Let's say this. When the dollar starts to strengthen and gold begins to drop and you hang on to your gold anyway, then your gold trade has become an investment.
A few years ago the Indian government made a large purchase of gold bullion from the Russians. I bet there they are quite satisfied with their purchasing decision. Gold has been an asset class for humanity for thousands of years and will continue to be. Gold at $2000.00USD is only 25% away which is attainable byb year end. Macro economic factors such as food inflation and sentiment of the global slow down only fuel demand. I am acctually not a a gold bug. Akuma' P.S. Elephant Ivory is also an asset class http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory
Just go to the super market or any other type of store and see what's happening to prices. Check out the price at the pump too. Gold is going higher. Who knows if it's going to 2000 but it's going higher. Yeah! I'm long gold
I figure any true long term strengthening of the dollar is a physical impossibility at this point, with the understanding that by "strengthening" I mean that prices of real stuff come down, not strengthening compared to other currencies. (The dollar, euro, and yen are all being debased at record speed so when one of these strengthens relative to the other it is meaningless.) Neither party has the willingness to cut the deficit to below $1 trillion (never mind actually cut it to 0) so "default by inflation" is now inevitable. But, if a miracle occurs, and the deficit is somehow brought under control, I will sell my gold. There will be short term ups and downs in the gold price, but this is not an asset where I do short term trading. After gold first hit $1000 it then plunged to $700. Traders would have stopped out. I held on, and now it's above $1400. So the usual up and down gyrations aren't going to shake me out of my position, I will have to see a change in the fundamentals before I sell. That won't happen unless 220 Ron Pauls are elected to the House and 51 Rand Pauls are elected to the Senate.
Commentators like Jim rogers and Marc Faber are great, but their timing is sometimes a bit off. Their ideas are excellent though- very simple and often accurate. Pure academics like roubini are useless- they sometimes get lucky, but they are so far removed from the reality of the markets they are best ignored in my opinion. They always try to impose their ideas of what they think should be happening rather than focusing on what is actually happening.
Gold is a bubble, like real estate and the technology bubble before it. If the currency is being debased, why aren't housing prices or wages going up?