Last week I was honored and humbled to be included in American Bullion's list of "11 powerful people and their insights on gold." Among the investment giants and thought leaders who also appear on the list are publishing executive Steve Forbes, Mad Money's Jim Cramer, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Good company, indeed.
All of my fellow gold investors offer scintillating insight into gold investing, much of which I've often shared myself—most notably Greenspan's comment that "gold has special properties that no other currency, with the possible exception of silver, can claim."
Gold's value, after all, is not dependent on the credit guarantee of any world government and is universally accepted as a form of payment. If this were not the case, why else would global central banks bother to hold the precious metal? Why else would we be seeing them repatriating their gold reserves from foreign institutions?
Or consider hedge fund manager Kyle Bass's keen observation that unlike paper money, "they can't print any more [gold]. They can mine some more, but they can't print it at the rate central banks are printing."
Whereas there's only a finite amount of the yellow metal available to be exhumed from the earth, global central banks are printing money at a furious rate as if it were imaginary Monopoly paper.
In my book The Goldwatcher: Demystifying Gold Investing—which American Bullion quotes from—I write that "bullion is for value investors and mining stocks are for growth investors." At U.S. Global Investors, we're growth investors.
But I've always advocated that you should own 10 percent gold in your portfolio: 5 percent in bullion or gold jewelry and 5 percent in mining stocks, then rebalance every year.
Although depressed gold prices have put a squeeze on miners lately, there are still quality, well-managed companies out there expanding their profit margins and paying dividends. Many of them we own in our Gold and Precious Metals Fund (USERX) and World Precious Minerals Fund (UNWPX), including Klondex Mines, Royal Gold, Goldcorp and Franco-Nevada.
On another note, check out the replay of the online video event hosted by Casey Research, Going Vertical: Deep-Value Stocks to Own in a Rising Gold Market. I was joined by seven other top players in the precious metals market, including Chairman Doug Casey, Franco-Nevada chairman Pierre Lassonde, Pretium Resources president Bob Quartermain and Casey Research's chief metals and mining strategist Louis James.
Also, stay current with the latest news and trends in the world of gold by watching my weekly web program, Gold Game Film, hosted by Kitco's Daniela Cambone. This Monday we discussed the main drivers of the metal right now, including the strong U.S. jobs data and the start of the Indian wedding season, which begins in mid-April.
Frank Holmes
U.S. Global Investors
