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  • Gold lures inflation-wary hedge fund chiefs

    (Reuters) – U.S. hedge fund managers are increasingly likely to buy gold to protect their personal wealth against inflation, an investment management firm said on Thursday.

    Hedge Funds

    London-based Moonraker said a survey it carried out in the United States found that 20 out of 22 fund managers interviewed bought physical gold for personal investment on conces the U.S.’ quantitative easing programme may lead to higher prices.

    “Gold is the ultimate currency, performing best when economies are at extremes, whether that is inflationary or deflationary,” Jeremy Charlesworth, chief investment officer at Moonraker, said in a statement.

    “The managers I met in the U.S. know that if the politicians get the quantitative easing programme wrong, then the value of money relative to real assets will dwindle,” he added.

  • Five Firms Hold 80% of Derivatives Risk, Fitch Report Finds

    First-quarter financials mark the first time comprehensive derivatives disclosure was mandated for all U.S. companies

     

    Members of Congress probing threats to the global financial system — especially the threat of concentration of risk — will have a lot to ponder in newly mandated disclosures highlighted by a Fitch Ratings report issued last week. While derivatives use among U.S. companies is widespread, an “overwhelming majority of the exposure is concentrated among financial institutions,” according to the rating agency’s review of first-quarter financials.

    Concentrated, in fact, among a mere handful of financial-services giants. About 80% of the derivative assets and liabilities carried on the balance sheets of 100 companies reviewed by Fitch were held by five banks: JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. Those five banks also account for more than 96% of the companies’ exposure to credit derivatives.

  • IMF says dollar adjustment might be needed

    PARIS, June 22 (Reuters) – An increase in exports is needed for a sustained recovery in the United States and this may require an adjustment in the value of the U.S. dollar, IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard said on Monday.

    ‘For the US, it is absolutely no question that a sustained recovery has to come from a large increase in exports, that may not be very easy to do. This may require fairly substantial adjustments in the dollar,’ he told a conference.

     

  • Beleggen in goud voor dummies

    Goud is booming, zeker ten tijde van crisis zoeken investeerders weer hun toevlucht in het gele edelmetaal. Maar bezint eer u begint, koop niet roekeloos elke gram goud waar u uw hand op kunt leggen.

    Op kantoor rinkelen de gouden kettingen om de halzen van uw collega’s, nee het zijn geen fashionistas geworden noch nemen zij deel aan een B.A. Barracus look-a-like contest. Zij volgen enkel de adviezen op van vele beurspredikers. Met Willem Middelkoop voorop praten zij u naar de veilige haven die goud heet.

    Maar hoe komt u aan uw eerste kilo’s van het edelmetaal?

  • Goudprijs naar $3500 per troy ounce

    De goudprijs stijgt de komende jaren naar 3500 dollar per troy ounce. Dat stelt Christopher Wood, aandelenanalist van de in Azië actieve broker en vermogensbeheerder CLSA.

    Wood komt tot die conclusie door de koopkracht begin jaren tachtig te vergelijken met die van nu. Toen was er behalve sprake van een wereldwijde economische crisis, ook sprake van een zwakke dollar.

    Op dit moment noteert goud onder de 1.000 dollar. Eind vorig jaar heeft goudprijs gepiekt net boven de psychologisch belangrijke 1.000 dollargrens.

  • IMF Says New Reserve Currency to Replace Dollar Is Possible

    By Alexander Nicholson

    June 6 (Bloomberg) — The Inteational Monetary Fund said it’s possible to take the “revolutionary” step of creating a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar over time.

    The IMF’s so-called special drawing rights could be used as the basis for a new currency, First Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky told a panel discussing reserve currencies at the St. Petersburg Inteational Economic Forum today.

    “There are many, many attractions in the long run to such an outcome,” Lipsky told a panel discussing reserve currencies at the St. Petersburg Inteational Economic Forum today. “But this is not a quick, short or easy decision,” he said, adding that it would be “quite revolutionary.”

    The SDRs would have to be delinked from other currencies and issued by an inteational organization with equivalent authority to a central bank in order to become liquid enough to be used as a reserve, he said.

  • Role of gold in Russian reserves could increase – Kremlin Role of gold in Russian reserves could increase – Kremlin

    ST. PETERSBURG, June 5 (RIA Novosti) – Gold could start playing a more important role in Russia’s reserves due to the influence of regional currencies, a Kremlin aide said on Friday.

    Addressing the St. Petersburg Inteational Economic Forum, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier said the structure of the global currency system would inevitably change with the increasing role of regional reserve currencies, and called for a reassessment of the potential role of gold in the global currency system.

    “I do not think it [gold] will replace everything else – it would be naive and unjustified, but the growing role of gold amid the crisis could be a topic of discussions in the near future,” Arkady Dvorkovich told the TV channel Vesti.

    He ruled out a retu to the gold standard monetary system.

  • Bart Melek of BMO Capital Markets

    Bart Melek of BMO Capital Markets, who projected that the gold price could reach $1,600 per ounce by 2011. In his report, Melek cited a bevy of factors that should continue to contribute to the gold price advance – including long-term inflation conces, sovereign debt issues, the relatively poor long-term outlook for the U.S. dollar and fiat currencies in general, and the market expectation that the Federal Reserve will not aggressively raise interest rates.

     

    The BMO report went on to point out two additional factors supportive of higher gold prices. First, gold producers are engaging in essentially no hedging, and the official sector has become a significant net buyer of gold for the first time in more than 20 years. Furthermore, central banks may add to their gold reserves in order to diversify their foreign exchange holdings amid the currency debasement rampant across the globe. As for the Inteational Monetary Fund’s plan to sell the remaining 191.3 metric tons of gold announced last fall, Melek expects it to have only a modest negative impact on the price of gold.