Decision time?

My gold investing hasn't gone too well so far!

I think I need to remind myself why I have been buying the stuff. Either my reasoning will still feel valid and stop that dull pain I get when I remember I own this plummeting-priced asset... or I it will appear wrong-headed and I will need to re-evaluate what I am doing.

One of my reasons for buying gold was the possibility that it could rise in value if my income and my home fall in value. An attempt, I suppose, to turn my job, home and investments into an 'absolute return' fund - which sounds horrible and ambitious at the same time.

PNL Personal Assets Trust - some guidance on why I own gold

There were two views on the gold price dropping down today (PHGP down 2.5%):

- on the one hand the gold bugs point to a 'paper-based' assault on the gold price last night: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-12/vicious-gold-slamdown-breaks-gold-market-20-seconds?source=email_rt_mc_body&app=n

- on the other hand the gold doubters point to the increasing likelihood of the Federal Reserve tapering off its quantitative easing. In this BullionVault piece analysts suspect more price falls with little chance of this being offset by Indian Jewellery buying or inflation picking up
 https://goldnews.bullionvault.com/gold-price-091220131

Sebastian Lyon at Personal Assets Trust (PNL) said in an interim management statement (August 16):

Buy or sell as gold price plummets?

Can I really make a sensible decision about whether to buy or sell now?

I've got about £1000 standing by but I'm not sure I'm aiming to buy anything yet, or sell anything.... but I might have changed my mind by tomorrow.

 My small portfolio, which now includes one share of Personal Assets Trusts (PNL), looks pretty shredded at the moment.

Very odd price crashes for gold stocks on Friday on London Stock Exchange

Prices drop in final trades

Despite Friday's massive rises for precious metals the shares of a number of gold and silver miners trading on the London Stock Exchange saw their closing prices drop sharply.

Fresnillo (FRES) shares closed down more than 4% after a one-off trade. Randgold Resources (RRS) and African Barrick Gold (ABG) also saw their prices plunge from daily highs. 

This may be normal after a volatile day but it still looks odd. These kinds of moves  have been noted on this blog before (here and here) showing that the share price of Fresnillo tends to jump at the end of trading days. 

Sterling gold falls under £1000 oz for first time since 2011

The price of gold has fallen below £1000 per ounce (oz) today the lowest its been since 2011.

Gold spot price over the last six hours

According to the gold spot price provided by BullionVault while gold was selling at just above $1,600 per oz the sterling price fell to just over £992 per oz (later under £990 as per chart above).