Dr M Khalid's global village blog

You'd probably laugh it off if someone claimed silver is the hottest metal, given gold's runaway prices. Since the beginning of the year gold is up about 20%. Silver, in the same period, has given a whopping 60% return. "This relative outperformance will continue," says Vijay Bhambwani, CEO, BSPLindia.com. Silver price is at a 30-year high of $30 an ounce (Rs 45,665 per kg). Let us do a quick analysis to find out if you should invest in it. Riding on high demand:   Silver has more industrial applications than any other metal. A recent report by Hinde Capital says: "It's the best conductor of both heat and electricity, the most reflective, and second-most ductile and malleable element, after gold." The white metal is also being put to several new uses-water purification, air-handling systems and a natural biocide. "New products using silver's biocidal qualities are being developed each year; clothing, bandages, toothbrushes, door-knobs (flu-p...

The World Bank continues to push its agenda on water privatisation even though its much-heralded examples from recent years turned out to be such dismal failures. The result will destroy countless small farmers and hand over agriculture to the rich and corporations, says P Sainath. 08 May 2005 - It has been happening for some time. Maharashtra is not the first State. It won't be the last. The drive towards privatisation of water in this country was planned by the World Bank in the 1990s. The just-passed Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Bill reeks of Bank edicts already out in 1998. In that year, the "The Irrigation Sector" report of the Bank (teamed up with the Indian Government) laid down the line. It listed things that "need to be urgently put into practice." Among them: "drastically increasing and rationalising the current water rates." The rest of its "urgent needs" were the standard Bank rules for the capture of a co...

  In my opinion, gold is important to buy as it is the only liquid defence against inflation. People who took pension schemes 15 to 25 year back are finding the monthly pension amount to have far less buying power than expected. If that amount was put in gold gradually, instead of investment in pension schemes, they would have been spending out of their gold savings and have considerable wealth in the form of gold.   In September 2009, when gold was around $1000,  technical analysts on www.seekingalpha.com , a credible website for market movements, predicted gold to go to 1500 per ounce (Rs 25000 per 10 gm). In the same article, they also forecast it to go to 3000 by 2015,2017 Excerpt: As we look ahead over the next 5 years, with all of the money being printed worldwide, expect inflation to rear its ugly-head once again, a catalyst that could very well lead to the parabolic stage for Gold's bull market, where it goes to 3000 or even higher by 2015-2017. W...

With the precious metal seeing some weakness since posting an all-time high of more than $1,900 an ounce -- though it rebounded Tuesday to about $1,800 -- that's the critical question for anyone who caught gold's big run or who is wondering if it's too late to get in. Few investments bring out more passion than gold does. The folks known as gold bugs never seem to think the price is high enough, while their critics have been waiting since $1,000 for the bugs to get their comeuppance. But for the rest of us, the challenge is figuring out whether gold's move can go on. Analyzing that involves looking at the reasons gold has been on a tear, and whether they'll continue to be in play. A careful look tells me $3,000 could indeed be in gold's future, making upcoming dips buying opportunities. Here's why I think gold is headed higher after a correction that could send gold down to $1,600 or lower -- and the best ways to buy in if you agree. Read full at: http://mon...

We thought we had seen it all… Then JPM's Colin Fenton came out with a prediction of gold hitting $2500 by year end. That's right: JP Morgan… $2500…."Gold and sugar have potential to run a lot higher. It has been clear for weeks that the prompt CMX gold price has been building in a rising probability of a re-flaring of financial crisis, gaining by 9.7% since June 30 as the MSCI World Equity index dropped by 10.1%. The correlation in daily price changes between these two assets has dropped to –0.09 from +0.29 over the prior year. Gold's correlation against TIPS has doubled to 0.35 from 0.18. Against Italian and Spanish 5-year sovereign CDS prices, the gold correlation has moved to 0.27 and 0.32, from 0.07 and 0.04, respectively. Before the downgrade, our view was that cash gold could average $1800 per oz by year end. This view will likely now prove to be too conservative: spot gold could drive to $2500 per oz or higher, albeit on very high volatility." Funny, when ...

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Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar maintained losses from yesterday against the euro before U.S. data today forecast to show industrial production rose and confidence among homebuilders increased, reducing demand for safer assets. The yen also held a drop versus the 17-nation currency after Spanish and Greek borrowing costs fell at auctions yesterday, damping concern the euro region's most-indebted members will struggle to fund deficits. Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos will meet with a group representing private bondholders today to discuss forgiving at least half of the nation's debt. Portugal is scheduled to sell bills today. "The U.S. economy is showing signs of recovery," said Thomas Averill, managing director in Sydney at Rochford Capital, a currency and interest-rate risk-management company. Haven currencies including the yen and the dollar "will come under a bit more pressure" over the next 12 months, he said. Read full at: http://www.businessweek...