Good morning Maurice, <<Digging up and reburying gold is a pointless waste of time and effort>>
You may be wrong, and here is why:
Gold mine in Canada (or the share of a NYSE listed gold companies that is not adding to its reserve) and in fact any mine price can be separated mathematically into its component parts:
(a) Time value of money factors applied to the following, over expected extraction time period:
(b) value of proven reserve at current price, plus
(c) value of possible reserve at current price multiplied by probability factor, minus
(d) cost of extraction
(e) option value of above types of reserves, as price of metal bobs and weaves, ebbs and surges, with changed frequency and amplitude
Gold, from anywhere, including Zimbabwe, in its extracted and refined state, if buried in a vault under Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong, is worth more than its value in nature, because the uncertainty of quantity and extraction cost has been ‘hedged out’, leaving only its NAV and option value, but supplemented by the character of being instantly available for trading, relocation, or spending (how much is that worth?).
What the financial paper world had discovered and practiced over the past dozen years is to trade gold without gold in hand, just as they traded electricity, bandwidth, and interest rate derivatives. 95% of new fangled ideas fail, and we will see about the more exotic of derivatives. Remember our agreement that ‘the most outrageous is saved for the end’?
The Argentine government counter-party defaulted on the derivative of wealth called Peso, and the Japanese government is in fact defaulting on the Yen, and … oh, you get the awful picture, but have not looked at it yet.
Chugs, Jay |
