May 10 2010 - Gold prices soared to high levels Thursday and Friday last week amid a worsening Greek crisis and a sputtering stock market.
The closing price of $1220.10 an ounce was the closest so far to the all-time high gold price of 1226.40 recorded in December 2009. It improved on the December 2009 closing price of $1104.0 by $116.10 and the first quarter 2010 price, a little more than a month ago, of $1126.10 by $94. It was also gold’s best performance in five months.
The continuing run of gold started during the first year of the new millennium. From $272.65 an ounce at the end of 2000, the price of gold skyrocketed to $1104.00 at the end of 2009, an increase of 400%.
Predictions formally announced by industry leaders as early as 2009 saw gold on a continuing run lasting, at the very least, as long as the middle of the second decade. Financial Forecast Center, for one, placed gold at $1200 an ounce by mid-2010, a prediction which had just come true. David Morgan of www.silver-investor.com said sometime in 2009 that the decade 2000-2009 was merely “stage one” of gold’s bull run, which will be followed by the entry of serious investors and more serious money.” True enough, gold, carried by the momentum of the previous decade, hit the ground running in 2010.
Forecasts by other analysts had put gold as high $1500 an ounce in five years and $2000 before the end of the second decade.
The “ingredients” for a continuing good time for gold are very much around, this time with the additional fuel provided by the Greek crisis which already had been blamed for last week’s stock market dive. It was also attributed as the reason for gold’s sudden rise.
“There are a lot more Greeces out there,” said Peter Spina of Gold Seek LLC. “You’re looking at Spain, Portugal and others down the road that are all potential problems … and I think that will help drive more money into gold.”
