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For the most part gold is pegged to the dollar. If the market perceives Fed tightening by more than a quarter point then I'd want out. Recently a couple of Fed governors came out with differing views: first one says a half a point and a day or two later another says there may not be a need as previous Fed hiking have yet to fully have their affect (lag). The global run up in hard commodities (metals) and oil has been percieved as inflationary. My take is that these forces have yet to work their way through the economy.

Gold is a hedge and most financial consultants will tell you it should not exceed 5-10% of one's portfolio. It can be played by investing in the mining stocks. Barrick and Newmont are two of the biggest cap domestic companies. Know that hard gold (bullion) is usually bought at retail and sold at wholesale. Of course, if the shit hits the fan and the dollar becomes worthless then it makes sense to own gold coins. But if that ever happened it probably would make more sense to invest in underground tanks for gasoline, nat gas, etc. Not to mention bullets and pistols which likewise could be bartered during such a time. I'm sure some, especially of the Libertarian stripe who see the world through a different lense will tell you to go whole hog. Unfortunately, those who wear their politics and ideology on their shirt sleeve make for bad investors.

"Barrick"

I see the hit. Barrick is the one gold stock I would never buy becaused they are hedged way beyond their heads. It is very doubtful at this point if they will ever be able to profit from the coming increase in the POG.

Your guns and bullets are a good idea but you forgot booze.

Barrick and Newmont are two of the biggest cap domestic companies.

Assuming "domestic" means "Canadian".

Not to bust your balls or anything, but a major chunk of the gold mining market is controlled by Canadian companies, even in the US (a major gold producer). Not an argument, just nitpicking a technicality. :-)

I am not particularly bullish on the price of gold. The internal reserve numbers for companies like Barrick and Newmont deviate significantly from their published reserve numbers in that the internally estimated reserves are significantly larger than the published reserves. This is evidenced in the percentage of production that is not produced from any previously published reserve.

If I was going into metals, I like the platinum group much better.