Whatever Happened To Gold Being An Inflation Hedge?

When you look at the chart you would think there hadn’t been a period of runaway inflation. Having just come back from New York my eyeballs still hurt from them bugging out at prices. You can’t say the same about gold.

Here is the chart:

So I’ve thrown out my childhood 101 investing book that says buy gold in years of inflation but I admit I dollar cost average the barbaric asset because I love it. Who doesn’t love gold? It’s just lovely and that is why many of its fans simply can’t stop saying It’s going to replace paper money and soon. Sadly it isn’t and never will. Paper money may go extinct but only because it will go fully digital at some point, not because they are going to be hammering out silver and gold coins.

Sorry fellas.

However, there is simply no reason gold cannot go nuts, in fact it is kind of prone to that and silver more so. So unless you want to dollar cost average into gold is there a flag to dive in?

I think there is and it’s simple.

Here is the chart for that:

Yes, it is that simple. If gold breaks its previous high and continues to run for a week or two, then that is the time to jump on board. I’m not suggesting it’s the time to buy as soon as gold breaks out, but it will be an extremely high probability trade to go long once gold has proved it will sustain higher levels for some time, perhaps a week or two. Of course, it could breakout because something terrible happened and the moment to enter could be lost but it is most likely to break through because all that pesky inflation is finally dribbling into the price. Inflation gets into the economic system in a chaotic way, it doesn’t raise all prices at the same time and the same rate but given long enough it does filter in and adjust all prices accordingly.

The reason to go long at this point but not necessarily to be in a hurry is this:

As the chart says: markets tend to be random and natural randomness tends to be fractal. This means the market charts often show the sort of self-similarity and self-affinity I’m predicting on a gold breakout.

This is what I feel will happen to gold, which is why I am dollar cost averaging and using gold as part of a diversified portfolio. Most people, however, don’t operate in such a dull way and when I look at the chart it stands out for me that those who want to watch and wait should keep an eye on gold and look out for that breakout if and when it comes. I like to load up on such ideas, lolling about waiting for them to trigger.

For many the thought of waiting four or so years to make 40% is not exciting, but the prospect of that for a stodgy asset in a diverse portfolio is fine by me. Then again, if gold is remonetized just before hell freezes over, then whoop-de-do.

An investor should always have a little gold or silver and I like the strangely dormant platinum too. I really should buy more platinum but in these fragile times it’s better to be late than sorry.