Rightside23 Aug 2012 00:38
Buying miners could be a great business
China has the biggest currency reserves in the world, but their gold holdings are pretty insignificant. According to the World Gold Council (2010 figures), the EU has nearly 16,000 tonnes; the US over 8,000 tonnes, while China has a trifling 1,000 tonnes. China needs to catch up.
They can do that by buying mines. By doing that, they'll also avoid bidding up the price of gold. And that’s a fantastic benefit for China. If they can lock into African gold in the ground at today’s prices, all they need to do is get the stuff out of the ground and they could be building their gold holdings for years to come.
I’ve previously argued that the gold miners are cheap. Today, most of the large miners are trading on earnings multiples in the low teens. I’ve not seen them this cheap