John Dizard's weekly Financial Times columns are a reliable treat. In his latest, he reviews himself and freely admits mistakes along with things he's gotten right. One of his "hits" was investing in North Korean debt -- which amazingly you can do here in the US.
But of topics touched on that impact my portfolio is -- no surprise -- gold:My second error, or set of errors, was to attempt to pick short-term tops and bottoms in the secular gold market rally.
I have been a long-term gold bull for more than five years but keep trying to moderate that bullishness with cautious execution of entry and exit points.
That's hard to do, but it's easy to get whipsawed by overtrading.
Now I will compound the error by saying that we will probably continue with this correction in gold, but when it gets back below $1,000 an ounce, buy it for the longer term.
The major part of demand increase will come not from gold replacing currencies in official reserves, even if the Indian and Chinese governments buy more of the metal.
Rather, the price pressure is from a steadily growing mass of retail buyers around the world who put less trust in all currencies.
As you know, I agree we're in a longer term bull market for gold. And I agree we're in a correction phase, though I have no idea if gold will sink back below $1,000 or not. I don't try to cut things that fine.
Check out the entire Dizard column if you subscribe to FT.com.
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