We are going for gold!

Dear Followers,

One of the headlines in this week’s financial press was the recently new high of the gold price and the further decline of the dollar as a currency. On Monday the 23^rd of November 2009 the

gold price has reached a new record high while the dollar was down against the euro at $1.4965.

“Should I bet one the dollar or on gold”

I compared three articles from the Financial Times, The Times and the German Die Welt which all reported on the same topic using very different styles also covering different information with different focuses.

The article from the Financial Times where the synonym “Greenback” was used for the dollar was the shortest of all three articles. It is written without any form of bias and makes very clear that the FT is a financial newspaper, which is written for professionals with a large amount of market knowledge and understanding. It is more of a clear report of facts and numbers, which focuses on the development of currencies, the gold price and markets all over the world. There is very few to no explanation regarding the information. The reader has to already be well informed about the situation and has to be able to deal with abbreviations and raw information such as pure market movements and figures.

The article published in The Times on the other hand in my opinion is heavily biased and in my opinion almost gives the reader a recommendation what to do. This can already be identified by title and headline which say “ Be brave and buy the dollar; The dollar tumbled to a 15-month low against top currencies last Monday so it could be time to snap it up”. This will not necessarily influence someone who has market knowledge and can make up his own mind but for the uneducated reader this could clearly be seen as an instruction. I personally find the article very interesting and informative since it clearly reports the opinions and gives statements of well known individuals from the market for either side, the ones that see gold or dollar falling and vice versa. Another point that in my mind states that the article is biased is that in two examples it clearly states and directs the reader on how he could speculate, even giving examples of banks he could use, on the currency and commodity movements in order to make money and the author makes it sound relatively easy. I think the article is very good from an informative point of view since it gives the opinions of market insiders as well as basic information, but it has to be seen very different. I personally don’t like the idea of the heavy bias I can identify and the “advertisement” for market peculations and buying the dollar. In my opinion this is simply not good journalism since it should be plain informative and not guiding, this could almost be seen as a minor form of propaganda, which I consider journalistically unethical for an established newspaper.

The article from the German Die Welt focuses more on gold than the dollar and in my opinion is the best one this week. Even though it includes a lot of numeric and factual data it still makes interesting comparisons for the reader and includes historical and current information, which makes it easier to visualize and understand the topic. It includes historic information about the matter and draws very modest future predictions, which help the reader to analyse and prepare his own situation. There is no form of bias involved in the information and the writing and everything is clearly but briefly explained. It explains the significance of gold for private investors as well as banks, investment firms and governments and their participation and share in the market which I consider very interesting. It overall is highly informative and gives a good amount of factual data which is without any bias wrapped into interesting writing style and sarcasm.

Looking at the information given in the three articles it is hard for me to draw a conclusion. Looking at the current instable situation and the importance of gold and its purpose I definitely do not see the gold price drop in the close future, but I am not in the position to make predictions on either, the gold price or the development of the “greenback”. Even though the article from The Times tries very hard to convince me to invest in the dollar I would currently not believe them. I still strongly believe that

“The press should inform me so I can make my own decisions, the times where the press puts decisions in our heads should be long gone”