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Japanese Pensions Take Interest in Gold on Abe's Pledge to Stoke Inflationby Peter A. Grant
Jan 08, AM 
Gold is firming once again, leaving an intervening low at 1643.19, in front of last Friday's low at 1625.93. The latest bounce within the range comes partially as a result of strong physical interest from Asia. Apparently the recent retreat toward the low end of the year-long range has sparked some bargain hunting ahead of the Lunar New Year.Additionally, Bloomberg reported today that "Japanese pension funds, the world's second-largest pool of retirement assets after the U.S., will more than double their gold holdings in the next two years." That expected rise in demand is correlated to Prime Minister Abe's pledge to double the inflation target to 2%. With Japan back in recession, Abe is dedicated to stimulating the economy and beating back deflation by any means necessary. Abe has dialed up pressure on the BoJ to expand its asset purchases, while simultaneously planning massive fiscal stimulus via a supplementary budget. Such measures are designed to take the shine off of the yen, which has benefited from safe-haven flows in recent years. In other words, Abe would like to see the yen debased in order to achieve his objectives. This will come largely at the expense of the dollar and euro. which may prompt the U.S. and EU to intensify their own debasement efforts so a weaker yen does not cut into their own exports. The currency wars drag on... Which in fact makes higher gold allocations perfectly logical. Gold set a new record high against the yen last week at ¥147791.44 on the heels of the Abe election in December. Itsuo Toshima, formerly of the World Gold Council's Tokyo office said, “Pension money invested in bullion is ‘peanuts’ at the moment.” Toshima went on to add that, "If 1 percent of their total assets shift to the metal, the gold market would explode." NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP Opinions expressed in commentary on the USAGOLD.com website do not constitute an offer to buy or sell, or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any precious metals product, nor should they be viewed in any way as investment advice or advice to buy, sell or hold. USAGOLD, Inc. recommends the purchase of physical precious metals for asset preservation purposes, not speculation. Utilization of these opinions for speculative purposes is neither suggested nor advised. Commentary is strictly for educational purposes, and as such USAGOLD does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of the information found here.
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Tuesday January 8
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