Sunshine Profits

This may be the year that weaker member-states are booted from the euro.

The new year started off with a bang with precious metals out-shining the competition. Is this a harbinger of things to come? We think so and we are not alone. Forecasts for gold for 2012 include a price per ounce of $2,200 by Morgan Stanley, $2,050 by UBS, and $2,000 by Barclays.

Several Wall Street firms have recently published their gold price forecasts for 2012. Goldman Sachs predicts the price of gold will peak at $1,900 per ounce and average $1,810 per ounce in the coming year.

We are on the cusp of a new year, and this is the time that we take a look at those brave (or foolhardy) financial analysts who take out their crystal ball and predict where precious metal prices will go in 2012.

“The American economy has enjoyed … low-hanging fruit since at least the 17th century, whether it be free land, … immigrant labor, or powerful new technologies

Why anyone would rather stuff their Christmas stockings with fiat currency than with physical gold is beyond understanding. To us “dash for cash” seems rash.

Whatever glow there might have been from last week’s European summit turned to gloom as markets turned downwards Monday.

Today’s EU summit has been billed as the best– perhaps the last– opportunity to save the euro. As we publish today’s essay, we still don’t know the results, and gold, like most asset classes, will react to headlines coming out of Europe.

It may take some time for people to figure this out, but the problem in Europe is not liquidity. The problem in Europe is sovereign debt.

There is palpable fear in the world and the urgency could be felt in the new strategy unveiled Wednesday morning by the world’s major central banks to bolster the financial system by increasing liquidity in the financial markets. In response, stock markets surged with joy with the S&P up 4.3 per cent. The move dragged down the dollar, bolstered the euro and pushed gold prices 2 per cent higher to finish November with a 1.9 per cent rise.

Analysts for Goldman Sachs have recently predicted that low interest rates will keep gold prices climbing for the rest of this year and into 2012 and raised their price forecasts for the precious metal to $1,930 per ounce from $1,860. So far this year, the price of gold is up about 26 percent.

This week’s events are like theater, with shades of a Greek tragedy. In a play the audience knows that if there is a gun in the first act, it will be fired in the third. Now we’re in the second act and so far, the plot is predictable. The script was written back in 2008 when the subprime crisis hit.