A summary of all the major stories on the Australian Stock Exchange
McEwen still positive on $2,000 gold this year - and $5,000 ahead
In an interview at last week's PDAC meeting in Toronto with Kitco, Rob McEwen, who has never wavered in his confidence on the gold price, re-iterated his views on strong short and longer term gold price performance.
McEwen, who built up Goldcorp to one of the world's top gold miners, and now guides a number of smaller gold miners and explorers, is reported as remaining confident in his repeated prediction that gold will hit $2,000 an ounce by year-end and $5,000/oz before the gold bull run is over.
His views follow on from his assessment of the medium and longer term effects of the printing of huge amounts of money by Western Governments as part of their stimulus packages and the overall impact of this on the global economy. This, he avers, is effectively making the money in one's personal bank accounts worth less and less and purchasing gold, and investing in gold stocks - particularly junior gold miners and explorers - is the way to protect the value of one's wealth.
Kitco quotes him as saying "It is up to me and you to protect ourselves by going into gold and other hard assets. It will deliver you multiples on your investments; this is what you need to protect yourself in this type of environment .... I happen to like gold bullion and junior mining stocks because they are going to run."
In selecting gold stocks in which to invest, McEwen recommended those operating in regions of relative political security - mainly the Americas - and also his long-held view that one needs to look for stocks in which the chief executive has a significant shareholding rather than just drawing a large salary with a minimal stock holding.
This, he feels, demonstrates the executive's commitment to the project itself - not just another management job! This is something where he practices what he preaches and he tends to hold significant stakes in those companies where he is the guiding light.
