Gold Prices to Keep Climbing

In trading gold investors need to retain a sense of history. Gold was pegged at $32 an ounce from the end of WWII until 1971 when the US went off the gold standard. It rose to over $600 an ounce in 1980 until falling precipitously to the $200 range where it remained for twenty years. The current price of gold is based in part on fundamentals and weakened economies and in part on fear of a global financial meltdown. If a trader gets caught in a highly leveraged futures position just as EU and US officials solve their debt dilemmas trading gold could be the least profitable trade of a lifetime. In short, watch technical analysis and hedge risk with options is often the best advice. Trading gold on the Comex has entered a new era as gold futures rose over $1,600 an ounce recently. As twin debt crises plague the two largest economies in the world investors are looking for safe havens as a means of hedging investment risk. Trading gold has always been a means of hedge inflation risk and a refuge in times of political crisis, economic chaos, and war. Gold bullion futures are traded on the Comex, one of two branches of the New York Mercantile Exchange, NYMEX. Billions of dollars of precious metals, agricultural commodities, and energy products are handled by the NYMEX.