Gold Investment Demand is Exploding:

Large institutional investors - hedge funds and pension funds - are making large allocations to gold, as are individual investors.

The proliferation of gold-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) bears this out. The SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE: GLD, Stock Forum), the world's largest physically backed ETF with 1,100 tons of the lustrous metal, is the sixth-largest holder of gold bullion. Individual investors have never had an easier avenue for owning gold.

This isn't just merely a U.S. manifestation. According to the World Gold Council, demand advanced 15% from the second quarter to the third last year.

Asia, with a population that exceeds 2.5 billion inhabitants and a long-standing cultural affinity for gold, is stoking global demand in a big way. China is overtly encouraging its citizens to buy gold and silver, while offering them gold-linked checking accounts. China is primed to overtake India as the world's largest consumer of gold. A quickly developing middle class whose members are experiencing rapid escalations in disposable income are a major bullish driver for the price of gold.


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During the past 10 years, gold has indeed become the trade of the decade, beating out commodities, oil, high-grade U.S. corporate bonds, U.S. Treasuries, and yes, U.S. stocks.

A crisp $100 bill invested 10 years ago would today be worth more than $400 in gold, $357 in commodities (as measured by the S&P GSCI Enhanced Total Return Index), $268 in oil, $190 in corporate bonds or U.S. Treasuries, and only $90 in U.S. stocks.

That's right: We're talking about a $10 loss in U.S. stocks over 10 years. Ouch.

Meanwhile, gold has embarked upon a secular upward trend that is far from over. If the 1970's are any indication, gold's going much, much higher from here. Source