market folly

Given that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben "Helicopter Make it Rain Dollar Bills" Bernanke just announced QE3 (quantitative easing) that sent the price of gold higher yesterday, we were sent an interesting infographic with some facts on everyone's favorite precious metal.

For years now, we've highlighted how many prominent hedge fund managers have owned gold in some capacity (either physically, or via proxies like exchange traded funds GLD or IAU).

John Paulson started a gold fund as a bet against the US dollar.  Others bought gold as an uncertainty hedge.  Greenlight Capital's David Einhorn continues to own gold as a top holding.  And Third Point's Dan Loeb continues to own gold as his 2nd largest position.

Here's some notable recent facts about gold:

- Current market value of all gold is $8 trillion

- All available gold is equal to approximately half of the public debt of the USA

- US gold reserves amount to 77% of the national foreign exchange reserves

- China's gold reserves account for only 1.8% of its total reserves

- Annual gold consumption for investment: 1,640 tonnes (about 50 million gold coins)


And here's the infographic:

Source: Trustable Gold