Save your cookie preferences

We use cookies to remember your site preferences, record your referrer and improve the performance of our site. For more information, see our cookie policy.

Please select an option below and 'Save' your preferences.

Save

You can update your cookie preferences at any time from the 'Cookies' link in the footer.

We use cookies (including third-party cookies such as Google) to remember your site preferences and to help us understand how visitors use our sites so we can improve them. To learn more, please see our privacy policy and our cookie policy.

To agree to our use of cookies, click 'Accept' or choose 'Options' to set your preferences by cookie type.

Options Accept

  • English
  • Deutsch
  • Español
  • Français
  • Italiano
  • Polski
  • 日本語
  • 简体中文
  • 繁體中文
  • Daily audit
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Deposit
  • Login
  • Open account
  • ABOUT US
    • About BullionVault
    • In the press
    • Reviews
    BUY/SELL BULLION
    • Live order board
    • Daily Price
    • Regular Investing
    INVESTMENT GUIDE
    • Guide to gold
    • -How to buy gold
    • -Gold investment
    • -Gold investment plan
    • -Investment insurance
    • -Compare asset performance
    • Guide to silver
    • -How to buy silver
    • Guide to platinum
    • -How to buy platinum
    GOLD NEWS
    • Gold news front page
    • -Gold price news
    • -Opinion & analysis
    • -Market fundamentals
    • -Gold/Silver Investor Index
    • -Infographics
    CHARTS
    • Gold price
    • Silver price
    • Platinum price
    • Price alerts
  • Login
  • Open account
  • BUY/SELL BULLION
  • Live order board
  • Daily Price
  • Regular Investing
  • INVESTMENT GUIDE
  • Guide to gold
    • ⤷
    • How to buy gold
    • Gold investment
    • Gold investment plan
    • Investment insurance
    • Compare asset performance
  • Guide to silver
    • ⤷
    • How to buy silver
  • Guide to platinum
    • ⤷
    • How to buy platinum
  • GOLD NEWS
  • Gold news front page
    • ⤷
    • Gold price news
    • Opinion & analysis
    • Market fundamentals
    • Gold/Silver Investor Index
    • Infographics
  • CHARTS
  • Gold price
  • Silver price
  • Platinum price
  • Price alerts
  • ABOUT US
  • About BullionVault
  • In the press
  • Reviews
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Daily audit
    • English
    • Deutsch
    • Español
    • Français
    • Italiano
    • Polski
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文

Gold News

Live support

NEED HELP? ASK US NOW

Search form

Gold News front page

Gold Price News

Gold Price Gains as Dollar Drops, Selling from GLD ETF Erases 2019's Growth

More...

Gold Investing In Depth

Learn about gold bullion bars

Learn about gold bullion coins (and costs)

Gold investment: Why & how?

Gold Investment Analysis

  • Latest Gold Investor Index
  • Diversification: Gold as investment insurance
  • 40-year Asset Performance Comparison Table

Gold Articles

Opinion & Analysis

Gold Price News

Investment News

Gold in History

Gold Books

Gold Investor Index

Gold Infographics

Archive

  • February 2019 (21)
  • January 2019 (33)
  • December 2018 (28)
  • November 2018 (39)
  • October 2018 (38)
More...

List of authors

Buy Gold, Sell Oil

Sunday, 9/30/2012 17:53

Here's the $55 million reason to Buy Gold over oil now QE3 has begun...

YES, YES, I know, says Chris Mayer of Agora Financial's Capital and Crisis.

Gold and oil are both hard assets, but that doesn't mean they will both provide a reliable hedge against the inflationary trend Ben Bernanke is creating.

In short, I like gold much better than oil...at least for the next couple of years.

The best reason to Buy Gold is also the most well-known reason. The US government prints a lot of money, as the nearby chart plainly shows.
gold vs oil
In round numbers, the Fed conjures about 55 million fresh Dollars into existence every hour. By contrast, the entire world's gold mines only manage to extract about $15 million worth of gold from the earth every hour and US mines only extract $2 million worth of gold per hour. In other words, Ben Bernanke creates US "money" about 27 times faster than US gold mines.

Wild stuff.

It is hard to fathom a readjustment of gold to keep up with the amount of money created. But that readjustment seems inevitable.

Obviously, inevitable is not the same thing as imminent. But there is good reason to think the Gold Price will top $2000 fairly soon. The Deutsche Bank report shows how the Gold Price has pretty much marched in step with the Federal Reserve Bank's money printing since 2000.

Based on all this kind of statistical analysis, even the mainstream Deutsche Bank predicts gold will top $2000 in the first half of 2013.

The obvious take-away is to own some gold. Second, look at gold stocks – which have lagged the metal for some time and seem to be showing some life finally. The GDXJ, which is an exchange-traded fund made up of small gold stocks, is up over 25% since early May. It remains a good way to play a gold stock rally if you don't want to take on the risks and frustrations of owning individual gold stocks.
Meanwhile, the outlook for the price of crude oil seems much less upbeat. In fact, I think the price of crude is likely to tank over the next couple of years.

I have said before that I think the oil bull market is on its last legs. In this, I'm just playing the odds. History and economics dictate what those odds look like. For example, we know stock markets don't trade for 30 times earnings – as the US stock market did in 2000 – for long. That was a figure far above the long-term average for stocks. And stocks subsequently crashed.

We know housing prices can't sustain a price of 32 times the cost to rent them – as they did when housing prices peaked in 2006. That was again far above the long-term average of just 20 times. Housing prices later crashed.

Similarly, we can conclude that the current oil price – which is currently 230% above its long-term inflation-adjusted price – won't last either.

The current bull market began in 1998. The average oil price in 1998 was just $11 per barrel. So the current bull market is 14 years old. And the US oil price is nearly nine times what it was in 1998. It's been a great run.

Just how great you can see by looking at the previous chart. Crude oil is 230% above its long-term average in inflation-adjusted terms.

Besides, it is not as if we can't see what will slay the oil price. There are many sharp swords all over the place.

Let us consider demand. The biggest economies on the earth – the United States, Japan, China and the EU – are all slowing down or contracting.

Let us consider supply. New technology continues to unveil giant sources of supply once thought uneconomic. David Fingold, a portfolio manager at DundeeWealth, writes:

More oil? It turns out that on top of US oil shale, Alberta oil sands, West Africa and Brazil there's yet another massive source of oil that may be coming to market. It's called the Bazhenov Shale, it's in Russia and it's big. I'm no geologist, but I've been told it's similar to the Cardium in Alberta. Exxon starts drilling there next year. The energy boom of the 1970s ended when the North Sea and Alaska North Slope came on line at the same time. It seems likely more than two major fields will hit the market this decade. It's hard to see oil becoming relatively scarce anytime soon.

The Bazhenov shale could be another game-changer for the oil industry. It is yet another massive oil source to add to a list that keeps getting longer as new technology cracks open sources once thought unreachable.

People will come up with all kinds of reasons to discount the new oil supplies. But history shows that human beings are creative and tenacious.

I was among the early investors in the Bakken in 2008. I recommended Kodiak Oil to the subscribers of Mayer's Special Situations. The stock subsequently doubled. Back then, I remember hearing some geologists scoff at the Bakken and its potential to produce significant amounts of oil at low costs. Yet, here we are. Even now, I think people still underestimate the amount of oil the United States could produce.

On oil, I must disagree with my friend Byron King, who writes Outstanding Investments and (in a revision to his older "Peak Oil" views) now says we're at "peak cheap oil," or the end of cheap oil. I could not disagree more.

So one thing is certain; one of us is correct.

I say it is also a certainty that oil will be cheap again. And then it will get expensive again. Then, cheap again. And so on. In other words, just like any other commodity, it will continue to boom and bust and go through cycles. Timing is the great uncertainty.

I am interested in putting my money in areas where the odds favor me. Increasingly, I don't see the odds favoring me when it comes to oil prices. To me, oil is much like stocks in 2000 or housing in 2006. It's overpriced and due for a sizeable selloff.

Get the safest gold at the lowest prices using world #1 online, BullionVault...

  • Reddit logo
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
  • Google logo
  • Yahoo logo
  • LinkedIn logo
  • Digg logo
  • StumbleUpon logo
  • Technorati logo
  • del.icio.us logo
After a decade in corporate banking, Chris Mayer used his deep analytic approach towards stockpicking to beat the market 3-to-1 between 2004 and 2014 at newsletter publishers Agora Financial. Now moved to Bill Bonner's Bonner & Partners, his Chris Mayer's Focus service seeks shares with the possibility of returning 100-to-1.
 
See the full archive of Chris Mayer articles here.

 

Please Note: All articles published here are to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it. Please review our Terms & Conditions for accessing Gold News, RSS links are shown there.

Follow Us

Facebook Youtube Twitter LinkedIn

 

Mobile apps

 - live trading 24/7

 - buy & sell instantly

 - up-to-the-second charts

 

 

 

Daily news email
Go to 'communications settings' 

Get the latest daily gold price news free by email

Latest gold news by email

 

 

 

Gold Investor Index
5 February 2019

Gold Investor Index

Gold up, investing up!

 

 

 

CNBC TV-18
3 January 2019

CNBC TV-18

Gold jumps into New Year

 

 

 

Portfolio Adviser
19 October 2018

Vaulted large bar gold. Source: BullionVault

Beyond gold 'chatter'

 

 

 

Money Observer
6 August 2018

Bitcoin ain't gold

No, Bitcoin isn't "new" gold

 

 

 

  •  Email us

Market Fundamentals

  • Gold 'Set to Drive' Silver Price Gains in 2019
  • LBMA Gold Price Forecasts See Tight Range in 2019
  • Gold Mining M&A Now 'Easier' Than New Exploration
More...
  • Cost calculator
  • Cookies
  • Terms & conditions

©BullionVault Ltd 2005-

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Google Plus
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube