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Gold/Mining/Energy : Blue Chip Gold Stocks HM, NEM, ASA, ABX, PDG -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lisalisalisa who wrote (12421)	12/8/2009 7:25:48 PM
From: TheSlowLane	10 Recommendations Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 48092

Hello lisa(3), Thanks for your post which has many good points. I agree that gold over $1K seems to have intensified the feelings on both sides. If you are bullish on gold, then you feel vindicated. If you are bearish or anti-gold, then it is unpleasant when the market goes against you and even more so if you are short. If you had been thinking about buying but have not done so, then a rising gold price is a rude reminder that the price of doing nothing can be high. I know quite a few people in that last category. As for the size of the pool of people, it's actually worse than you think. Not only do I post here as TSL, I also am the person who posts as Wade, loantech and pretty much everyone else on SI that is bullish on gold. Ha ha. Just kiddin'. <g> I know what you mean. For years now it's basically been a small group of us convincing each other that we have the correct read on the situation. Of course, a rising gold price over that time doesn't do anything to dissuade us from that view. Every now and then we get some new faces showing up, and gold going over $1K seems to have brought a few more out of the woodwork. There is no read counter on messages or boards so we really have no way of figuring out the number of lurkers except for the number of boardmarks a board has. I think there are several reasons why people might be reluctant to talk about ownership of gold. One is that you never know what the future holds and speaking openly about having something that other people might desperately want to get at some point may not be advisable. More probable is that the mainstream has so been effective in painting the entire gold community with the crazy brush that admitting you own gold is tantamount to standing on the street corner carrying a "The End Is Near" sign. This is shameful, imo, considering how the specific role assigned to precious metals by the framers of the Constitution. It is however, consistent with a general ignorance of our own history (speaking for USAmericans here, I make the distinction as there are a lot of people from the US Territory of Canada on these boards). As for a mania...I just had this conversation over dinner last Sunday. My sister-in-law was telling me that she could not imagine a tech-bubble type mania developing over mining stocks. Her argument is that the reason people embraced the tech stocks is because they understood them. I disagreed and said I thought that few people really understood what they were buying. How many people who bought Cisco, for example, could describe to any level of detail what a router does? Even fewer people cared. All they knew...all they wanted to know...is that prices were going up. Towards the end, a lot of people even acknowledged that valuations made no sense, but...as long as the music was playing...they kept dancing. That said, history has shown us over more than one period that the public can, in fact, become quite fixated on gold stocks. From 1975 to 1980, lots of gold stocks went from pennies to hundreds of dollars. It has happened before, there is no question in my mind that it can happen again. My S-I-L told me that tech companies had cool names. Well, if she ever gets in to the mining sector, she will find that many mining companies also have cool names. If that's what it takes, then so be it. As for buying GLD, I agree. Buying physical gold is "an unnatural act" in that we have become alienated from almost anything tangible. If it isn't on our screens...it can't be real. Finding a coin dealer you can trust and getting yourself there is a pain, or can be. Having to send funds to someone you don't know (via the Internet) also requires a leap of faith. How do you know they will not just take your money? So there are many ways people can talk themselves out of doing what a tiny voice in their gut is telling them that they maybe oughta think about doing. Personally, I want to have a life preserver AND a place on a lifeboat BEFORE the ship sinks. The premiums on those items are going to go a whole lot higher at the point it becomes obvious to everyone that the Titanic is, in fact, sinkable. Cheers, tsl

To: lisalisalisa who wrote (12421)	12/8/2009 8:00:06 PM
From: Mike M2	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 48092

One major difference with the prospect of a gold mania is the government and Wall St does not want a gold bubble whereas the government & Wall ST( especially Alan Greenspan) seemed to be quite pleased with the technology/ dot.com bubble and the housing bubble. In fact, they did much to fan the fires of speculation- I don't expect much help from them with any future gold mania but do expect anti gold commentary in the financial media as gold continues it ascent.

To: lisalisalisa who wrote (12421)	12/8/2009 8:03:47 PM
From: rubbersoul	1 Recommendation Respond to of 48092

< I wonder this only because I really never run into such a person in real life. > I've met some. I think you'll meet more but not until the big boys have loaded up. It's also up to mutual fund managers to inform their clients as well. A colleague of mine recently got a phone call from his broker at TD Canada Trust recommending him to buy gold stocks. But generally, most people are oblivious to gold as an investment. But they know how valuable it is when they where it on their fingers. So maybe it won't be too hard of a stretch. Also, once these gold producers start making lots of money at 1500-2000 gold, public opinion may change in favour of old yeller and the miners.