News

June 16, 2009

Standing Room Only Again At The Minesite Forum, As Gold Edges Aside To Allow The Base Metals Back Into The Picture

By Alastair Ford

“For me, gold is money”. So said John Wong, manager of the Golden Prospect Precious Metals Fund, towards the end of our 60th Minesite forum. That simple line of thinking underpins, he said, the investment decisions he makes at Golden Prospect, and accounts for the relatively strong performance of the fund to date this year. On a 12 month view Golden Prospect might have done even better, were it not that a change of ownership towards the end of last year brought about a certain re-aligning of the portfolio towards the bigger equities. There are, of course, many out there who share John’s simple view of gold, and there were plenty in evidence at our Forum too, if the amount of attention John received after the formal proceedings had closed was anything to go by.

But perhaps the gold bugs focused on John because, in contrast to many of our recent Forums, the 60th Forum was not actually one that was dominated by gold. That wasn’t particularly any reflection of the fact that gold had once again within recent weeks attempted to push through the US$1,000 mark and failed, but more just about the way the cards fall. That said, with the global economy beginning to show signs of life, perhaps it was no surprise that on the roll-call of the six listed companies...