Gold Convention Attendance Lowest Since 2000 Gold Low

A large gold investment conference in Las Vegas has seen attendance at multi-year lows while real-estate investment conventions boom.

Gold is continuing its longest bull market ever, 53 months, yet the conference crowd at last week’s Las Vegas Gold & Precious Metals Investment Conference held in Las Vegas was no larger than when the yellow metal was making new lows in 2000.

Despite having world-class speakers... the conference attracted less than half the number of people who typically show up to attend local housing seminars. And while gold aficionados tend to be older and quirkier, Las Vegas real estate seminars attract a number of young, nubile ex-cocktail waitresses and strippers who have abandoned their perfectly honorable former professions to hawk houses, raw dirt or mortgage loans.

A few of the presenting mining companies at the conference have figured out that having an attractive female in the booth does generate more interest in company prospects. And if stripping ratios and drilling results are delivered with a charming British accent, all the better.

Jim Dines, the self-proclaimed original gold (and now uranium) bug, took the feminine approach to new heights. The four girls occupying the Dines Report booth looked to be on loan from Hugh Hefner. Dines would have blended in appropriately if he had donned a silk smoking jacket and been puffing on a pipe. The strategy was obviously effective. By the second day of the conference, most mining company presenters directed attendees to their company booths using the Dines booth as a reference point.

We've always suspected that gold investment was somehow speculative and trashy. It seems our suspicions have been validated. But if you thought gold dealers might be of irreputable ilk, just imagine those that deal in uranium.

While virtually every speaker was bullish on gold, the metal that really had the conference buzzing was uranium. Despite the metal already tripled in price to about $30 per pound, $50 and $100 per pound were mentioned often as price targets. According to the Dines Report website: "Today, there are 441-nuclear power plants on the planet, with many more planned. Japan intends to add 11 more by the year 2010. China will add 24 to 30 by 2020. Even nuclear-wary Britain has faced the reality that they will need 45 additional plants to meet the Kyoto Treaty targets for reducing gases."

While uranium might sound more far fetched, its economic value is at least more clearly explained- it makes the most powerful weapons in the world and is a fuel for large amounts of clean energy. Its also rare and a controlled substance. Most of gold's value is based on people just traditionally feeling as if its worth something. Such value is more tenuous in our humble opinion.

Other than economist, author and newsletter writer Mark Skousen, everyone who spoke at the conference was bullish on gold and bearish on the dollar and stock market. Skousen doesn’t believe that the dollar will collapse and "is not as bullish on gold as others at this conference." Skousen believes that the stock market is in a secular bull market, while resources are in a secular bear market. According to Skousen, gold has lost its luster as an inflation hedge, with other instruments such as Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS), commodity index funds, energy funds and real estate now taking its place. "Gold has been marginalized," Skousen said.

Still, old habits die hard, and what.. maybe 98% of the people in this world still believe in the value of gold? Yet perhaps we should hold on before buying gold- until every last ounce of glamor is removed from these conferences. Right now it seems there's still a few showgirls hyping this market...

Comments

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