No i dont think it should be ignored. Right now the spread is RM 7.43 for PB while UOB is still maintaining at RM2. UOB's spread is fixed regardless of the gold price (for now) while Public Bank & Maybank's spread increases according to the price of gold.

So in say 1 year's time when gold is about RM 230 (hopefully), PB's spread would be RM9.20 and UOB still at RM2. If you buy 200g, your losses for the spread for PB would be RM1,840 while for UOB it will only be RM400.

Maybe you dont mind giving an extra RM 1,440 to Public Bank, but i mind.

Gold at US$1,823. RM 182.78 on Maybank now.

Bank of America is predicting the S&P index will drop approx 20% in the near future. France is also bracing for a credit downgrade on their banks while Greece is increasingly close to defaulting on their loan. I think gold is poised for much higher prices soon.

If ure investing in gold (and if u can afford it) then always buy more. Buying 5-10g is almost not worth it in the long run. If u buy at RM180 and even if u sell at RM 250 6 months later, your profit is only about RM 700 (for 10g). You can probably save this much just by cutting down daily expenses.

I bought about 400g in 2009. Others have bought much more. But again its based on individual affordability.

It was RM131/g.

Bloomberg: Greece’s Risk of Default Jumps to 98%

The contagion impact of a default will be severe, because next in the firing line will be Italy, Spain and it will bring down the whole European banking sector

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Greece has a 98 percent chance of defaulting on its debt in the next five years as Prime Minister George Papandreou fails to reassure investors his country can survive the euro-region crisis.

“Everyone’s pricing in a pretty near-term default and I think it’ll be a hard event,” said Peter Tchir, founder of hedge fund TF Market Advisors in New York. “Clearly this austerity plan is not working.”

It costs a record $5.8 million upfront and $100,000 annually to insure $10 million of Greek debt for five years using credit-default swaps, up from $5.5 million in advance on Sept. 9, according to CMA.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) financial data shows that Greece’s budget gap widened 22 percent in the first eight months of 2011 instead of decreasing despite the bailout. The default probability for Greece is based on a standard pricing model that assumes investors would recover 40 percent of the bonds’ face value were Greece to fail to meet its obligations.

The nation’s government now expects the economy to shrink more than 5 percent this year, more than the 3.8 percent forecast by the European Commission, as austerity measures deepen a three-year recession.

Greek stocks fell yesterday, with the ASE Index tumbling 4.4 percent to 847.48, down more than a third from 1,286 on July 22.

The risk of contagion beyond Greece pushed sovereign credit-default swap prices to record highs across the euro region yesterday. European bank debt risk was also at the highest ever amid speculation that major French banks will be downgraded because of their holdings of Greek bonds.

“The contagion impact of a default will be severe, because next in the firing line will be Italy, Spain and it will take in the whole of the European banking sector too. This trio are already under intense pressure, but it will get much worse.”


(Note: Im quite certain gold will skyrocket if this happens so load up when you can)

This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Sep 13 2011, 04:57 PM

The last time gold dropped below 1800 was on 7 Sept when it went down to 1,799. The lowest in the last 12 hours was 1,805. Are you sure of your data?

Gold currently trading at US$1,808.

This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Sep 13 2011, 05:23 PM

Why would i wanna sell now and then buy at a much higher price??

The general trend of gold is up and if the current doom in Europe and US continues, we would be looking at US$2,000 an ounce before the end of the year.

Its best to leave my 1st investment where it is. Im planning to top up another 280g in UOB when the price drops further.

The USD will not stay high for long. Its in America's best interest to keep their currency low and the Americans are good in doing that. The dollar will drop soon.

Gold now at RM 183.10 (Maybank) and USD$ 1,780. The ringgit is dropping drastically as well. SGD is now at 2.49 while USD is 3.13. As long as the ringgit continues to drop, we wont see low prices in gold.

This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Sep 20 2011, 09:34 AM

Prices in Malaysia will still be high due the strengthening dollar. Right now its trading at 3.17 to the Ringgit. Gold is at US$1,737. Maybank still holding at RM 180.67.


Global Stocks Drop 20% Into Bear Market

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) Stocks fell, pushing the MSCI All- Country World Index of 45 nations into a bear market for the first time in more than two years, after the worsening European debt crisis and threat of a U.S. recession erased more than $10 trillion from equities since May.

The MSCI index, which slipped 0.3 percent as of 1:33 p.m. in Hong Kong today, has lost more than 20 percent since peaking on May 2, meeting the common definition of a bear market. It tumbled 4.5 percent to a 13-month low of 277.38 yesterday. The MSCI World (MXWO) Index of shares in developed nations also fell into a bear market yesterday, plunging 4.2 percent. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index reached the 20 percent threshold on Sept. 13.

The world is poised for a financial crisis, Mohamed El- Erian, chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., said in Washington yesterday. Finance chiefs from the Group of 20 nations pledged late yesterday to address “heightened downside risks” to the global economy, echoing language used by the Federal Reserve on Sept. 21 when it announced a $400 billion plan to spur growth as the recovery from the worst contraction since the Great Depression falters.

“The market is pricing in a recession,” said Ng Soo Nam, the Singapore-based chief investment officer at Nikko Asset Management Co., which oversees about $154 billion. “Stocks are looking cheap, but it will take a lot of courage to believe that. Things could get worse. The risk of a sovereign-debt default in Greece is the most significant concern.”

The MSCI All-Country World Index has retreated 19.8 percent since July 22. It fell after Standard & Poor’s cut the U.S. credit rating following a debate over raising the nation’s borrowing limit, speculation Greece will default intensified, and Chinese inflation accelerated to a three-year high. The slump pushed the price-earnings ratio for the index down to 11.4, the lowest since March 2009 and 46 percent less than the 16-year average, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The 15 national stock gauges with the biggest losses since the MSCI All-Country World peaked on May 2 are for European countries. Greece’s ASE Index has lost 42 percent, Italy’s FTSE MIB Index has plunged 40 percent and Hungary’s Budapest Stock Exchange Index has retreated 38 percent.

“Europe is going to continue to unwind and eventually end up badly for the global economy,” Matt McCormick, a money manager at Cincinnati-based Bahl & Gaynor Inc., which oversees $4 billion, said in a telephone interview. “There are so many questions, so many uncertainties.”

The 20 percent decline in global equities ended the bull market that began in March 2009. The MSCI All-Country World Index climbed as much as 107 percent during the rally. The measure avoided a bear market in 2010, when it fell 16 percent between April 15 and July 5. The index rebounded after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke foreshadowed $600 billion in bond purchases meant to prevent deflation and stimulate growth at an Aug. 27, 2010, meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Financial stocks, which posted the biggest losses in the last bear market, are leading declines again amid growing concern that European banks will have to write down their holdings of government debt. Banks, brokerages and insurers in the MSCI All-Country World have collectively lost 31 percent since May 2.

Societe Generale SA of Paris has retreated 66 percent since May 2, the second-biggest loss among financial stocks in the MSCI All-Country behind Athens-based EFG Eurobank Ergasias. UniCredit SpA, based in Milan, has retreated 62 percent. Banks in Europe hold 98.2 billion euros ($132 billion) of Greek sovereign debt, 317 billion euros of Italian government debt and about 280 billion euros of Spanish bonds, according to European Banking Authority data.

Financial companies in the worldwide index sank 77 percent during the last bear market as government bailouts rescued the biggest U.S. banks from collapse and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., once the nation’s fourth-biggest securities firm, filed the nation’s largest bankruptcy in September 2008.

More than $37 trillion was erased from global equity values in the previous bear market that lasted for 16 months after the MSCI All-Country World peaked on Oct. 31, 2007. The index fell as much as 60 percent amid the first global recession since World War II and more than $2 trillion in losses and writedowns at financial companies worldwide after housing prices dropped.

“We could be on the eve of the next financial crisis,” Barton Biggs, managing partner and co-founder of hedge fund Traxis Partners LP in New York, said during a Bloomberg Television interview with Matt Miller and Carol Massar yesterday. The firm has $1.4 billion in assets. “We shouldn’t be because there are things that could be done to avert it, but they haven’t been done. There’s no signs that the authorities are going to do them.”

Global Meltdown: Investors Are Dumping Nearly Everything
Thursday, 22 Sep 2011 CNBC Executive News Editor

With no solution in sight for Europe and new fears of a global recession, investors dumped stocks and commodities and ran to the safety of U.S. Treasuries. Treasury yields as a result, slipped to historic lows with the 10-year yielding 1.75 percent and the 30-year at 2.86 percent.

The dollar was also a beneficiary of a massive fear trade that sent U.S. stocks sharply lower, on the heels of steep sell-offs in equities markets around the globe.

Gold, usually a safety play, was sold into the maelstrom as investors tried to raise cash to cover losses.

"People are finding it really isn't gold. It isn't precious metals. It's not currencies. U.S. Treasuries are where people are flocking to at a time of extreme concern about risk, and we continue to see Treasuries continue to get bid up," said Zane Brown, fixed income strategist at Lord Abbett.

The selling in risk assets picked up momentum after the Fed's statement Wednesday, in which it characterized risks to the economy as "significant" and noted that "strains in global financial markets" could be a catalyst. Then overnight, China’s manufacturing data showed slowing growth resulting in a global selldown.

The lack of resolution on Europe, however, remains the biggest culprit as investors worry the exposure of European banks to the sovereign crisis will kick off a global banking crisis. The EU, IMF and European Central Bank put off until October to decide on the next payment to Greece, without which it will default. Markets have been disappointed with the lack of a bigger plan of action from European leaders.

"I think it's about the lack of leadership anywhere in the world. We're seriously distressed about the lack of leadership and constant squabbling in Washington," Brown said.

Its dangerous to buy gold now. The only thing keeping gold prices here in Malaysia high is the US dollar. But the USD wont stay up for long. The Feds will start to liquidate the dollar soon as the high dollar is hurting exports. The same as what happened to the Swiss Franc. And when the dollar drops, the gold prices in Malaysia will drop much lower. I would advise caution and a wait & see attitude now.

Assuming the dollar drops to its 'normal' price, and world gold prices remain at current levels, we would be looking at RM 170+ for gold in Malaysia. But if gold drops below 1,700 and the dollar retreats, then we could see gold prices in Malaysia drop to below RM 170 soon.

Alot will depend on the decision by EU and IMF whether to make another payment to Greece or not by October. Right now most investors are dumping gold to raise money to cover losses. But this selldown might continue until maybe around 1,680 before everybody starts buying again.

This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Sep 23 2011, 03:41 PM

As predicted, gold has crashed to US$ 1,661 and dropping further. But USD still holding steady at 3.17.

This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Sep 23 2011, 11:54 PM

Gold: Biggest single day drop since Jan 1980
By Chris Isidore September 23, 2011

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Gold prices continued to plunge Friday, despite the market turmoil that often drives investors to the traditional safe haven. Gold tumbled $101.90, or 5.9%, in regular trading to $1,639.80 an ounce. It's the second straight day of steep declines for the precious metal.

According to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Friday marked the first $100 daily price drop since Jan. 22, 1980, when gold plunged $143.50 to $682 the day after having spiked to a record high.

Keith Springer, president of Springer Financial Advisors, said that while gold has benefited from economic uncertainty in recent months and years, it's primarily been a hedge against inflation. But the growing worries about a global economic slowdown have raised new fears that there could be a period of deflation, or falling prices, in the months ahead.

"People are quickly coming to the realization that gold does very bad in a deflationary environment," he said.

Gold isn't the only commodity to be hit by concerns about the global economy. Silver suffered its worst trading day in decades losing $6.48, or 17.7%, to close at $30.10. Copper and platinum also both lost nearly 6%. But those metals have far more industrial uses than gold, Springer said, so fears of a recession should drive down those prices.

I would say it depends on Monday. If prices drop below 1,600 then its anybody's guess as to where gold will end up. But if it meets resistence at say 1,630 and then starts to increase, buy. But if gold is in the 'blow off phase' then its doomed.

This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Sep 24 2011, 05:16 PM

Maybank rates at RM172.07 now. US$1,646. We'll get a better indication when European markets open later in the afternoon. But my guess is that gold will go down further. But in Malaysia, prices dont drop as rapidly as the USD keeps on rising. USD now at 3.19

And the drop continues. Gold now at RM 170.93 (Maybank) and US$ 1,630. UOB's price should be lower than 170 now.

This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Sep 26 2011, 11:34 AM

What are you talking about? What rising? In the past 24 hrs, gold has never gone beyond 1661. It even went below 1600 and now its trading at 1605. Whr's the sky rocket?

I think that gold has yet to hit its bottom. I think prices will drop more probably below the 1500 barrier before it starts to rise again. So far, today gold is holding steady at 1,622 and USD at 3.18.

Any interesting article from www.gold price.org:

http://silver-and-gold-prices.goldprice.org/

This post has been edited by cybermaster98: Sep 27 2011, 08:43 AM

WHat long term investment??? Buying n selling within a month is long term for you?? You are gonna get burnt if you continue to invest like this. If ure looking for long term investment, then WAIT for prices to drop further. Then buy and HOLD. Dont buy n sell like stocks unless u are into ETF's.