San Francisco Hard Asset Show
FutureMoneyTrends.com recently attended the Hard Asset Show in Northern California, needless to say, we were in opportunity heaven. Being very bullish long term in the resource sector, we were happy to be able to talk with literally hundreds of companies, including ones we have had the chance to profile in the past.
For us, the most important thing we took away from the Hard Asset show is just how far we are from a gold bubble. We have been to home shows, alternative energy shows, gun shows, and one of our staff members has even been to a reptile show, all of which were much more crowded. In fact, according to the Hard Asset Show press release, only 3,200 people attended which includes the mining companies themselves. Each booth had at least 2 people, some of them 3 or 4. In total, the conference had 232 booths. One thing you will notice in our video is that many of the companies weren’t speaking with anyone, the aisles were light, not much traffic in our opinion. This of course is all VERY BULLISH, because in order to have a bubble, you have to have public participation. Currently, the only participation the public has in the gold sector is selling it to some guy on the corner for 10 cents on the dollar, or worse just blindly mailing it in and waiting for a check.
FutureMoneyTrends.com believes that in the second half of 2012, investors will start to move into the resource sector as the currency war of devaluation gets even worse. We predict that next year’s Hard Asset Show will have at least 6,400 people attending, and by 2015’s show, it could see closer to 20,000 to 30,000 people.
Though we are HUGE advocates of holding the physical metals, right now the juniors are without a doubt the cheapest way to own gold and silver. Many of the juniors are still priced at less than they were in July of 2008 when gold was less than $1,000 per ounce and silver less than $20 an ounce.
Greece
Reported from Athens on Spiegel Online, many Greeks are draining their savings accounts. They are out of work and afraid of what is to come if they get forced out of the Euro Zone, many Greeks have chosen to hold cash rather than keep money in the bank. Savings accounts in Greece are down almost 30% since the start of the crisis in early 2010. Currently, Greece has an 18% unemployment rate and is suffering from an aging entitlement society that has simply voted themselves too many gifts. The bankers have literally created a class of indentured servants to the banks, however, rather than break free from these chains, the politicians have created an atmosphere of fear that if they default on the banks, it will be the end of the world. In our opinion, default at this point would be the best thing for Greece. Sure they would go through a few years of hard times and change, but keeping the current system in place has only made them debt slaves.
Silver 2008 Vs. Silver 2012
As we have noted before, the Euro is finished, it is only a matter of time before this whole thing blows up. Once Greece leaves, we expect bank runs throughout the Euro Zone as citizens pull cash out in order to protect themselves from whatever new national currency they end up with. 2012 is shaping up to be a very exciting year for precious metal investors, especially if we see a small pull back. As investors rush into the physical metal, we could very well see some type of silver shortage or at the very least major delays on delivery if silver was to fall back down to the $25 mark. We are not saying that it is, but if silver was to pull back, all hell could break loose in the physical market.
If silver during the Euro crisis has the same initial reaction as it did in 2008, with a sharp decline, we believe that due to the nature of the crisis, 2012 being a currency crisis vs. 2008 being a liquidity crunch, the demand for physical silver would be overwhelming on a global scale. FutureMoneyTrends.com’s ultimate low for silver is $22.50, this being roughly the same percentage pull back from the 2011 high that we saw in the 2008 crash. Only this time, we believe it would be a flash crash, short lived, sending silver north of $50 in the matter of weeks. If a fiat currency crisis starts, Europe, Asia, and even Americans will start to purchase precious metals in order to protect themselves from currency devaluation.
