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 Prices Rise Again as UK Tory Party Splits, Putin Threatens US, China Jewelry-Makers 'Sold Out'

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 (26)
  • January 2019 (33)
  • December 2018 (28)
  • November 2018 (39)
  • October 2018 (38)
More...

List of authors

Ritholtz's Low-Hanging 'Gold Bugs'

Sunday, 7/05/2015 10:05
Upsetting straw men is neither big, clever or useful. Sure is easy though...
 
I LINKED Barry Ritholtz's gold bug swipe along with other items in an Around the Web post, writes Gary Tanashian in this Note from the Rabbit Hole.
 
Anything linked (or republished from guests for that matter) on the site is to be taken as 100% their view, not mine. You, the reader are tasked with using your own brain to consider, discount or ignore any of it as you see fit.
 
But what do I think of Ritholtz's view on gold, personally? I think ole' Barry is picking some easy, low hanging fruit to use up virtual ink over at Bloomberg, per his contract (real or implied). 
 
I mean really, gold did not react to Greece and he takes that as a negative for the metal?
 
The fact that gold did not do what legions of promoters and fear-mongering pitch men insist it is supposed to do is a positive, not a negative. It brings us closer to the resolution of the bear market as opposed to delaying it with fear-mongering promotions (ref. last summer's Russia-Ukraine-Ebola triple play of unsound 'fundamentals').
 
But still, " Gold Shrugs Off Armageddon" writes Ritholtz.
"I thought gold was an investor's best friend during Armageddon."
Really Barry, I think that you have gotten caught up in a personal 'back and forth' with the more unsavory of the gold bug "community", as Daddy Gold Bug Jim Sinclair calls it.
 
You are using the same cartoons in reverse that the worst of the "community" uses when it tries to stir fear and greed in naive cult members (aka, followers).
 
As those of us who actually care about reality (as opposed to media-driven hype) have tried to point out repeatedly over the years, gold is not about Armageddon (Bird Flu, Ebola, Cyprus, Greece, war, death, destruction or any of that crap). Gold is simply a marker, a barometer showing the state of confidence in the financial system and its managers (central banks) at any given time.
"Further reducing enthusiasm for gold is the gradual improvement of the US economy. Despite forecasts of imminent collapse, the major economic data – including employment, wages, spending, housing, autos and consumer sentiment – have all trended higher over the last five years. Tales of an impending depression were greatly exaggerated."
I could not agree with you more, Barry.
 
Back in 2012 we began gauging big breakdowns in the technical case for precious metals and by January of 2013 we (well, NFTRH) cross referenced the ratio of Palladium (cyclical) to Gold (counter cyclical) with a 'channel check' of the Semiconductor Equipment industry to put forward a view that an economic bounce – beginning in manufacturing and later to spread out to the services sectors – was likely to come.
 
I am a gold bug. I saw the "improvement of the US economy" when it was appropriate to see it, ahead of time. When you obsess on the other kind of gold bug, the media star with the Armageddon-like predictions and inflammatory 'analysis', or Kool-Aid drinking hate mailers, you do a disservice to your readership because you only present the other side of something that is not real to begin with. You in essence stand up a Straw Man and periodically set fire to him, really to no one's benefit.
"Regardless, gold seems to [be...jeez msm, edit much?] going nowhere fast. Feel free to send me an e-mail explaining how wrong and stupid I am. I have an archive of all the messages warning me that gold would teach me a lesson in humility. 'You'll see,' these e-mails smugly assure me, 'your comeuppance will be here any day now.' 
 
"My plan was to respond to each on its fifth-year anniversary with a chart showing the performance of gold versus all other asset classes and the details of how much money has been lost."
Gold is going to be relevant again when confidence wanes and the current boom cycle starts to show its age and reveal its unsound origins. Until then, gold is a dumb rock that people can hold as insurance and nothing more. That is all it ever was, anyway.
 
But that truth does not sell in the mainstream media to mainstream people. Cartoon-like depictions of half insane Luddites clinging to that dumb rock do. Media stars lampooning those Luddites do too.
  • Reddit logo
  • Facebook logo
  • Twitter logo
  • Google logo
  • Yahoo logo
  • LinkedIn logo
  • Digg logo
  • StumbleUpon logo
  • Technorati logo
  • del.icio.us logo

Gary Tanashian successfully owned and operated a progressive medical component manufacturing company for 21 years, through various economic cycles. This experience gave Gary an understanding of and appreciation for global macroeconomics as it relates to individual markets and sectors. Along the way, Gary developed an almost geek-like interest in technical analysis (TA), to add to a long-time interest in human psychology. Various unique macro market ratio indicators were also added to the mix, with the result being a financial market newsletter, Notes From the Rabbit Hole (NFTRH) that combines these attributes.

See the full archive of Gary Tanashian.

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