Gold market unloved - Gold shares despised

Equity markets have been very upbeat the last 4 months or so. Meanwhile gold has been travelling sideways for nearly 20 months. Sentiment is very low and hedge fund managers are short.
The gold equities have been a very poor investment down close to 40%. Why hold them?

Becasue, nothing has been fixed - global liquidity by the central bankers is the key policy right now. Gold will reflect it soon and in due course the equities will follow. The train has nobody on it!

http://edegrootinsights.blogspot.ca/2013/03/gold-primed-for-unexpected-upside.html

Eric has some very good points in this article. A great analysis, by a very careful and thoughtful watcher of markets.

While Dan Norcini notes,
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/3/15_Incredibly_Important_Developments_In_Gold_%26_Silver_Markets.html

“Today the hedge funds are short a staggering 68,700 contracts. What makes this number even more amazing is that it represents an astounding 10+% of the entire open interest in the gold market of 667,000 contracts. So this is by far the hedge funds’ largest short position in percentage terms in history.
The bottom line is I don’t recall seeing anything like this since this bull market began 12 years ago. The hedge funds are now essentially battling against Middle-East and Far-East central banks and commercial banks. The problem is these central banks are behemoths compared to the hedge funds. 

Something has to give!

Cypriot depositors learn about "safe" assets, the hard way!

  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/33fb34b4-8df8-11e2-9d6b-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2Nm4QtmvT

International lenders agreed to a €10bn bailout of Cyprus early on Saturday morning after 10 hours of fraught negotiations, which included convincing Nicosia to seize €5.8bn from Cypriot bank deposits to help pay for the rescue, a first for any eurozone bailout.
The cash from Cypriot account holders will come in the form of a one-time 9.9 per cent levy on all deposits over €100,000 that will be slashed from their savings before banks reopen Tuesday, a day after a Cypriot holiday. An additional 6.75 per cent levy will be imposed on deposits below that level.

Those hiding cash or gold under their mattress...are 7% to 10% better off!

Implications: If you live in Italy, Greece or Spain do you take the risk and keep your "safe" assets in a a bank? NFW!