Can Gold Go Higher?

I’ve done a number of interviews on gold recently and the number one question I get most from reporters is—can gold prices go higher?

My answer is yes.

Short-term, “record gold prices” are a bit of a misnomer. On an inflation-adjusted basis, gold’s real record price would be over $2,300 an ounce.

Looking at our oscillators, gold appears to be far from overbought. The chart shows the 60-day oscillator for gold (yellow) and the U.S. dollar (green) for the past 10 years as of August 31. One standard deviation represents a 7.3 percent move in gold prices.

Despite its recent run, gold was down 0.38 standard deviations as of the end of the month. More importantly, we’re not seeing the huge price spikes that are typical when investments get overheated.

Long-term, I think gold prices could double over the next five years. If this happens, the effect on gold stocks could be tremendous. If gold manages to double over the next five years we could see the values of some miners triple.

This would not take place in a straight line. Investors must be aware of the volatility inherent with these investments. Assuming normal historical volatility, these stocks could up or down 40 percent over any 12-month period.

Standard deviation is a measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is also known as historical volatility.