Mr. Christian: The price of gold started the year around $880 an ounce. It had fallen to that level during the financial crisis. It rose to about $1,007 on an intra-day basis in February, which was probably the worst part of the recession. There was an extreme amount of economic uncertainty and fear about the stability of banks. As the year progressed, the gold price backed off. It's basically traded between $870 and $990 since February. So it came down to about $870 in March and then it rose back to about $990 in May. Today it's around $926.
TWST: This is still a relatively high gold price. Would you talk about the
factors driving it?
Mr. Christian: Well, let's start in the center and work our way out. If you look
at the gold market itself, the single most important fundamental that's been
driving the price up has been very strong investment demand. Investors have been
buying more gold in more parts of the world for a longer period of time than
ever before in history. This is over the last eight years. The bull market
really started in 2001.
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