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India’s Gold Demand: A Panic for Gold?
It’s hard to over-egg the importance of Indian jewelry demand in the physical gold market.
Between 2000 and 2007, gold jewelry sold in India accounted for one ounce-in-nine sold worldwide. One ounce in every five wound up as an Indian import (its domestic mines produce less than six tons per year), ready to be hung off young brides as 24-carat dowries or worked into bracelets and necklaces for the international market.
The single-largest gold bullion consumer, India’s own final demand outweighed the next largest market — China — by almost 57%.
But Chinese gold buyers have now caught up in 2008. Or so…
4Aug2008 | Whiskey and Gunpowder | Comments Off | ContinuedInvesting in China: Wrestling this Growing Behemoth
Unless you’ve been asleep for the past 10 years, you know that the hot investment ideas all come from China these days. It makes sense. With 1/5th of the world’s population, and a stronger desire to gain “developed country†status than any other country in the world, China has presented everyone with strong growth opportunities.
Unfortunately, most investors just don’t get it. They’ve been buying up stocks just because they say “China” in their names. It’s just like 1999, when people bought stocks just because they ended with “dot-com.” And we all know how that turned out.
I’ve been laying it all…
9Jun2008 | The Penny Sleuth | Comments Off | ContinuedRising Tide of Level 3 Assets a “Disaster Waiting to Happenâ€
In the first quarter, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) packed another $27 billion worth of illiquid assets onto its balance sheet – a 39% increase that brought the total to $96 billion.
And Goldman wasn’t alone. Morgan Stanley (MS) reported that these hard-to-value/hard-to-sell assets soared 45%, reaching $32 billion. For Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEH), the first-quarter increase was $500 million, bringing its total to $42.5 billion.
The balance-sheet holdings in question are known as “Level 3″ assets. And with the smoke from the subprime-mortgage crisis still hanging over Wall Street like the fallout from a nuclear missile strike, some industry observers…
21Apr2008 | Money Morning | Comments Off | Continued
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