China sells gold:
Quite a surprising move, I presume this is just a profit-taking tactical trade rather than a change in strategy.
Saw that. Itâs not collapsed (yet), just a little off the top.
Perhaps they have more than enough?
You can never have enough gold 
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I prefer diamonds though.
Diamonds are an appalling investment, I upgraded one of the diamonds on my wifeâs engagement ring 6 years ago, I paid an additional ÂŁ5750 for the diamond, I upgraded it again last year & the best offer was ÂŁ1200 for the old diamond, although they would have paid twice that last year but lab grown diamonds are what people want today, for a fraction of the price for a better colour almost flawless diamond.
Unlike gold or stocks, there is no proper secondary market for diamonds.
Diamonds (and by extension : any jewelry) is as big a scam as it gets.
Thatâs why we bought the diamond separately.
I still prefer my friends.
Gold is so expensive, investors are turning to silver and platinum as they search for alternative financial safe havens:
Investors are pouring into silver and platinum as they seek âgold alternativesâ and hedges against the US dollar, sending prices for both metals soaring.
With the US dollarâs status as a safe haven for global capital under threat, gold has enjoyed a historic rally, surging 25 per cent since the beginning of the year as investors use it as a hedge against uncertainty.
However, amid concerns that gold may now be overvalued, other precious metals such as silver and platinum are starting to catch up. Silver prices have surged to a 13-year high, and platinum prices are at their highest levels in four years, with both metals up more than 10 per cent this month.
How does one measure whether gold is overvalued?
Since Gold has no income stream, its intrinsic value is close to, if not ZERO, therefore itâs valued on the greater fool theory
In finance, the greater fool theory suggests that one can sometimes make money through speculation on overvalued assets â items with a purchase price drastically exceeding the intrinsic value â if those assets can later be resold at an even higher price.
In this context, one âlesser foolâ might pay for an overpriced asset, hoping that they can sell it to an even âgreater foolâ and make a profit. This only works as long as there are enough new âgreater foolsâ willing to pay higher and higher prices for the asset. Eventually, investors can no longer deny that the price is out of touch with reality, at which point a sell-off can cause the price to drop significantly until it is closer to its fair value, which in some cases could be zero.[1][2][3][4] The last âfoolsâ to purchase in on the product in question are then left holding the bag, allowing earlier, lesser fools to make off with the profit.
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Silver is horrible for storing larger amounts of âvalueâ.
I have to disagree here. How can you argue that perhaps the one thing that is associated with wealth and money throughout human history has zero intrinsic value?!
Gold has been used to make jewellery for ages and this is likely to continue. More importantly, it is increasingly important in electronics and this consumes gold in a way that jewellery doesnât.
And when an audio cable manufacturer can charge a 200% premium by adding a bit of gold plating on the connectors, you bet it has value to them.
How do we determine the value? Well, maybe a place to start is how much it costs to get gold. This varies across mines, but for the sake of argument, letâs call it $1â500 for all in sustained cost, this sets a long term floor (arguably, due to the high stock to flow ratio, the production cost has limited relevance to the market price).
If we imagine all other uses except for electronics and technology disappear and mining is scaled back to meet just this demand. It think we get to an absolute floor price of around $600.
As a speculative asset, I think silver and platinum have more potential to run up in the next few years.
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However there is more supply of Gold above ground than will be used in the next 100 years, so hardly an argument of supply & demand.
True for jewellery and electronics.
Though maybe you can argue the greatest use for gold is as a financial asset for central banks and other investors.
The real world physical production and consumption is very small as a proportion of above ground stocks, but is perhaps useful to keep the game honest (as compared to bitcoin which is perhaps as close to an ideal speculative asset as you can get).
If central banks of countries like China and Russia need to diversify away from dollar holdings, they donât have many options.
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Sounds like you could also be describing cryptocurrencies.
Yes. Its marginal technical use aside, gold is in principle comparable to crypto. Or tulips. It does have a few thousand years of record though.
Thanks to Israelâs attack on Iran, gold hits $3,423.30 an ounce:
