Much time has been spent recently discussing the up and down moves in the price of gold bullion. People with a long-term investment strategy need to weigh a lot of different variables when determining what they should be doing with their funds and the varying factors that are impacting the price of gold bullion.
Gold bullion has been a store of value for thousands of years and in some cultures it is more readily part of everyday life. One such nation is India. The Indian government’s attempts to raise taxes through a higher import duty on gold bullion are having a worldwide impact on this investment strategy, as gold bullion retailers have shut their stores, have stopped buying gold bullion, and have staged massive strikes.
The Indian government has decided to double the import duty on gold bullion to four percent and enact a 0.3% tax on jewelry made from gold bullion starting in April. For over 11 days, the gold bullion retailers have been on strike and this is being felt in the price for gold bullion. While we did see a push higher in the price of gold bullion on hints last week by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, the long-term demand of Indian consumers is important in maintaining a stable price for gold bullion.
While some estimate that gold bullion imports could fall over 20%, I think this might be an overly pessimistic viewpoint. With so much political pressure by the people of India, if we get a repeal of this tax policy, we would get a strong surge in the price of gold bullion. When so many people are moving in one direction, politicians will eventually listen.
Indian people have long been consumers of gold bullion and will continue to do so for many decades. The good news is that, while gold bullion sales to India have almost stopped completely over the last couple of weeks, the price in spot gold bullion hasn’t moved that much at all. What this means is that there is a lot of underlying demand that has stepped up to fill those shoes. Once the Indian nation resumes its purchases of gold bullion, we could see a really strong move back up in price.
We are now seeing a giant wedge formation in gold bullion. If one were to draw a line connecting the lows last July and December, this would be the bottom end of the wedge. If you drew a line connecting the highs of last year with the high in late February, this would represent the upper portion of this gold bullion wedge. As we get a tighter and tighter coil within the wedge, the break-out from this formation will trigger a strong move in the price of gold bullion.
One’s investment strategy should incorporate some technical analysis to understand where we are combined with the fundamentals. Knowing we’re in a tight forming wedge, the fundamentals would indicate that a break through the highs might be slightly more probable. This could coincide with the Indian government reversing its decision and unleashing a wave of pent-up gold bullion buying pressure. Or it could be an announcement by the Federal Reserve of addition monetary stimulus. Just note that, once we break through either trendline and exceed the wedge, the gold bullion price will accelerate sharply.
Leave a Reply