Trish Regan:
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Well, the World Gold Council has just released its Global Demand Trends report. Whats ahead for this hot commodity in 2011? | |
Bob Pisani joins us right now from the NYSE with one of the heads of the World Gold Council. Bob. | ||
Bob Pisani:
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One of the sort of intellectual godfathers behind the gold ETF I know hes modest about that George Milling-Stanleys the head of Government Affairs. You got the new report out. Heres what I find interesting: gold demand hit a ten-year high last year, but I see golds down about three percent so far this year. What are we expecting in terms of gold prices in 2011? | |
George
Milling-Stanley:
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Im not going to make a forecast for the gold price you know that Im legally prevented from doing that but Im hearing lots, and lots of optimistic numbers for 2011. I see no reason to doubt those. The markets doing very, very well. Demand is still pretty strong, were seeing no major shocks on the supply side that would hurt the market. | |
Bob Pisani:
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You know one thing I found interesting is, where demand was in 2010, 50 percent of all the jewelry in the world now goes to India and China. I thought that was a rather remarkable statistic. Is demand still increasing there? Do we expect that number to go even higher? | |
George
Milling-Stanley:
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Oh, absolutely. I think that weve seen a huge recovery in India over the last year; that was one of the major features of 2010. Chinas economys still going very well, people are buying gold hand-over-fist there. | |
Bob Pisani:
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Before I turn it over to Trish, Central Banks net buyers, first time in 21 years, theyve always been sellers. Why did they turn into buyers? | |
George
Milling-Stanley:
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I think the point is that the central banks that wanted to sell have done their selling, those are the ones in Europe who have large gold holdings. Then the central banks in Asia that have very, very small gold holdings have been increasing their purchases, and thats really the big change that weve seen the big change on the supply side, the removal of one entire term of supply. |
Bob Pisani:
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So mines and recyclers are the only source of supply now. Trish, get in on this. | |
Trish Regan:
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Yeah, George, I just want to ask you. I mean, a lot of people are saying that they believe gold now is a bubble. How much of this demand is really coming from fundamentals? How much is coming from speculators? | |
George
Milling-Stanley:
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Oh, I think that most of it is still coming from fundamentals. The speculators are always the froth thats on top; when the froth goes away, then you tend to get relatively bland prices. At the moment were a little bit more volatile, we were attracting more speculators, that creates more volatility. This, to my mind, is genuine fundamental demand into the developing world into China and into India. Were seeing an increase in technological demand, and were seeing that investment demand is still remaining pretty steady: investment rather than speculation. | |
This is a fairly soundly-based market; the price has been going up for ten years, I see no reason for that to change. | ||
Bob Pisani:
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I mean, George, investment rather than speculation, lets stay with that. Central banks are investing. Private individuals and institutions are investing. Is the gold rise the reciprocal of the dollar decline? | |
George
Milling-Stanley:
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That is one of the major factors. I think that theres no question about that, but we have seen even in the ten years of the bull market in gold weve seen years when the dollar went up, and gold continued to go up. So its not the only factor. | |
Bob Pisani:
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But not on balance, George. On balance for the last ten years the dollars nose-dived while weve had one of the great gold rallies in history. | |
George
Milling-Stanley:
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Yeah, absolutely. I think it has been a primary cause, but I dont think its the only cause. I think that theres been peoples worries about inflation have been very important. I think that the healthy supply-demand fundamentals the balance between supply and demand has also been very important, too. | |
Trish Regan:
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George, let me ask you about the flip side of the gold coin. When you see the commercials on cable all through the night that say, Sell your gold for dollars now. Do you worry about the mom and pop investor getting in at the end, and this bubble bursting and getting hurt in the gold market? | |
George
Milling-Stanley:
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No, I dont worry about them getting in. | |
Trish Regan:
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Why not? |
George
Milling-Stanley:
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...at the end, and I dont worry about the bubble bursting, because a) its not the end, and b) its not a bubble. If you look at the course of gold price in the 1970s, that was a bubble. We went up 16 fold in about 5 years. We have gone up five-fold in the price in a decade; it has been, by comparison, measured and moderate. Its nothing like what happened to the Nikkei. Its nothing like what happened to housing prices. And nothing like what happened in the gold market in the 70s. | |
Bob Pisani:
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George, before we let you go here, go ahead, Trish, you got a quick question? | |
Trish Regan:
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No, no, I just have one quick one. Bob, we were joking a little bit during the commercial, but its not something you really want to joke about, when you see gold going up, dollar going down, should there be a return to the gold standards, Bretton Woods 2.0? | |
George
Milling-Stanley:
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I think that is relatively unlikely. Its against the rules of the IMF right now, and changing the articles of association of the IMF is a very, very long process. Im not saying it would be a bad thing, but I dont think its going to happen. | |
Bob Pisani:
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Before I let you go, put up that screen that says The world biggest holders of gold, because you look at number six on there, it is the GLD the ETF for gold is the largest gold the ETF. You were one of the intellectual godfathers of that. I know youre modest about it. | |
Do you see$55 billion. Look at that number six, more gold in that GLD than there is in the vaults of Switzerland, in the vaults of China right now$55 billion. Do you see that increasing again? | ||
George
Milling-Stanley:
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I think theres no question about that, well see it fluctuate from time-to-time, but weve seen terrific growth in the five-six years that weve in the market. Im expecting that growth to continue. Theres no question, people have embraced gold ETFs, and that is fantastic news for the gold market. Its a whole new term on the supply side. | |
Bob Pisani:
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It certainly increased the interest of our viewers in gold. George Milling-Stanley, thanks very much. Guys, back to you. | |
Larry Kudlow:
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All right, thank you very, very much, Bretton Woods 2.0. | |
Trish Regan:
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If you have the gold room, if its still there are the Mount. | |
Larry Kudlow:
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When we come back, Walt Disney execs are meeting with investors. The companys up about. |