The rate cut only reversed the rate rises the ECB made months ago. They have a mandate to keep prices stable with inflation at about 2%, nothing they have done would imply otherwise; if they made a rate cut, it was probably in consideration with what happened recently bringing down the inflation target.

So don't count on the ECB supporting gold prices, at least not anymore than they have before. They do stress the important of price stability and keeping inflation under control.

Anyone have any thoughts on platinum trading at an almost $190 discount to gold?

Isn't Platinum price tied heavily to future of the auto industry?

Imporrant:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/did-gl...ll-gold-stocks

Thoughts on this chart:

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/i...tion_chart.htm

Nice chart. I wouldn't expect an inflation adjusted repeat of 1980 unless Paul Volker comes back and destroys the world, however.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ass6b...eature=related

lol no idea if you know that

If the $1484.9 gap gets filled soon, it could be close to being time to buy it. Just have to see if any kind of support base forms after this drop.

Actually, for Feb gold, the gap is 1482.6. The other gap was Sept or Oct futures.

Not much reply to this. I've thought it should be quite important for new gold investors to consider that platinum, which trades at historically about 1.5x the price of gold, is now at 0.9x.

Perhaps suggests platinum has a bit more potential. I don't see why someone should choose to buy gold bullion over platinum right now at these levels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum

So only <25% of platinum is jewellery, and the rest is consumed in industry.
But gold according to wikipedia has 10% use in industry, with 90% for jewellery and investment.

Gold is mostly used as a form of wealth investment - it is this property that investors are banking on for its price to rise.

The gold : platinum ratio is indeed interesting, I feel like buying some platinum especially since I expect more "green lobbying" in the future so the demand for "vehicle emissions control devices" may very well rise (unless other technologies come through of course).

Interesting research topic

For posterity's sake, 1,566.40 close Dec. 30, 2011.

They already exist on just about every car made, not sure how it's going to increase. Electric cars may very well reduce the demand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter

I think it's somewhat likely some ploitician will say "not good enough, need to halve all those emissions"

How does platinum compare to gold regarding money characteristics (divisible etc). I'm not a metalurgist but I'd guess they are fairly similar? If it's used more in industry but concidered a less likely candidate for a money there's at least an interesting econ paper in it I'm sure.

I'm not sure putting more platinum makes it better. If something happened needing to reduce emissions, it might actually hurt platinum if a replacement for catalytic converters.

There are a ton of other metals that you'd also have to consider, things like Osmium, Iridium, Palladium, etc... Why not those too?

my mama gave me a 1/10th krug today for my birthday. cool ****...

Do you also think that silver will rise in price this year again?

No doubt about it silver is going to rise. Whether it takes off again tomorrow of 12 months from now is anyone's guess but I think this is going to be a good year for it personally. Buying under 30 dollars an ounce is a great deal imo

Yes because $30 an ounce for silver is a nice round number so buying under that "must" be a great deal right? Makes complete logical sense to me.

Silver collapsed last year due to the Soros sell-off and general profit-taking after a long period of unsustainable gains. Since this year should be without those cataclysmic events, I don't see why silver can't rise above $30. Though I admit the rise would be due to natural inflation more than anything else.

From 07-May '11, "disastrous" world events like riots or poor economic numbers would light a fire under gold/silver prices. Since then though, catastrophic news just doesn't have the same effect. Much of the arguments around silver/gold were that everything was collapsing, so put your money into a safe storage of wealth. But that seems gone now. So going forward, I'm not sure what the impetus would be for gold/silver to rise again.

EuroFED turning into FED more and more.

I'm thinking about buying quite a substantial amount of gold before the dollar starts really tanking. I feel like I should be getting rid of all my fiat currency and buying things that will retain their value.

Fwiw I'm bullish on the USD in the short/med term simply on account of how screwed Europe is. Own gold for sure, but it's important to have a big chunk of cash on hand as well.