Gold Investors Seeking Haven and Profits

Now that much of the forced liquidation seems to have left the market, gold is starting to perform like the haven of safety usually has in tough economic times, and gold investors and regular investors are flooding to the market to not only be safe, but make some money from gold and its rising prices. Consequently, the U.S. dollar is starting to act like it really is with its poor underlying fundamentals, which had been hidden by the forced liquidation period pushing up its value as funds and companies sought to raise desperately needed capital.

Gold investors should be able to put their money into any well run gold producer this year and do well, along with investing in gold futures, which will continue to run up. Other gold investments set to do well will be gold ETFs, which with the larger companies are saying they're having no problem acquiring the needed gold to line up with investors' demand.

On the other hand, some gold coin sellers have said with some coins they're having trouble meeting specific demand, saying they have waiting lists into the weeks. Either way, gold in general will continue to perform strongly in safety and price, and gold investments won't disappoint this year in any way.

Even though gold was one of the better performers last year, the temporary resurgence of the U.S. dollar kept it from moving upwards when it should have been. That performance is about to rise again for gold, consistent with its usual consistency and price increase.

The huge amount of money pushed in the stimulus packages are starting to concern investors - as it should - and they see the U.S. dollar will start to gradually collapse under the mighty force of the fiat money printing press, which is the only way it will be able to be paid off. But that will lead to inflationary pressures, which will again push traders and investors toward gold.

What remains to be determined is how long it will take, not whether the time arrives. But either way, gold is going to break out again this year, and most analysts are forming a consensus that gold will push past the $1,000 barrier before 2009 is finished. And I think they're right.

Inflation is being held in check from the fact that people have stopped buying things or traveling much, holding down energy prices for now. That will change as the general economic struggles improve some, but then inflation will surge forward, which will benefit gold prices and gold traders and investors as well. Gold futures will continue to rise for some time to come, even if it's a bumpy ride at times.

The current record for gold is at $1,030.80 an ounce, recorded in March 2008, and that has a real possibility of being broken this year, depending of course on the pace the economy falters and havens of safety diminish.

Goldman Sachs (GS) has even increased its forecast for gold prices to reach the $1,000 an ounce range within a short three months, saying the demand for safety is increasing far beyond what it thought it would. Formerly they thought it reach only about $700 an ounce.

Every possible way of buying gold is in demand, from holding it physically, to futures contracts to investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs). All of it is being brought about from safety and inflation risks in the market.

Physical gold has been in huge demand as the unbelievable and unprecedented and foolish bailouts have committed the government to far more money than it has to spend, and could virtually destroy the value of the U.S. dollar and bring it to be a very weak currency, the reason for the migration toward owning gold coins, which in a number of cases is taking longer and longer to fulfill orders.

Some of the gold producers from North America that have been recently upgraded by UBS because of gold as a haven of safety are UBS upgraded Agnico Eagle Mines (AEMO) (AEM), Barrick
Gold (ABX) (ABX.TO), Eldorado Gold Corp (ELD.TO), Newmont Mining (NEM) and Goldcorp Inc (GG) (G.TO) to "buy" from "neutral."

For Centerra Gold (CG.TO) and Franco-Nevada (FNV.TO) UBS retained its buy rating and target prices for the gold companies.

Moving quickly to take advantage of the volatile market, the largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, the SPDR Gold Trust said its current gold inventory is at its highest levels, now standing at 859.49 tons. A huge increase in just a couple of days from 6.12 tons of gold it held on February 2.

One interesting factor in the overall gold picture is whether Barack Obama will get his almost $900 billion economic stimulus package passed. If he does, gold should skyrocket, if he doesn't, it should climb based on fundamentals alone, but it may not rise nearly as projected with the stimulus plan factored into the prices. The gold bulls would be slower to move it up, although there aren't many safe places to put their money regardless. The stimulus package would just make it happen much quicker, as a sense of urgency would settle in.

There's no doubt that gold futures and most other companies and ETFs related to gold will rise with it in 2009. With few havens of safety left, gold, and its cousin silver should flourish during these tough economic times, and gold investors will flourish with them.