A Billionaire Goes All-In on Gold

Gold is setting records again, boosting the holdings of central banks, Armageddon worrywarts, and ordinary people who own gold bars, coins and jewelry.

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But few individuals stand to benefit as much as low-profile billionaire Thomas Kaplan (Tigris Financial). A New York-born commodities magnate who earned a doctorate in British colonial history at Oxford, Mr. Kaplan oversees an empire devoted largely to gold.

Many fund managers and high-rollers have allocated small percentages of their portfolios to gold as a hedge against inflation. But Mr. Kaplan is the bull of bullion. He has gone further than perhaps any other major investor, betting the majority ...

Interesting, I wonder if this guy has some inside information. There wasn't much to the article except what you see. Maybe he knows something...hmmm

Gold is always going to be valuable. Especially in a declining economy.

I think he's smart, although I would keep my hands free of most types of investing.

Although I would love to go back to the 80's and buy a couple of hundred shares in Microsoft....

~Keeper

reply to post by tothetenthpower

Although I would love to go back to the 80's and buy a couple of hundred shares in Microsoft....

You & me both Hindsight is so crystal clear

Just before the crash of the Stock Market, I had pulled out my retirement and took a 25% loss due to taxation. I immediately bought gold ingots. Physical gold instead of the gold options and such. I lived on the gold for the last two years selling it as I needed currency. I recouped my tax hit by the increase in the value of the gold in currency. I really did not increase my money, the devaluation of the currency is what makes gold price go up, not the other way around.

The billionaire is not betting that the "value" of gold is going to go up, he is betting that the value of the currency is going to go down. His true assets will not increase, just that the devaluation of the currency is inevitable in this exponential increase in debt and currency.

In true value, gold at it's current trading value of say $1200 USD, is still way off the highest it has been. The highest it has ever been, in today's USD value is approximately $3750.

I believe we are going to see a continual devaluation of currency which will see the currency to gold, value go up.

Fifty years ago you could buy a certain amount of goods for a $20 gold coin. Nowadays you can buy the same amount of goods with that coin. You cannot buy the same amount of goods with that $20 though. This is what is valuable about commodities, they do not decrease in value over time. They are constant whereas currency ALWAYS decreases over time if it is not tied to something of value. Period.

I hope this billionaire holds physical gold, and if he does, that has got to be one big safe. I just had an idea for a heist movie...

[edit on 23-5-2010 by AwakeinNM]

What this Billionaire is aware of is the simple fact that gold cannot be printed overnight as fiat/paper currency can be.

This is what leads to the devaluation of currency.

The more that they print, the less worth each note carries.

It is the hidden tax called INFLATION.

The fact that the majority of all gold ever mined is still in existence is why gold continues to appreciate in value.

And also to the contrary as to why it requires more Dollars to purchase the same thing year after year due to inflation.

For example:

I was recently comparing what the cost of a BigMac cost in 1975 for example which was $.75

And today the cost of a BigMac is around $4.00.

So though we are earning more Dollars, in actuality and in pure purchasing power, we are not.

I have invested in GOLD bullion for years now.

I did a similar thing as I began to see the stock markets crashing in pulling out all of my money and by converting it to gold.

I have doubled my money now since 2006. and earned some 60+% on my later investments in GOLD back in 2007.

With what is going on with the EURO at the moment, is making the already weak US Dollar appear as the reigning fiat currency king, but this will only make more investors run towards gold.

Interesting note on the Microsoft stock, on the day of it's initial IPO in 1986 it reached a high and closing at $28. a share and today, as of Friday May 21st, 2010 , was trading at $26.84.

Granted you would have had several stock splits over that many years but all in all we are looking at almost 30 years.

I still prefer GOLD due to the fact that I have doubled my money in less than 4 years with No brokerage fees !!




[edit on 23-5-2010 by nh_ee]

Thomas Kaplan is a high risk, high return investor, CEO of Tigris Capital, and a big time resource/commodities player. Kaplan initially established his fortune proving-up Silver & natgas deposits. He won't disclose of his physical bullion position, but he's on record for having 2 billion invested in the jr exploration sector at present.

If we apply itulip's Gold Market Adoption Model, Kaplan qualifies as an Innovator.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ba8391ddf7ff.jpg[/atsimg]

For a frame of reference, when insurance giant Northwestern Mutual moved into Gold June 09, it was said that we "officially" entered the Early Majority Phase (institutional demand).

Even though Gold has momentum tonight it's doubtful we'll break above 1200 until options expire on Tuesday. Current weakness may prove to be a classic buying op....in fact I'm banking on it.

I like that chart
But that is made under the assumption that gold is an investment rather than a currency.
There is evidence to the latter:

Some online shops already accept "electronic gold" as payment, and there seems to be an effort to establish a hard worldwide currency on gold basis. www.futureworldcurrency.com...

Not sure on this one, there a several hoaxes who claim this is an un operation namely as "oro gold coins", its unclear to what extent..
The Person behind this is Sandro Sassoli (whois) and on the site there are claims of g8 involvement and a sample been sent to barack obama in 2008..

Anyways, if you threat gold as currency then it would be in the late innovator stage, hitting the early adopters phase once this "future world currency" is released.

Just a thought...

Originally posted by kybertech
Anyways, if you threat gold as currency then it would be in the late innovator stage, hitting the early adopters phase once this "future world currency" is released.

Not sure what you mean by "future world currency".

To the PM community, Gold is always, first and foremost a currency...or to split hairs, a currency with some commodity characteristics.

When you see a breakdown in the traditional Gold/dollar relationship as we witnessed briefly in 2009, and again more recently, i. e., Gold trading with the USD as opposed to inverse.....that positive correlation represents Gold reasserting it's preferred currency status. Whether or not Gold will be officially re-monetized at some point in our future is another topic altogether.

The chart simply represents demand from various segments of the investment community as they historically enter a bull market. The characteristic phases could apply equally to any commodity, sector, or asset class, even equities...think back to housing, or dotcom. Who arrived early and reaped fortunes...who arrived late and lost their ass-ets ?

The chart is simply a thumbnail sketch...try looking at it this way....

Innovators - smartest money entered around $285

Early Adopters - smarter money around $400

Early Majority - smart money (institutions...well capitalized hedge funds, pension funds, large insurance companies, net accumulation by central banks etc) began entering mid 2009 around $950

Late Majority - not so smart money buys late/minimal appreciation.

Late Majority [peak] - dumb money buys the top

Laggards - well, they represent the dumbest money...catch a falling knife.

Originally posted by OBE1
Not sure what you mean by "future world currency".

I, nothing, thats what they call it... did you check it out?

Well and...
I have seen several "bubble market" sketches, so... isn't the chart supposed to represent the number of buyers and not nesseary the price? Just asking because the whole thing about bubbles and the elliot wave theory seems to be some kind of dogma here.

reply to post by UberL33t


I will say this once : as a billionaire, he gains to lose from this investment.

Do not follow his example; you will go broke.

Then he will regain and more after you've all done it.

Originally posted by TarzanBeta
I will say this once : as a billionaire, he gains to lose from this investment.

He can sell when the price is down and the resource is gone at a price higher then it ever was.

Originally posted by TarzanBeta
Do not follow his example; you will go broke.

Nobody will buy from you at the peak.

Originally posted by TarzanBeta
Then he will regain and more after you've all done it.

He buys when the resource is abundant & cheap again.

Right so far?

Originally posted by TarzanBeta
reply to post by UberL33t

 

I will say this once : as a billionaire, he gains to lose from this investment.

Do not follow his example; you will go broke.

Then he will regain and more after you've all done it.

Whilst goverments are printing money and the stock exchange is bent and we are on the edge of a meltdown i can only see a couple of options.

1. Property
2. Silver/Gold
3. Food

Trouble with food is it goes off and property is a rope round your neck as they put taxes up so that leaves metal in my book.

metal is also an edge against oil costs as it's requires a lot of energy to mine and refine.

As another poster point out the purchasing power of silver/gold stays the same it's just the depreciation of the currency that goes down so in that respect metals won't be in boom teritory even at $20000 oz if it still costs 1oz silver eagle to get yourself a good dinner.

How anyone can argue given current conditions that we should trust bankers is beyond me and they will try every trick in the book to prevent the worlds oldest curency gaining the upper hand so yes i can see with all the paper metal around that sells at a ratio of 100:1 to the physical stuff going down 50% but if/when the the digital amro is introduced then the connection between paper metal and real metal will be broken as people will always need a form of cash so yes i can see quite a gain.

Yes it's a gamble but whilst i hold the metal in my hand, i'm in control and not some bankster or goverment parasite that wants to tax me to death for holding it.

reply to post by kybertech


Just making sure that people see it.

But of course, I can't reach everyone.

reply to post by LieBuster


Hey, as long as you're holding the metal, then I suppose you've got something.

But, in reality, if things really do get bad enough, you can't eat gold and stay healthy for long.

Originally posted by TarzanBeta
reply to post by kybertech

 

Just making sure that people see it.

But of course, I can't reach everyone.

well yes i'm with you i hope people get to see it but i think you would do better if you provided some logic to your argument and not just one liners pulled from thin air.

Are they about to discover a way of making gold from lead or something

Well if one were holding that much gold when the crap hit the fan and went into a long term bottom scraping one might not be able to sell at max cash value....but he wouldnt need cash at that point. I mean a dozen eggs may cost 50$ but he wouldnt be buying eggs. His gold holdings would still fech well in certain markets. At some point in a really bad shake down gold value and cash value become unrelated in certain areas. Kings will need gold and not bread so to speak. Most of us will be bartering anyway and so will the kings for gold.

being a billionaire, his staff or connections should have informed him of the tax changes that were due in 2010 before hand.

the biggest thing that would concer his holding, then exchanging PM bullion/coins is that every transaction over $600. will need to be detailed on a new beefed-up form 1099
see: money.cnn.com...

As he stands now, to extract any wealth-appreciation from the bullion holdings in the future... he will have to spend record keeping money to keep abreast of the tax filing requirements for all transactions over $600, and of course the taxable rate will be higher on monies-transactions that go over $2000 per transaction - just like the EU does now.

the gov't & banksters have their bases covered, they will always extract 'wealth' from others... and there will likely be "excessive gains taxes" on stuff like gold & PMs in the not to distant future...
as fallout from the Greek misadventure & the 'Austerity measures' being imposed on their society

Originally posted by St Udio



being a billionaire, his staff or connections should have informed him of the tax changes that were due in 2010 before hand.

the biggest thing that would concer his holding, then exchanging PM bullion/coins is that every transaction over $600. will need to be detailed on a new beefed-up form 1099
see: money.cnn.com...

Music to my ears and the more they try to supress the use of PM's only goes to show how desperate they are.

next we will hear it's only terrorists that use gold/silver as money and never mind that fiat paper is being knocked for six due to printing and it's these very same people that will lable people like me as a terrorist.

They can regulate all they like but it's my guess the guy down the road wanting a bit of cash work will be happy to except 1oz silver coins for fixing my car when the only alternative is the digital amro and due to all the regulations he can not set up his own company.

The more corrupt the system becomes the more need we common folk have for an alternative so let them regulate untill the cows come home.

Biggest problem is all the fake gold bars deflating the paper holding gold owners, unless you have gold in your hands and not paper with words or tungsten.

Its just another one of those big pull the wool scams if you don't play your cards right.

Gold bars in fort knox are fake
Gld ETF Warning, Tungsten Filled Fake Gold Bars

[edit on 25/5/10 by GhostR1der]