A peak into what gold looks like from the business end: New York Times Article...

The Gold market is changing - which means the jewelry market will too! These days designers produce largely in silver because gold prices were so high. That may change in the next couple years as we start to see gold prices level out. Take a look at the market and predictions...

Gold, Long a Secure Investment, Loses Its Luster

Photo: Weighing gold nuggets in the Philippines. Photo by Jay Directo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By NATHANIEL POPPER
Published: April 10, 2013

Below the streets of Lower Manhattan, in the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the world’s largest trove of gold — half a million bars — has lost about $75 billion of its value. In Fort Knox, Ky., at the United States Bullion Depository, the damage totals $50 billion.

Falling Fortunes The price of gold has had an extraordinary run up in the last 10 years, creating wealth for investors. But its price has fallen in the last two years.

And in Pocatello, Idaho, the tiny golden treasure of Jon Norstog has dwindled, too. A $29,000 investment that Mr. Norstog made in 2011 is now worth about $17,000, a loss of 42 percent.

“I thought if worst came to worst and the government brought down the world economy, I would still have something that was worth something,” Mr. Norstog, 67, says of his foray into gold.

Gold, pride of Croesus and store of wealth since time immemorial, has turned out to be a very bad investment of late. A mere two years after its price raced to a nominal high, gold is sinking — fast. Its price has fallen 17 percent since late 2011. Wednesday was another bad day for gold: the price of bullion dropped $28 to $1,558 an ounce.

It is a remarkable turnabout for an investment that many have long regarded as one of the safest of all. The decline has been so swift that some Wall Street analysts are declaring the end of a golden age of gold. The stakes are high: the last time the metal went through a patch like this, in the 1980s, its price took 30 years to recover.

What went wrong? The answer, in part, lies in what went right... 

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For Full Article: New York Times