Flashback:
– Gold and Gold Mining Shares As a Percentage of Global Assets or ‘The Once In a Lifetime Ride’
The idea is to destroy the pensions in the coming greatest financial collapse in history.
See also: Forget $8,000, Gold Headed Much Higher, Dow To Lose 90% Vs Gold
Why would a pension fund not invest at least 10% in gold and silver?
The Driver for Gold You’re Not Watching
You already know the basic reasons for owning gold – currency protection, inflation hedge, store of value, calamity insurance – many of which are becoming clichés even in mainstream articles. Throw in the supply and demand imbalance, and you’ve got the basic arguments for why one should hold gold for the foreseeable future.
All of these factors remain very bullish, in spite of gold’s 450% rise over the past 10 years. No, it’s not too late to buy, especially if you don’t own a meaningful amount; and yes, I’m convinced the price is headed much higher, regardless of the corrections we’ll inevitably see. Each of the aforementioned catalysts will force gold’s price higher and higher in the years ahead, especially the currency issues.
But there’s another driver of the price that escapes many gold watchers and certainly the mainstream media. And I’m convinced that once this sleeping giant wakes, it could ignite the gold market like nothing we’ve ever seen.
The fund management industry handles the bulk of the world’s wealth. These institutions include insurance companies, hedge funds, mutual funds, sovereign wealth funds, etc. But the elephant in the room is pension funds. These are institutions that provide retirement income, both public and private.
Global pension assets are estimated to be – drum roll, please – $31.1 trillion. No, that is not a misprint. It is more than twice the size of last year’s GDP in the U.S. ($14.7 trillion).
We know a few hedge fund managers have invested in gold, like John Paulson, David Einhorn, Jean-Marie Eveillard. There are close to twenty mutual funds devoted to gold and precious metals. Lots of gold and silver bugs have been buying.
So, what about pension funds?
According to estimates by Shayne McGuire in his new book, Hard Money; Taking Gold to a Higher Investment Level, the typical pension fund holds about 0.15% of its assets in gold. He estimates another 0.15% is devoted to gold mining stocks, giving us a total of 0.30% – that is, less than one third of one percent of assets committed to the gold sector.
Shayne is head of global research at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas. He bases his estimate on the fact that commodities represent about 3% of the total assets in the average pension fund. And of that 3%, about 5% is devoted to gold. It is, by any account, a negligible portion of a fund’s asset allocation.
Now here’s the fun part. Let’s say fund managers as a group realize that bonds, equities, and real estate have become poor or risky investments and so decide to increase their allocation to the gold market. If they doubled their exposure to gold and gold stocks – which would still represent only 0.6% of their total assets – it would amount to $93.3 billion in new purchases.
How much is that? The assets of GLD total $55.2 billion, so this amount of money is 1.7 times bigger than the largest gold ETF. SLV, the largest silver ETF, has net assets of $9.3 billion, a mere one-tenth of that extra allocation.
The market cap of the entire sector of gold stocks (producers only) is about $234 billion. The gold industry would see a 40% increase in new money to the sector. Its market cap would double if pension institutions allocated just 1.2% of their assets to it.
But what if currency issues spiral out of control? What if bonds wither and die? What if real estate takes ten years to recover? What if inflation becomes a rabid dog like it has every other time in history when governments have diluted their currency to this degree? If these funds allocate just 5% of their assets to gold – which would amount to $1.5 trillion – it would overwhelm the system and rocket prices skyward.
And let’s not forget that this is only one class of institution. Insurance companies have about $18.7 trillion in assets. Hedge funds manage approximately $1.7 trillion. Sovereign wealth funds control $3.8 trillion. Then there are mutual funds, ETFs, private equity funds, and private wealth funds. Throw in millions of retail investors like you and me and Joe Sixpack and Jiao Sixpack, and we’re looking in the rear view mirror at $100 trillion.
I don’t know if pension funds will devote that much money to this sector or not. What I do know is that sovereign debt risks are far from over, the U.S. dollar and other currencies will lose considerably more value against gold, interest rates will most certainly rise in the years ahead, and inflation is just getting started. These forces are in place and building, and if there’s a paradigm shift in how these managers view gold, look out!
I thought of titling this piece, “Why $5,000 Gold May Be Too Low.” Because once fund managers enter the gold market in mass, this tiny sector will light on fire with blazing speed.
My advice is to not just hope you can jump in once these drivers hit the gas, but to claim your seat during the relative calm of this month’s level prices.
Submitted by Jeff Clark of Casey Research
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/08/2011 19:19 -0500
Source: ZeroHedge
Only physical gold and silver are real, everything else is an illusion.
– Exposed: The iShares Silver Trust (SLV) Scam
More on gold and silver:
Silver:
– The Constraints on Silver Supply: Bob Quartermain
– Physical Silver (PSLV) Premium To NAV Surges To Record High
– JP Morgan And HSBC Silver Manipulation Explained In The New York Times!
– Louise Yamada: $80 Silver, $2,000 Gold and $140 Oil
– John Hathaway: $50 to $60 Silver, US Dollar in Danger
– Why Silver Is Headed To $500 Per Oz – Backwardation Explained
– CNBC: Total Silver Demand At 127% ! – The Case For $130 Silver
– Dollar Ready to Collapse, Silver Squeeze to Continue
– Even The Royal Canadian Mint Now Says It’s Difficult To Secure Silver
– Unprecedented: Silver Backwardation Surges To Over $1.00
– Eric Sprott on Silver: ‘THERE IS NOTHING LEFT’
– Fractal Analysis Suggests Silver to Reach $52 – $56 by May – June 2011
– Short Squeeze in Silver, Manipulators Getting Overrun
– Silver Takes Out Hunt Brothers High … When Priced In Euros
– Silver Backwardation Now ‘Unprecedented 73 Cents’
– Short Squeeze Takes Silver To Fresh 31 Year High
– Silver: Short Squeeze Could Be the Big One – Reaches New Multi-Decade High – Still In Backwardation
– Massive Short Squeeze in Silver, Gold to Hit New Highs
– London Source: Asians Buying SLV to Take Delivery of Silver
– COMEX Silver Inventories Drop To 4 Year Low. COMEX Default Or Hunt Brothers Redux?
– This Past Week in Gold and Silver
– ‘US Silver Term Structure Inverts As Supply Tightens’ – Reuters Article On Silver Backwardation
– JP Morgan Silver Manipulation Explained (Part 1-4)
– Silver Bullion Backwardation Suggests Supply Stress
– Silver Lease Rates Rise Sharply – Bond Yields in Portugal Rise to Record
– Perth Mint Has Run Out of 100 Ounce SILVER Bars for at least 6 Weeks!!!
– Silver Breaks Its Golden Shackles And More Signs of Silver Shortages
– $6,000 Silver and the ONE BANK
– Canada’s Biggest Bullion Bank Scotia Mocatta: ALL SILVER BARS SOLD OUT
– Eric Sprott: Expect $50 Silver, Gold Possibly $2,150 by Spring
– US Mint Reports Unprecedented Buying Spree Of Physical Silver
– BullionVault.com Runs Out Of Silver In Germany
– Silver: Shortage This Decade, Will Be Worth More Than Gold (!!!)
– Silver Derivatives – China and JP Morgan
– Max Keiser: Want JP Morgan to Crash? Buy Silver!
– Max Keiser: Crash JP Morgan – Buy Silver!
– JPMorgan Silver Manipulation Explained (Must-See!)
Gold:
– Forget $8,000, Gold Headed Much Higher, Dow To Lose 90% Vs Gold
– Pay Taxes In Gold? Obama Golf, We Buy Gold!
– Chief Investment Strategist John Embry: Gold to $1,650, Shorts to Get Crushed
– Gold Buying in China Jumps as Inflation Flares, Boosting Demand: UBS
– Probable Black Swan Event Equals Gold Explosion
– Richard Russell: Possibility of Gold Breaking to New Highs
– Brazilian Billionaire Eike Batista Reaffirms $1 Billion Bid for Ventana Gold
– Americans Will Flock Into $5,000 Gold and $500 Silver
– ‘GoldNomics’: Cash or Gold Bullion?
– George Soros’ and John Paulson’s Biggest Holding Is GOLD
– China, Russia, Iran are Dumping the Dollar, Buy Gold And Silver
– Gold and Gold Mining Shares As a Percentage of Global Assets or ‘The Once In a Lifetime Ride’
And don’t forget to do this (!!!)…
– James G. Rickards of Omnis Inc.: Get Your Gold Out Of The Banking System
… or …
Related information:
– The Dollar Collapse Will Shock the World
– Marc Faber: ‘I Think We Are All Doomed’
– The Market Is Telling Us That The US Dollar Is Finished
– Tungsten Outperforms Gold, Returns 70 Percent In Last Year (And we all know exactly why!)
– Alert: Get Out of Your Dollar Assets Now!!!
– The Ultimate Cost of 0% Money
– These Central Banks Are Printing Money – Prepare Yourself
– Quantitative Easing Explained
Summary:
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