Finding Gold in the Mainstream

By Frank Holmes, CEO and Chief Investment Officer, U.S. Global Investors

The New York Times dedicated a chunk of last Sunday’s paper to gold as a mainstream investment. In other words, gold is now legit -- no longer can it be dismissed as the asset of choice for fringe types with a cellar full of canned goods and a stash of bullion buried in the backyard.

And to illustrate just how far gold has moved into the American mainstream, the paper goes bipartisan by holding up investor George Soros on the left and commentator Glenn Beck on the right as examples of the newly converted.

Now there’s an old saying that the time to sell an investment is when it’s finally “discovered” by the popular media, but that may not be good advice for gold in today’s environment. This week spot gold and gold futures hit all-time highs as the latest government reports cast doubts on the economic recovery.

In its story, the Times points out many of the same gold drivers that we have been citing for a while now – the tandem risks of near-term deflation and longer-term inflation, massive U.S. budget deficits and crushing sovereign debt burdens in Western Europe that threaten the euro’s viability.

Gold’s safe-haven qualities now make it attractive to worried investors. It’s true that this fear won’t last forever, but it’s not at all clear that investors will have a good reason to be less fearful any time soon.

From a recent research note by UBS: “The sense that some investors only trust a gold holding if they can see it and touch it is a clear indication that some investors are buying gold as a hedge against a full-scale financial crisis and currency debasement.”

There are other factors supportive of gold. One is the renewed interest of central banks in adding to their gold holdings to diversify their foreign reserves.