金价终于要反弹了？

    数百年来，黄金曾经一度作为全球货币体系的基础，政治上倾向自由派的投资者尤其青睐它。在此类人士看来，许多政府领导人和央行都是不称职的，他们如今把货币体系的基础建立在了浮动汇率制而非硬金属的价值之上。

    黄金狂热者在本世纪头10年可谓春风得意，当时，赤字上升加之美元大幅贬值，黄金迎来了自通胀严重的上世纪七八十年代以来的最好时期。金融危机进一步增加了黄金的吸引力，当时，全球政府看似都无力阻止银行系统彻底崩溃。几年后，欧债危机进一步强化了这一观点，即黄金价格只可能继续上涨。

    然而，令金本位者困惑不解的是，金价于2011年秋季达到峰值后，就一路下跌到现在。

    The shiny metal, which for centuries was the basis of the global monetary system, is beloved particularly by investors whose political beliefs tilt libertarian. These are the sort of people who are convinced of the incompetence of political leaders and central banks that now run a monetary system based on floating exchange rates rather than the value of hard metals.

    Gold enthusiasts had their moment in the sun during the 2000s, when the combination of rising deficits and a sharply falling dollar helped give the precious metal its best stretch since the inflation-racked 1970s and 1980s. The financial crisis only increased gold’s appeal, when it seemed like governments around the globe might not be able to save their banking systems from total collapse. A few years later, the European debt crisis added even more weight to the notion that the price of gold could only go in one direction: up.

    Since gold’s peek in the fall of 2011, though, it’s been in a free-fall, confounding the gold-bug community.

    Ritholtz财富管理公司的巴里•里萨兹指出，金本位者最近几个月提出的（金价将上涨）论断没有一条灵验。

    瑞士选民否决了要求瑞士央行——瑞士国家银行以黄金形式持有至少20%资产（该行资产总额为5200亿瑞士法郎）的提案。另一个传言是，印度将削减黄金进口关税，黄金需求将猛增，但印度最终决定维持关税不变。最新的臆断是，一家名为Goldcore的公司声称，新推出的黄金版苹果手表，每年将消耗“高达756公吨黄金……约相当于全球黄金年开采量的三分之一”。这简直荒唐到可笑了。

    实际情况恰恰相反，随着美国退出量化宽松，加之美国经济明显好转，美元持续走高，金价因此不断下跌。但是，金价总有一天会触底。而黄金毕竟不同于那些外强中干的低价股。黄金饰品的需求将持续强劲，特别是随着中国和印度的富裕阶层不断壮大。与此同时，世界各国央行仍持有大量黄金，而且黄金作为避险工具的观念短期内也不会消失。

    比安科研究公司分析师吉姆•比安科提出，金价可能已经触底。他的观点首先建立在“技术分析”上，即通过观察股票或期货走势图，以历史走势来预测未来走向。较之2011年的峰值，金价已下跌近50％，这是一个临界点，技术分析派人士认为，股票和大宗商品在达到该临界点时，通常会触底反弹。

    其次，比安科指出，黄金交易所交易基金（Gold ETF）的数据显示，金融危机后几年跟风投资黄金的资金眼下大都已经离场。那几年金价大涨，部分原因在于ETF使普通投资者无需太大本钱，就能轻轻松松的分享金价上涨。如今，ETF所持有的黄金数量低于2010年的水平，而金融危机后的金价攀升基本发生在2010年后。

    As Barry Ritholtz of Ritholtz Wealth Management points out, none of the arguments put forward by the gold-bug community in recent months have actually panned out:

    The ballot proposal requiring the Swiss National Bank to hold at least 20 percent of its 520 billion franc ($523 billion) balance sheet in gold was rejected by Swiss voters. Another tale: India was going to cut its import duty on gold, leading to soaring demand. But India decided to maintain the duty. The latest bout of wishful thinking was that a gold version of the new Apple watch would consume “up to 756 metric tonnes of gold per year . . . this equates to roughly a third of gold’s total annual global mine supply,” according to a company called Goldcore . . . that fantasy was laughable on its face.

    Instead, the continuing strengthening of the dollar—a trend bolstered by the end of QE and the apparent strengthening of the U.S. economy—has continued to force gold prices downward. But the bottom must come at some point. Gold, after all, isn’t some pumped-up penny stock. There will always be strong and consistent demand for the metal as jewelry, especially in a world where nations like China and India have rapidly growing affluent classes. Meanwhile, central banks across the world maintain large holdings of the metal, and the idea that gold is a hedge against catastrophe isn’t going away anytime soon.

    Analyst Jim Bianco of Bianco Research argues that gold may have already reached its bottom. His first point is from the “technical analysis” school, which looks at historical patterns in stock charts to predict future movements. Gold has nearly fallen 50% from its 2011 peek, a critical level for believers in technical analysis, when stocks and commodities often rebound.

    Second, Bianco points out that if you look at Gold ETF data, much of the dumb money that jumped on the gold bandwagon during the frantic post-crisis years has left. Gold’s big post-crisis surge was driven in part by ETFs that allowed average investors to get in on gold’s rise easily and inexpensively. But today, the gold holdings of ETFs are lower than they were in 2010, before much of gold’s crisis-driven ascent.