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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LLCF who wrote (4175)	6/2/2001 1:27:09 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

I never claimed that "gold underperformed by a 'hair.'" That's exactly the type of meaningless statement I would not make, I hope. Underperformed compared to what, is the first thing that comes to my mind. Compared to stocks and bonds, gold sucks. Physical gold isn't an investment, it's a hedge. When war or government intervention destroy the economy, you can always get someone to trade food or a boat ride out for some gold or diamonds, apparently the thinking goes. Gold is a way of making sure you survive disaster - just like some people in this country dig underground shelters and stockpile guns and food and water and medical supplies. I doubt very seriously that it's going to come to that in this country under any foreseeable scenario, but I am aware that there are those who do. Frankly, I think the guys with the guns would just shoot you and take the gold away from you, so you're better off staying close to civilization. Heinz isn't predicting some sort of global catastrophe - he's predicting that the price of gold will appreciate due to short squeezing - too much of it leased. That ought to tell you something about how badly it sucks as an investment. It costs so much to store it that the people who are holding it are leasing it just to recoup their overhead. I had a similar experience storing physical silver for my grandmother when she went into the nursing home years ago. She used to hide it in her house, but I thought that was unsafe so I rented a safe deposit box to store it. Storage isn't cheap. I know people who have gold hidden away in their basements. I am not one of them. So far, and it's been decades, I've done better off with my investments. Gold will have to do very well indeed to make up for how badly it's sucked for the past few decades. It may in fact do very well in the future. Mazel tov. __________________________________ I have placed my bets, thank you.