BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT
Date May 23, 2006
Time 06:00 AM - 07:00 AM
Station WBBR-AM
Location New York City
Program Morning Drive
LANE BAJARDI, co-host:
Taking a look at gold this morning, it's moving higher,
turning around after earlier extending a five-day decline
on speculation of five-year rally on the metal was ending.
Gold reached its 26-year high on May 12th. It has gained
27 percent this year, checking in at $660.50 an ounce on
the COMEX this morning, up $4.45 or seven-tenths percent.
GoldMoney.com Chairman James Turk sees gold going higher
from here. He joins us live on the Bloomberg business
hotline to talk about it.
Good morning, James. Thanks for joining us.
Mr. JAMES TURK (Chairman, GoldMoney.com): Good morning,
Lane.
BAJARDI: Good to talk to you once again. Where do you see
gold going here?
Mr. TURK: I'm still looking for $850 this year as a
target on the upside. I think that's a reasonable level.
$850 being the all-time record high that we had back in
January 1980.
BAJARDI: And when we take a look at that, though, adjusted
for inflation, that'd be well over $2,000 by today's
dollars.
Mr. TURK: Yeah, exactly right. It's $2,200, which is part
of my point that gold is still relatively good value. If
you look at commodities, everything is at or near record
highs except gold and silver.
BAJARDI: We have seen a bit of a pullback here, though.
What do you make of that, as you look at the market here?
Mr. TURK: Well, my guess is that it's just a correction in
an ongoing bull market and probably a buying opportunity.
We had good support in the 640s yesterday, and we bounced
back out of there very sharply. The same thing with
silver, around $12. It's too early to say that the
correction is over, but you know, I favor long-term
accumulation. Whenever you get dips, buy it, or every
month-in, month-out, just continue to accumulate both gold
and silver, because they're still a good value.
BAJARDI: Are there people speculating in here, though, as
we've seen in other commodities markets over the last
couple of years here?
Mr. TURK: Not really, you know, COMEX open interest is
still way below the levels of when gold was $150 lower last
year. So we haven't, you know, oddly seen the speculative
interest yet in the precious metals. I think that's going
to come later, later in the year.
BAJARDI: So what's driving the price right now?
Mr. TURK: Well, it's basically people exiting the dollar.
I've just come back from two trips, one in the Middle East
and one in Asia, and, you know, I was surprised how strong
the negative sentiment is against the US dollar. You know,
people are looking for opportunities to exit the dollar
into something safer. Commodities are benefiting as the
general rule, and I think gold and silver have moved up, in
part, because people are exiting the dollar.
BAJARDI: Let's talk about silver, as well, because we've
discussed this in the past, and people may not be noticing
the move on silver, as they focus on gold and other
commodities here. What's happening in that market?
Mr. TURK: Yeah, only recently when we went over $10, did
people start looking at silver. It's been off of
everyone's radar screen, but on a relative basis, silver is
even better value than gold. Normally in bull markets the
ratio falls, and in other words, it takes fewer ounces of
silver to buy an ounce of gold. I think that trend is
going to continue.
BAJARDI: And the correlation traditionally between the
gold and the silver price has been and where does it stand
now?
Mr. TURK: Well, right now, they're trading at about 54.
In other words, it takes 54 ounces of silver to buy an
ounce of gold. Earlier in the year, it was up around 60,
when, you know, silver was an exceptionally good bargain.
It's probably going to head down into the 40s. We touched
43, you know, when gold and silver peaked a couple weeks
ago, and we're probably going to head back down to that
level.
BAJARDI: Where do you see gold headed over the next, say,
five years? What kind of a price beat do you see here?
Mr. TURK: We're going into four digits, there's no doubt
about it. And it's a same repeat as what we saw in the
1970s. It's basically problems with the dollar, growing
inflationary issues, you know, and concern about people
around the world wanting to hold dollars instead of--
BAJARDI: But you don't see the kind of inflation,
double-digit inflation that we saw back in '70s, '80s
time frame?
Mr. TURK: Well, remember, back in the 19--early '70s, we
started with 3 or 4 percent inflation. It took five, six
years before we got up to double digit. I won't rule out
double-digit inflation again in five or six year's time.
BAJARDI: James Turk, thanks for your insight this morning.
We'll talk to you again. GoldMoney.com Chairman James
Turk.
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