-- Published: Wednesday, 20 August 2014 | Print | Disqus
By Peter Cooper
Arguably London’s most accurate gold forecaster for the past 15 years, Sharps Pixley CEO Ross Norman is warning of single digit gains only for the yellow metal this year, though he has not lost his sights on ‘very much higher prices’ in 2015-16.
His gold forecast last year suggested that 2014 would be a ‘goldilocks’ year – not too hot and not too cold – with rally fade to both the upside and downside as the market reverted to the mean – so far that view appears to have held true.
Speaking from his office in Berkeley Street he told ArabianMoney that gold and silver prices will only really shine again when there is again a perceived serious inflation threat and he just can’t see one on the immediate horizon.
Stock market crash?
Indeed what may loom this autumn is a stock market correction or crash that would likely also be bad for gold and silver prices initially as a deflationary force in commodity markets. Gold and silver would then bounce back quickly as they did in 2008 as the Fed responded to this crisis.
In fact it could well be this response that provides the ‘inflation trigger’ for higher gold and silver prices that Mr. Norman expects in 2015-6. He is a long term player and so is his 236-year old firm now owned by Degussa who are said to be the largest sellers of physical gold into the retail sector in Europe.
Mr. Norman is charged to expand the company from its modest current offices into a boutique showroom in London to encourage the trading of precious metals. Sharps Pixley clearly wants to be highly visible when the real business opportunity comes and Mr. Norman is setting up the stall.
If he is right then 2014 will be a positive year for bullion investors but fall shy of the hopes of a major price breakout. That is probably still to come as the money printers return with a vengeance after a major correction, or perhaps more optimistically when a recovering US economy comes up against capacity restraints and consumer price inflation takes a hike.
ArabianMoney has always been skeptical about the reality of the US recovery with the doubling of Americans on food stamps reminding us of the Great Depression.
What recovery?
It’s also been the weakest recovery on record and with the rest of the world slowing down we wonder where the impetus for further progress will come from now with the QE money printing program due to end in October.
The US stock market looks ripe for a correction with valuations stretched to breaking point thanks to QE and the low interest rate regime that is close to ending. That would definitely also can any economic recovery.
Autumn is the usual time for stock market crashes and corrections and the leaves on the trees are beginning to turn, so Mr. Norman could well have delivered another accurate forecast.
http://www.arabianmoney.net/
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-- Published: Wednesday, 20 August 2014 | E-Mail | Print | Source: GoldSeek.com
