September 2024 - Week 1 Edition
College Football Season Begins – With a Golden Coin Flip!
The 2024 college football season began over the Labor Day weekend and the NFL regular season begins this Thursday and I am reminded of my part in the 2023 college football season in the long-running rivalry between McNeese State University (my alma mater) and Lamar University, the leading university in our corporate home in Beaumont, Texas. Last year marked the centennial of the birth of Lamar University in 1923, so I decided to donate a 1923 Saint Gaulden’s $20 Double Eagle gold coin to Lamar to be used in my opening coin flip for the game, held November 18, 2023.
In using that century-old coin, I remarked that 100 years ago three of these 1923 Double Eagle gold coins, each containing 0.9675 ounces of pure gold, which was valued then at $20.67 per ounce, could pay for a full semester’s tuition and books ($60) at Lamar. At game time in 2023, gold traded at $2,000 per ounce, and these same three gold coins could still buy a semester’s tuition and books at $6,000.
Now, with gold selling for over $2,500 per ounce, three 1923 Double Eagles would buy much more than tuition and books for a semester at Lamar and coins selected by an expert numismatist would perhaps buy a full year’s tuition, books plus room and board. The lesson here is that not only does it pay to own gold over paper money but it pays even more to own gold with the help of an expert’s eye, like me, America’s Gold Expert®. Utilizing the experience of a trained numismatist like me can help boost your financial results. So please call your professional representative today for the best selection of rare gold coins. There is a difference between having a coin salesman who will flip you the “deal of the week coins” and having a recognized national award-winning expert in numismatics on your side, who wants to ensure you not only get the most value potential when buying but also the best and most beautiful coins for your collection or investment purposes.
August Market Review and Year-to-Date Metals Performance
August is the unofficial beginning of hurricane season here in Texas. So far, we haven’t had any hurricanes hit our area but August began with a stock market hurricane, plus a tsunami in Tokyo, as the Japanese yen collapsed and the Tokyo market crashed by over 20% in two days. However, most of those markets recovered by mid-month.
By the end of August, most stock markets were modestly up, as if nothing had happened, but gold and silver were like “Old Man River.” Both just kept rolling along, surpassing all the stock market indexes, plus outperforming crude oil and the U.S. Dollar Index.
On September 3, the first business day after Labor Day, Goldman Sachs raised its price target for gold to $2,700 by early 2025, even while it reduced its forecast for other key commodities. Goldman sees a coming global downward trend in energy prices, anticipating a growing supply glut that will down prices, especially in European natural gas prices. Goldman wrote, “Our preferred near-term long is gold. It remains our preferred hedge against geopolitical and financial risks, with added support from imminent Fed rate cuts and ongoing EM (emerging markets) central bank buying.” Thanks to record central bank gold purchases, gold is now second only to the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, recently surpassing the euro as the number two global central bank holding.
Gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs), funds that hold physical gold in storage for investors, have also seen net inflows for three straight months in May, June and July, with North American investors belatedly joining, and now outpacing, European and Asian investors in their enthusiasm for the yellow metal in July, according to the latest World Gold Council data.
Gold Holding Around $2,500 As More Experts Predict Continued Growth In 2025
Gold has traded over $2,500 per ounce for at least part of each trading day since August 16th on the futures market. This tells us gold ETF traders and futures traders are “buying gold on dips” below $2,500 and thereby giving gold some love or, in their terms, “technical support,” in advance of the anticipated Federal Reserve rate cut on September 18th. The theory is that gold performs better when rates are lower but look at how gold soared while rates remained high – further proof that gold is a constant positive performer over time!
