AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU), Newmont (NYSE:NEM) Not Affected by Ghana Royalty Increase

AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU) and Newmont (NYSE:NEM) will not be immediately affected by the increase in royalties from Ghana, the second-largest gold producer in Africa, behind South Africa.

Royalties for other gold miners in the country have been increased from 3 percent to 6 percent, with some like AngloGold Ashanti and Newmont Mining receiving temporary exemptions.

Gold production in Ghana stood at 2.9 million ounces in 2009, with gold prices increasing from $930 at the end of 2008 to $1,100 at the end of 2009, a 11.5 percent rise.

Ghana Chamber of Mines Chief Executive Joyce Aryee said this to Reuters about the situation, "Ghana does not have all the infrastructure in place ... so the government signed such stability agreements with the mines to promote their investment and also to ensure that too many goal posts will not be changed too quickly."

It's unclear as to how long AngloGold Ashanti and Newmont Mining will be exempt from the increased royalties, as official stated the stability agreement is under review in order to see if the exemptions need to be changed in any way.

I haven't heard anything, but I'm sure their competitors are putting pressure on Ghana officials to change the exemptions.

Gammon Gold (TSE:GAM) Production Down in First Quarter

Gammon Gold Production

Gammon Gold (TSE:GAM) reported reduced production in the first quarter, as levels plunged by 13 percent over the same period a year ago, although gold and silver prices experienced nice jumps.

Last year in the first quarter Gammon produced 36,829 ounces of gold and 1.35 million ounces of silver. For the first quarter this year, that was down to 28,431 ounces of gold and 1.28 million ounces of silver.

Gammon gave the reason for gold production declines as coming from replacing of equipment in the quarter and voids from former mining activity which were larger than expected.

The average price of gold for the quarter the company garnered was $1,107 an ounce for gold, and $16.81 an ounce for silver. That was far above the $903 an ounce for gold and $12.63 an ounce for silver received last year.

Gold Prices Will Continue Rising

Gold Prices

News on the street has been a number of investors are allegedly believing gold is experiencing a bubble, and so it may be time to get out and take some profits. I don't believe that's true.

The reason I said allegedly above is because of the possibility that speculators who did in fact believe gold prices would fall shorted the market, and so now that they've been getting clobbered over the last couple of months, could be attempting to communicate the gold bubble idea in order to create a self-fulfilling prophecy which they could financially benefit from.

A gold bubble isn't what is moving the price of gold up, but the incredibly ignorant moves of the Obama administration is what's moving the prices, as the inevitalbe inflation coming from the spending of trillions still is generating investment in gold, and that isn't going to end any time soon.

When a bubble happens in any investment sector, it's when the general public finally catches wind of what's going on and stampedes like a herd of cattle toward that investment when prices start to surge based on speculation and ignorance, and not market and economic forces. That's not what's driving gold prices up, and until it is, we're going to continue to see gold prices rise for a long time to come.

Gold Prices

Gold Prices Rise to $1,500

As measured in U.S. dollars, gold prices surged to another record level, surpassing the $1,500 a troy ounce for the first time in history.

Investing legend Jim Rogers stated that while he wouldn't buy gold on these highs, he's also not betting against it either. Rogers is of course hoping it will drop, having said recently he would buy more gold if there is a drop or correction. For now he's sitting on gold.

Even though this is a record gold price high for gold as measured by the U.S. dollar, in terms of other currencies, it still has a way to go before enjoying that distinction.

In reference to the Australian dollar, it isn't even close to a gold price high, as it's still 30 percent lower than that currencies record, and against the yen it's 15 percent less than that gold price record.

This is a much a result of the collapsing U.S. dollar as it is concern over inflation and the uncertainty of the economic conditions.

Peter Schiff: Gold Could Rise to $5,000 and More

As measured against gold, Peter Schiff said in a recent interview that gold and the Dow could end up trading at a ratio of one-to-one, as against the existing level of 9.7-to-1. Consequently, gold could very easily rise to $5,000 or more according to Schiff, over the next several years.

What that means is the Dow will plunge another 90 percent from where it stands now as measured against gold.

Even though gold has risen significantly, it's still being held back by concerns that will eventually fall away when it starts climbing from between $2,000 and $3,000 an ounce.

Schiff said it could take on similar growth as tech stocks did in 1999, possibly moving up in $100 increments a day at many points.

Much of Schiff's view on gold is based on the misguided policies of the Obama administration, along with the Federal Reserve, which refused to cut back on printing money and bailing out banks and companies they consider "too big to fail."

Gold Prices | 12-Day Low

Gold Prices

Gold prices plunged to a 12-day low, after a 2 percent drop in oil prices and 1 percent decline in U.S. equity indexes, as investors took profits when a weak U.S. confidence reading implied consumer demand would languish for some time to come, and that will definitely be true.

Other precious metals, which rose to multi-week highs in early trading, changing direction to also suffer steep losses when investors decided to sell a bunch of commodities it the midst declining confidence.

Spot gold dropped to a low of $934.70 an ounce, its lowest since July 17, to change hands in late New York trade a bit higher at $936.95 an ounce, down from $953.25 an ounce in late Monday business.

New York August gold futures tumbled $14.40, or 1.51 percent, to $939.10 an ounce on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

August gold's average plummeted to a low at $933.80 - last experienced on July 17 - from a day's high at $956.80.

Along with lower oil and share prices, gold added to losses when the U.S. dollar increased from its lowest level of the year against a currency basket. The dollar rebounded as sinking confidence rekindled worries about the U.S. economic recovery and increased demand for safe-haven assets.

Gold, like other dollar-priced commodities, becomes less expensive for holders of other currencies as the U.S. unit weakens.

"We ran into profit taking. We had a technical failure at the $956 level. A little bit of dollar strength, a little bit of stock market weakness, a little bit of crude weakness cascaded into the tight trailing stops," said Frank McGhee, head precious metals trader at Integrated Brokerage Services LLC in Chicago.

McGhee said there were a number of factors driving the price down, including a series of automatic sell orders bunched up between $942 to $958 an ounce that lead to accelerated selling in the New York afternoon session.

Crude prices fell 2 percent, causing interest in gold to decline as a hedge against oil-led inflation.

Gold Prices

Gold News | Gold Prices Rise As Investors Look to Increasing Demand

Gold News

Optimism about the economy showed through in the commodities markets recently as investors sent prices for gold, oil and grains higher on the belief that demand for basic materials will soon rebound. I think they're right, although no one can predict the timing of any market.

There is "a general feeling that maybe we're starting to stabilize here in terms of the economy," said Stephen Platt, an analyst with Archer Financial Services in Chicago. "There is some hope that the demand might come back."

Surprisingly positive data on the jobs market renewed hopes that the economy is recovering. The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of unemployed workers continuing to receive benefits unexpectedly dropped last week for the first time in 20 weeks. New jobless claims also declined, falling to 621,000 from 625,000, nearly matching analysts' estimates.

Unemployment has been one of the most closely watched gauges of the economy's health throughout the recession. Rising job losses affect vast areas of the economy, including consumer spending, retail sales and the housing market. The report came a day ahead of the government's crucial tally of monthly job losses.

A slightly weaker dollar also helped spur buying of commodities, particularly gold and oil. A weaker dollar makes both gold and oil attractive investments. By buying gold, investors insulate themselves from the risks of inflation, while oil becomes cheaper for foreign buyers when the dollar falls.

On Thursday, the dollar traded mostly lower against other major currencies as central banks in Europe made the decision to keep their benchmark interest rates at historically low levels, signaling a cautious stance on the economy.

Low interest rates are a tool governments often use to revitalize the economy by lowering borrowing costs, but they can also undermine a country's currency. The Federal Reserve also has kept its benchmark interest rate very low — near zero — as it works to boost the U.S. economy, which has put pressure on the dollar.

The dollar has declined steadily since early March as the outlook on the economy improves. This leads investors to look for more traditionally risky assets like stocks in which to park their money.

Gold for August delivery rose $16.70 to $982.30 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, erasing nearly all of the previous day's 2 percent loss.

Other metals also rose. July silver jumped 58.5 cents to $15.8950 an ounce, while July copper futures added 8.9 cents to $2.3010 a pound.

Gold News

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.

Gold | Yamana Gold - Fulfill Promise in 2009?

With the price of gold assured to go up in 2009, many investors are giving a close look at gold mining companies as a significant part of their investment portfolio. To that end, Yamana Gold is being reconsidered again for 2009, after disappointing investors in 2008.

Many thought Yamana Gold was the darkhorse of the sector, and had tremendous upside potential in 2008. Conseqently it plunged in value to under $4 a share, as gold was under pressure from forced liquidation and copper prices plunged as well.

That's probably the chief challenge in 2009 for the company, as they look at cutting their exposure to copper resources to 19 percent, down from the 36 percent of the company exposure to copper in 2008.

As far as its commercial gold equivalent ounce goes, Yamana Gold is looking to increase by 36 percent to 1.35 M oz GEO in 2009. A number of investors believe this year could be a solid one for the precious metals company, looking for prices to almost double for the year. That could definitely happen for the gold company, considering the real possibility that gold prices could rocket up this year.

Yamana Gold stock should move along with that gold price increase, assuming managing their exposure to copper is successfully implemented.

Another key factor for all mining companies has been the lowering of operational costs as energy prices have fallen to levels not seen for some time. If those costs continue to stay down, it could help all mining companies, including Yamana.

One thing that will bear watching will be the commissioning risk the company is exposed to at its mining site in Gualcamayo in Argentina, along with its Sao Vincente mining site in Brazil. Silver production and prices will also be a major contributor to the success of the company in 2009. If gold prices go tremendously high, it could not only bring up the price of silver with it, but override it altogether through its successful surge, whether silver performs well or not.

I expect that silver prices could by percentage even outperform gold in 2009, and so will rather be a positive impact on the company rather than a negative. Hopefully they'll produce enough to make a big difference.

With a number of the long-term pipelines shut down or scaled back, the acquisition by AngloGold Ashanti of a 33.33 percent stake in the Boddington Mine joint venture could put pressure on Yamana and other gold mining companies to go into consolidation mode to shore up the losses connected to their gold pipeline reductions.

Gold stocks overall should be up for 2009, and Yamana Gold will participate successfully in the upwards move.

Again, as operational costs for gold mining companies decrease while the price of gold increases, this should be one of the better years for the gold industry in some time. Gold investors should enjoy a lot of positive perks and success too.

So with gold and metals extraction costs declining, and gold companies pretty much operating at lean levels, 2009 will be a banner year for the quality gold companies.

Yamana Gold is positioned to take full advantage of theis climate, and lessoning their exposure to copper while keeping operating costs low, should lead them to a great year.

Many people thought last year was going to be a breakout year for Yamana, but forces like forced liquidation and deleveraging kept them - like most gold mining companies and gold futures - from advancing in the way they should have.

This year is much more predictable as forced liquidation seems to be unwound to a large degree in a way that hedge funds should increase investment in gold and gold-related companies and products as gold futures once again become the place of safety investors looking for a financial haven expect.

What was expected by many of Yamana Gold in 2008, should be experienced by gold investors in 2009.

GFMS Looks for Gold to Surge in Second Half of 2009

While gold could average around $915 an ounce in the first part of 2009, it's in the second half that it could really soar, according to consultancy GFMS in its Gold Survey 2008 report. They project gold could reach as high as $1,080 an ounce as the U.S. dollar inevitably weakens. (Why the U.S. dollar will plunge in 2009.)

The average price of gold in 2008 was just under $872. Today gold was trading over $816 at 4:30 EST.

For the year, GFMS is looking for a trading range for gold of $750 an ounce to $1,080an ounce.

There's no doubt gold will rebound, as the bubble will burst sometime in the year for U.S Treasury bonds, which are wrongly being touted as havens of safety. Click on the link above to find out why that's so.

Because we don't have any idea how much more forced liquidation is out in the market, it's the one variable that could allow the U.S. dollar to remain temporarily strong, as companies continue to sell assets to cover their losses and raise cash.

Even though demand for gold in jewelry fell by almost 11 percent last year, that shouldn't have any impact on the price of gold, as safety and inflation protection will be the driving forces pushing the yellow metal up.

With the Federal Reserve going to be forced to print more money to cover the misguided bailout-mania and acquisition of Treasury bonds, that will also eventually push the strength of the U.S. dollar down and drive people toward gold. It's only a matter of when, not if.