Sat, Jul 13, 2002 page12

• Investors turning to gold, real estate

  • BLOOMBERG
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  Falling stock prices, investigations of corporate deceit, and money-market funds that yield little more than inflation have pushed investors to real estate and precious metals as a shelter for their cash.

  US homebuyers are increasing down payments as a share of property values, and consumers are becoming reacquainted with gold pieces such as American Eagles and Krugerrands. Bullion has won converts among younger Japanese investors, even as the government is trying to entice them into bonds with ads by a movie star.

  Tangible assets such as homes may become even more attractive to US investors, who this week saw the Standard & Poor's 500 Index drop to its lowest level since 1997. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co joined the list of companies, including WorldCom Inc and Adelphia Communications Corp, whose financial and accounting practices are under federal scrutiny.

  "I want to be able to understand where my money is," says Martha Kumar, a political science professor at Towson University in Towson, Maryland, who recently made a down payment worth 36 percent of the value of her new home in Washington. "In real estate, you can see that."

  Median down payments for repeat home buyers are up to an average of 25 percent of US home values, compared with 19 percent in 1999, according to the National Association of Realtors, a Washington-based trade group.

  More Americans are seeking the comfort of precious metals as well. This week, a banker bought 1,524 one-ounce American Gold Eagle coins, worth about US$500,000, says Michael Kramer, head trader at Manfra Tordella & Brookes Inc, a metals dealer in New York.

  "One guy is buying 200 to 300 ounces of gold a week," Kramer says. Many people started picking up bullion at below US$300 per ounce earlier this year, he says, so "it is the first time in years that somebody has been able to have a profit."

  At FH Coins & Collectibles, a dusty, standing-room-only shop crammed with old porcelain and crystal as well as coins on New York's Upper East Side, owner David Heller says people are calling up or walking in off the street three out of five days a week and asking how to buy gold. Usually, he sells them American Eagle, Canada Maple Leaf, or South African Krugerrand coins.

  "A year ago, you couldn't give it away," he says. Gold, which doesn't pay dividends, was trading below US$300 an ounce and "you couldn't interest anybody in buying." Demand at his shop now is almost as strong as it was in 1999, when investors hoarded gold on fears that the arrival of Jan. 1, 2000 would cause computers to malfunction and throw business into chaos. "With everything going on in the economy, people want something substantial," he says.

  Gold for August delivery rose June 4 to US$328.80 an ounce, the highest closing price for the metal since October 1997. Back then, stocks had tumbled in reaction to a slump in Asian economies. Last month, investors were concerned that India and Pakistan were going to war. A year ago, gold fetched US$266.

  Few analysts expect gold, trading at more than US$310 since mid-May, to exceed US$400 an ounce this year. Sales of jewelry, the largest consumer, have declined. And central banks, which hold about one-fourth of above-ground reserves, continue to sell.

  The gold market, "has an 800-pound gorilla in it and that is the world central banks," says Joseph Haubrich, an economist at the Fed Bank of Cleveland.

  Holdings have declined from an estimated 45.8 percent of total government reserves in 1985 to an estimated 12.2 percent in 2001.

  The recent price gains are attracting investors in Japan who have few other investment options.
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