GOLD is the oldest precious metal known to man. Therefore, it is a timely subject for several reasons. It is the opinion of the more objective market experts that the traditional investment vehicles of stocks and bonds are in the areas of their all-time highs and may be due for a severe correction. In fact the traditional indicators of valuation are far past the excessive readings of 1987 and worst than even 1929! In warning recognition of current market mania, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan poignantly admonished that current market excesses display "Irrational exuberance which may lead to a financial asset bubble!"

Therefore, astute and prudent investors are seeking alternative investments. Their strategy is to seek risk diversification away from stocks and bonds, currently near all-time highs - in order to take positions in hard assets, which are presently near multi-year lows, and hold promise for reasonable good returns in the future.

What Makes Gold So Precious?
To fully appreciate why 8,000 years of experience say gold is forever, we should review why the world reveres what England's most famous economist, John Maynard Keynes, cynically called the "barbarous relic."

Why gold is "good as gold" is an intriguing question. Dr. Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, suggested that "our fascination with gold is related to the erotic fantasies of early childhood." However, we think that the more pragmatic ancient Egyptians were perhaps more accurate in observing that gold's value was a function of its pleasing physical characteristics and its scarcity.

Shiny Yellow Metal
There are many physical aspects of the yellow metal which are truly amazing. Gold is the most malleable (able to be hammered into very thin sheets) and ductile (able to be drawn into a fine wire) of all metals. It is so malleable that a goldsmith can hammer one ounce of gold into a thin translucent wafer covering more than 100 square feet only five millionths of an inch thick. It would be so thin that 1,000 sheets would be needed to make up the thickness of one newspaper page. Its ductility is equally amazing. One ounce of gold can be drawn into a wire 50 miles long! Furthermore, ONLY one ounce of this marvelous metal is required to plate a thread of copper 1,000 miles long. That's really stretching it, wouldn't you say?

Since time immemorial the noble metal's resplendent luster allows it to be designed into the world's most coveted and exquisite jewelry -- fit for queens or kings.

Gold is also one of the heaviest metals known. It has a specific gravity of 19.3, which means it weighs 19.3 times as much as an equal volume of water. Therefore, one cubic foot of gold weighs 1,206 pounds. More than half a ton! This probably explains why there has NEVER been any large armed robberies of gold bullion throughout history. Who could carry it?!

More unbelievable than its physical characteristics is its scarcity. It is well documented that the world's holdings accumulated during all recorded history to the present is only about 120,000 metric tons. Understandably, it is rather difficult for the average person to relate to this measurement. Suffice it to say that the total world's hoard of the shiny metal will occupy a single cube 60 feet by 60 feet by 60 feet - which is equivalent to the approximate volume of three 12-room homes. This is indeed a small volume of matter to have influenced the toil and destiny of so many people since biblical days. In fact the total world's holdings of the rare metal could be transported by a single solitary oil tanker - that's if Lloyds of London would ever accept the insurance risk on this priceless cargo. The value of this priceless cargo would be approximately $1.4 TRILLION!

Another way to appreciate its scarcity is to compare it to the annual steel production in the United States. According to the Iron and Steel Institute in Washington D.C., the American industry poured an average of 10,500 tons of steel per hour during all of 1995! Please appreciate that's 24 hours per day and 365 days per year - indeed, a lot of steel. In sharp contrast the world's annual gold mine production increases the total holdings by only 2.0% per year. That's an average increase in the world's gold supply of a mere 2,000 tons per year - versus 10,500 tons of American steel per hour. Gold is indeed very, very rare.