by Mike Gleason, Money Metals:

Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.

Gold bulls attempted to regain the $2,000 level this week. But they found themselves to be in for some more back-and-forth market tug of war with the bears.

Prices rallied above $2,000 an ounce on Tuesday only to get yanked back down the following trading day. As of this Friday recording, gold comes in at $1,946 an ounce to register a weekly loss of 0.5%.

Turning to the white metals, silver is managing a 0.7% advance since last Friday’s close to bring spot prices to $26.82 per ounce. Platinum is struggling with a 3.1% weekly decline to trade at $927. And finally, palladium is hanging on to a 3.3% gain this week to come in at $2,254 an ounce as of this Friday morning recording.

Earlier this week, precious metals markets got a surprising Buffett bounce.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett isn’t often associated with gold – at least not in a positive way. In the past Buffett has made derisive comments about the monetary metal. He once quipped that gold “has no utility.”

A perpetual optimist on the U.S. economy, Buffett by nature doesn’t like the message that is sent by higher gold prices. He has likened investing in gold to “going long on fear.”

Well, the Oracle of Omaha, as he is known, seems to be reluctantly bracing for a return of fear in the markets. His Berkshire Hathaway holding company recently dumped shares of U.S. banks and went long a major gold producer.

News of Buffett’s acquisition helped send the mining sector sharply higher on Monday. It also stirred discussions in the financial media about the gold trade.

CNBC Anchor: We want to hit on the hot topic of the moment, which is gold and the gold ETF here. Gold miners are spiking on very heavy volume here after billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway firm revealed he’s bidding on Barrick Gold. That’s very, very interesting.

RT News Anchor: Warren Buffet, one of the world’s richest men, is selling off his investments in banks like Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, and you know what he’s doing? He’s buying up gold. Why? Begs the question, doesn’t it? What does Warren Buffet know that you and I don’t know?

Some say Buffett’s investing acumen isn’t what it once was. His performance has lagged behind the S&P 500 in recent years.

But Buffett isn’t aiming to outrace the stock market on the upside these days. By raising cash and taking out a stake in a gold miner, he is setting himself up to weather the next bear market in equities.

According to the famous Warren Buffett investing maxim, rule number one is ‘don’t lose money.’ Rule number two is ‘don’t forget rule number one.’

Buffet has good reason to fear losing money in the stock market at these levels. The current divergence between sky-high U.S. stock values and a contracting U.S. GDP raises alarm bells among followers of Buffett.

The ‘Buffett Indicator’ as it is known in Wall Street circles takes total stock market capitalization and divides it by total GDP. Stocks are currently trading at 1.7 times GDP. That’s 70% above the historical average – fully in bubble territory according to this indicator.

So, Buffett has good reason to dial down his exposure to the financial sector and obtain some counter-cyclical assets such as gold equities. Of course, mining companies are still vulnerable to economic risks and are more volatile than gold bullion itself.

With mining production of gold down 15% year over year, investment buying going gangbusters, and the Federal Reserve vowing to depreciate the U.S. dollar at an accelerated pace, it doesn’t take an oracle to grasp why gold traded up to a new record high recently.

Buffett may personally own more gold than he lets on publicly. He may also be thinking about acquiring some silver.

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