The just-concluded Group 20 (G20) meeting left us with a chorus of very “prudent” governments and central bankers singing the praises of easy monetary and fiscal conditions. So where can we take refuge when all the central banks in the world print money and governments run deficits in order to spend like drunken sailors? The answer is gold.

Fortunately for us, we foresaw this scenario a while ago. On April 20, I recommended that investors diversify their portfolios by adding the SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSE: GLD).  The fund is up about 14% since that recommendation, but it’s not yet time to sell, as there are still a number of factors working in gold’s favor.

For starters, there is more and more talk of the U.S. dollar losing some of its luster as a reserve currency.  But this debate is moot for the moment.  The reality is

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Chile's economy expanded faster than expected in the second quarter, indicating that the central bank may well feel more comfortable raising interest rates in order to slow inflation further. Chile's GDP grew by 4.3 percent in the second quarter, up from a revised 3.3 percent in the first quarter, according to data out today from the Santiago-based central bank. The faster-than-expected growth was driven by an 11 percent increase in domestic demand, suggesting policy makers have room to raise interest rates further without bringing the economy grinding to a halt. The central bank has raised its overnight rate by 1.25 percentage points to a nine-year high of 7.75 percent this year in an effort to bring down the highest inflation rate since 1994. The central bank raised interest rates by half a percentage point at each of its last two monthly meetings, and most economists now ...