Turk on Gold Prices

February 4, 2003

On Tuesday, for instance, Russia, joining China and several other countries in a shift toward bullion-linked reserves, said its central bank will boost gold and foreign-currency holdings to $55 billion by year's end, a rise of 17 percent. Many countries in Asia that are running large trade surpluses with the United States, among them Taiwan, Japan and China, have less than 4 percent of their foreign reserves in gold, leaving plenty of room for future gold purchases.

Turk, in following his early January forecast that the gold price would surpass $370 an ounce in the coming weeks, on Tuesday told me he expects the metal's price to reach $434 an ounce by the end of February, less than four weeks' time. Such a gain, 15 percent at current levels, would hearken back to the middle of February 1996, when the metal peaked at $415 an ounce before beginning a 5 1/2-year slide into the dungeon. See: Researcher predicts imminent gold gain.

The researcher's forecasts are bold in their specific timing and price level. Turk's predictions depart from those found at investment banks in London and on Wall Street, where analysts are reluctant to forecast an average gold price higher than $360 an ounce or so for all of 2003. Turk is confident gold, logging inevitable gains as international investors flee the "dollar bubble," will reach $600 this summer and surpass $900 an ounce by February 2004.

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