Van mijn favoriete blog geplukt.
De schrijver breekt een lans voor fysiek goud (en niet alle andere, papieren varianten van goudbeleggingen, zoals ETF's en vergelijkbaar) op een wat andere manier dan gebruikelijk is.
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I was reading through some archives @ FOFOA and came across this link. Fascinating stuff. Made me think of the silver derivatives JPM sells as an inflation hedge. Originally posted in 2002 by "Aristotle" on USAGold forum. (Sorry for the length but worth the read.)
Aristotle (10/17/02; 02:29:28MT - usagold.com msg#: 87615)
Stepping through the looking glass...
...I'm a proponent of many real things (Gold, sandwiches and patio furniture to name a few) and I heartily endorse entrepreneurial efforts and any other eyes-wide-open stock or bond investments. My lasting frustration, however, is with the widespread failure of the many promoters and participants in the wide Gold market to reach FULL DISCLOSURE on what's actually "good as Gold" (uhhhh... that would be GOLD, sir, and NOTHING else) and what's merely "Goldish... sorta... and only during good times."
But hey, let's drive my point home to bed. I've got no problem if Standard Bank wants to offer, and you or anyone else wants to invest in, a £10,000 financial product that pays 2% per annum with a 10% kicker if the price of tea in Shanghai (or pint of ale in London) goes up by 27%. I see nothing terribly objectionable with that.
= = = = Moving right along to the main point = = = =
Let's step through the looking glass now, shall we?
Hold on to your hats and maybe take a Valium or two. If you're willing to follow along this is gonna be a helluva thing.....
You know..... it occurs to me, seeing how EASILY some Gold-minded investors may be drawn in by leverage and by less than the Real Thing, I, too, stand ready to accept £10,000 ($15,500) investments for over-the-counter 12-month maturity structured financial products offering a Goldish hue. Let's call them Ari-Instruments.
On those Ari-Instruments I'll pay 2% per annum for use of the money, and throwing caution to the wind (but mostly to make my point) just like Standard Bank I'll promise a (maximum measly) 10% interest payment kicker to the bearer upon the event of Gold's price increasing by at least 27% to $400.
Primarily to ensure the ever skeptical R Powell that everything is right in the world, I imagine I'll hedge my cash exposure to that price-rise event in the following manner: For every FIVE Ari-Instruments I've sold (for which I'll have received $77,500) I'll take up a SINGLE long position through the COMEX Gold futures market.
Are you following me so far? That means I'll deposit $1,350 in margin and if Gold's price increases by $85 during the year I'll cash it out for the leveraged payoff at 100-to-1 ($8,500) from which I can easily pay off the 10 percent interest "Gold-price kicker" on the five Ari-Instruments -- that is, $1,550 each totaling just $7,750 for all five.
In the meanwhile, God only knows what StanBank [Standard Bank] in my place would do with the balance of the $77,500 (minus the $1,350 margin deposit) received for the five Ari-Instruments for the course of the year, but they sure wouldn't have to do anything else with it even remotely connected with Gold.
But this is what "I'd" do with the cash.
Come follow along. It might prove to be an eye-opener on the nature of the world, especially for folks like Kasperjack who've said I'm full of hot air without any relevance to the real world.
Following that single long, I'd take out TWO additional gold futures positions through COMEX, but unlike the first one, these would both be SHORT. The margin would be $2,700. Then, I'd use about $65,000 of the remaining cash to buy 200 ounces of Gold for delivery to my doorstep.
Are you still with me? As more and more chumps (I mean investors) sign up for my Ari-Instruments and flood me with their cash, I'll always be taking TWO SHORT positions on COMEX for every ONE LONG (plus 200 ounces of Gold delivered to my door) all financed with their money. I assure you, all of my sharpest friends will join in this routine, and thus the price discovery mechanism provided by COMEX will be more inclined to fall than to rise.
As this continues for year after year, I never have to pay the 10% kicker to my investors, needing instead only to pay the paltry 2% which is peanuts when drawn from the broader spectrum of my other banking, finance, and derivative operations. Or how about this? I'll make interest payements with the leftover Ari-Instrument cash that didn't get used for purchases of the fixed ratio of three contract margins (one long, two short) and the 200 ounces of Gold per each five Ari-Instruments which were sold to these poor chumps.
Now get this... here's a beautiful thing. With the downward price pressure, as my long futures contracts suffer losses, it's easy to close them out painlessly using (only) half of my outstanding short contracts as offsets!
Furthermore, as opportunities in the falling market might allow, some of the remaining short positions can be further liquidated (cashed out) through COMEX as a form of compensation -- thus effectively ensuring that the net out-of-pocket expense for the physical Gold I bought and held is always cheaper than the market rate I paid at the time of the order. Think hard on that one and join me in a well-earned smile!
And you wanna know what the REALLY beautiful thing is? For this I want everyone to wake up who's been for years predicating their own leveraged paper Gold longs on predictions about **eventually** there being a massive squeeze on the shorts like me. It ain't gonna happen dudes! If you've been carefully keeping score, you'd see that through this process I've got a physical position that is ounce-for-ounce at least double my net short position.
IF (and that's a big if) there's an unlikely event in which me and my bullion banking buddies can't contain the COMEX price with our two-for-one selling, then we simply announce delivery intentions for a token amount -- that's just a *TOKEN AMOUNT* mind you -- of our physical Gold through the exchange to stand against our short positions.
Wanna know what happens next?
You guessed it! We just sit back laughing at the poor stoppers as these same over-leveraged longs fall all over themselves in their scramble to resell it -- right back to us!! Here's the thing... the thing being that their contracts represented more Gold than they ever had any rightful business or financial ability trying to "control" (and I'm NOT sorry if I'm so bold as to use the one key word always present in the honey-dripping sales pitches of their own commodities brokers.)
These poor clowns are knocked off their feet by their own successful leverage. As we say, the victory was theirs, but their hands were too small to hold it. Quickly they find it's one thing to pay a $1,350 margin to hold a "right" to buy 100 ounces, and it's quite another thing to pony up the full purchase price ($32,000+) for each contract when the chips are down and the grown men at the table aren't blinking. So you see, as fast as they're selling what they can't afford, we're one step behind them with very strong hands. Once again our token bit of Gold brought about the desired turnaround and business continues as before. Again, if you wish to a Gold accumulator at the best prices, think about this process and join me in a well-earned smile.
The Moonshot, the Worst-Case Scenario for my crew would be in the end game where the currency world comes undone and the flood of hyperinflated dollar spending washes over everything with sprees of buying anything and everything tangible in the flight from dollars.
In that case business as usual ceases to be, and conceivably we'd need to deliver up to nearly HALF of our physical Gold holdings to protect ourselves from nominal (bookkeeping) cash losses through the Exchange on our remaining open positions of short contracts.
The prospect of that being very traumatic to us is much diminished, however, given the nature of the product. In times of volatility there are trading/price limits that kick in, and the COMEX Gold exchange stands better than a good chance of its contracts being locked in "fantasy land pricing" while the prices on the physical market run away in round-the-world Gold rush trading. At least a few frustrated COMEX longs will be looking to liquidate the paper junk ASAP and take their cash where the Real action is.
Whether the exchange in Gold derivatives survives or not, the upside is we keep at least half the Gold to ourselves -- my partners and me -- all of which was purchased for ourselves with other people's money through the Goldish-colored Ari-Instruments. The final small bite for me out of the worst-case-scenario is that we (my crew) would have to sell a wee bit of these Gold holdings on the soaring physical market if, in fact, our previously mentioned long contracts fail to pay out via the Exchange (due to COMEX lockdown) in order for us to cover our measly 10% interest rate kicker due to the $400-Gold-price knock-in as promised in the original terms of the Ari-Instruments. And yes, perhaps we've gotta liquidate just a little more of our remaining Gold at these glorious moonshot prices -- on an as needed basis -- as frustrated owners of the Ari-Instruments reach their 12-month cycle maturity and want to cash out their original [paper] principle (£10,000 or $15,500) on these Goldish yet quite impotent paper posers that we designed for them.
Are you a physical Gold Advocate through and through? Then smile with me a well-earned knowing smile as you continue to buy your physical Gold at prices that others have worked so carefully for so long to bring so low for massive acquisition before the Free Gold moonshot.
If, having joined me in my office for the day, you still insist there is metallic virility in Goldish paper investments, then Heaven help you because my crew, my partners and me, we'll take you up on it. We'll work you up and roll you over, maybe make you wiser but none the richer. So please... feel free to pull up a chair and have a cigar, your head filled with promises even as we rape you.
"Golly, Ari, you've changed!"
No, I don't feel that I have. I'm still trying to help you, to wake you up. (It's the falling piano thing -- "Get the hell outta the way!") That, plus I don't want you to be a welfare case while I'm trying to live large after the dollar goes Bolivian. (The quickest road to revolution and communism is a penniless population. I WANT you to have Gold so you won't take mine. There, see? Turns out I'm not so noble after all. I'm just as selfish as the next guy.)
I just figured where attempts at friendship and various flower-filled analogies have continued to FAIL to impress upon some of you the stakes of the game, I thought perhaps a little swim, up close and personal-like, with the sharks might convince you that the blood in the water will be your own unless you heed my words.
It's just tough love, my friend, tough love. And self interest.
Here endeth the "insider view," thus endeth the lesson.
Real Gold. Right now. (What time do you think you have???) Get you some. --- Aristotle