A lot of folks are probably wondering if the big gold rush passed them by. The answer is no. Although the government is fond of generating lots of data that indicate that things are improving economically, it’s pretty safe to assume that there’s still a huge gap between where we were before the crash and where we’d like to get back to. For that reason, I continue to advocate for the use of gold and silver in portfolios both large and small.
Gold prices have dropped lately, but the underlying features of the economy that made gold attractive have not changed much. There are still high levels of uncertainty in the employment numbers – though raw hiring is up. Unfortunately, the particular jobs that people are finding are not as good as the ones they left (or were let go from). So buying and selling gold and silver is still important in the portfolio of the average investor.
In addition, durable goods orders for April were down as were new home starts, so this also makes buying and selling gold and silver more attractive.
The fundamentals of the economy have not changed a great deal. Even though the Federal Reserve is buying tons of short term Treasuries, this behavior has not healed the ailing economy. That’s why gold and silver purchases and sales continue even during periods of slightly cooled hysteria in the metals market.
For those investors whose income is almost entirely made up of income from stock investments, the world is very bright indeed. Things are great. But that is a very rare and wealthy individual.
