
safe haven status remained intact despite two decades of relative peace and
prosperity.
He stopped short of predicting a price for gold, but said the "new highs and
concomitantly higher lows" the metal had recorded over recent months had
created a new trading channel. "In my opinion, this is a systemic response
to the increasing risk profile of the world. Over this period we have seen an
upsurge in interest in gold from retail investors, especially in Japan and
Germany, as well as institutional investors world-wide," said Cockerill.
"To me this signals that more and more investors are taking defensive
positions in gold – the so-called and much-maligned flight to quality. Which
brings us back to the original question: has gold lost its status as a reserve
asset? My answer to that is an unequivocal no. Gold was an insurance
asset, in fact for much of (2000 years) the only insurance asset. Two
thousand years of history is not wiped out in two decades," he said.
Cockerill said a marked rise in global political tension and a simultaneous
rise in economic uncertainty in some of the world's major economies, would
be the catalyst needed to kick-start a long-awaited bull run in the gold
market.
Speaking at the Paydirt Gold conference in Perth, Cockerill said the 12 year
era of peace and prosperity which had buoyed world markets – framed by the
fall of the Berlin Wall on September 11 1989 and the terror attack on the
World Trade Centre on the same date last year – had come to an abrupt end.
The death-knell for the unprecedented years of synchronised growth and low
inflation, he said, was a signal gold was headed into bull territory.
"This was the era of the peace dividend, the era during which the mighty
dollar ruled supreme against all other currencies, including gold. During this
period we saw a sustained period of economic growth…unique in that it took
place in the absence of significant inflationary pressures," said Cockerill. It
was hardly surprising, he said, that gold's status as a reserve asset had
declined during this period.
But according to Cockerill, the tables have begun to turn. Cockerill focussed
on global economic uncertainty which reared its head in Asia in the late
1990s, followed by calamitous state of the economies of Mexico, Argentina
and Japan. Instability in the Middle East, China's relentless ascent to rival
the US as a superpower and the increasingly pervasive threat of
mass-terrorism, were all bad news for global harmony – but good news for
gold. |
