The world’s central bank leaders continue to spike the monetary punch bowl, with investors imbibing on gold once again. This flurry of gold buying prompts many curious investors and doubting media to ask me two questions: 1) How can demand for gold and gold stocks continue; and 2) How high can the precious metal go?

To answer these questions, we need to look at the intentions behind the economic and political decision-making across several developed countries, analyze the causes, the effects, and the possible ramifications.

For example, one of the most debated topics today is America’s ongoing unemployment situation. Job loss has affected the lives and pocketbooks of millions of Americans and our friends and families, culminating to a center-stage position in the election this year. All eyes turn to President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to explain how each intends to create jobs.

During the two years following the Great Recession, Americans lost jobs at a similar rate to the employment losses during the Great Depression and in Finland after 1991. But two years after the crisis, U.S. employment losses stopped and reversed direction.

Compare this to the situations in Norway, Spain, Finland and Sweden, each of which had prolonged unemployment. After Norway’s financial crisis in 1987, it took 8.5 years to return to the country’s employment peak. It took 13 years for Spain’s employment to return to its 1997 peak. For Finland and Sweden, it took more than 17 years following their 1991 peaks.

Although the job losses in the U.S. don’t seem as dismal, “Helicopter” Ben Bernanke wants to avoid Europe’s and Japan’s catastrophic situations. To him, the economy “has not been growing fast enough recently to make significant progress in bringing down unemployment.”

In a speech to the Economic Club of Indiana on October 1, Bernanke explained that the Fed is “charged with promoting a healthy economy,” which includes “an economy with low unemployment, low and stable inflation, and a financial system that meets the economy’s needs for credit and other services.” With regards to the decisions relating to monetary policy, the Fed’s goals are dictated by Congress and are to seek “maximum employment and price stability.” He explains, “We would like to see as many Americans as possible who want jobs to have jobs and that we aim to keep the rate of increase in consumer prices low and stable.”

Ten years earlier, Ben hinted at the way he might accomplish such goals as a Fed chairman. In a speech regarding deflation, he shared his position on a government’s means to print money, referring to Milton Friedman’s comment about dropping money out of a helicopter into the economy. He stated, "The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at no cost." Since then, he’s been known as "Helicopter Ben."

With unemployment continuing, the Fed’s helicopter drops another $40 billion per month to buy mortgage-backed securities, as well as an additional $45 billion of longer-term securities per month through the end of the year.

And, as Bank of America-Merrill Lynch says, “monetary policy is contagious.” The Fed’s money printing practice to help create jobs is only one part of the picture. Along with the growing U.S. monetary base, global liquidity has been growing every year for the past 12 years. As you can see, both of these factors have a close correlation to the rise of gold.

While well-intentioned, I believe these “quantitative infinity” programs may have a devastating devaluing effect on currencies, which has helped to spur gold prices over this entire time period.

Gold investors have recognized this correlation by returning to gold en masse. In August, investors rushed into gold, with the massive inflows of money going into the gold exchange traded products in August more than each of the prior five months.

Buying continued in September, with gold lovers loading up on coins. According to Bloomberg, people purchased the most American Eagles from the U.S. Mint in eight months. Almost 70,000 ounces were sold last month—the most sold since January when the U.S. Mint sold 127,000 ounces.

Miners also attracted interest, with the FTSE Gold Mines Index experiencing a rise of 13.25 percent and the NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index rising 12 percent during the month of September alone. See how U.S. Global gold funds performed.

So how high can gold go? If you factor in only the Fed’s program to purchase mortgages and Treasuries, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch says that over the next nine months gold could go to $2,000, and by the end of 2014, gold could be at $2,400.

This target doesn’t take the Love Trade into consideration. Over the past several months, we’ve heard only chirping crickets from India, the country that has historically been the world’s largest consumer of gold. Demand suffered under a very weak rupee, as the price of gold in the local currency climbed to an all-time high.

The rupee’s recent strength has helped to increase Indian gold demand with flows climbing to a five-month high, according to UBS. What’s helped bring shoppers back to the market is the fact that the exchange rate is back to where the rupee was in April.

This improvement in the currency comes just in time, as the wedding season is in full bloom. Every year, about 10,000 weddings are held in India from late September through January, in between the monsoons and the summer heat. Gold has historically been closely linked with the celebration of weddings, as the bride wears the precious metal and gifts of gold coins are given to the newlyweds.

In addition, Diwali will be celebrated in November. The Festival of Lights is India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year and is celebrated by almost 1 billion Hindus around the world. Traditionally, on the first day of Diwali, it is considered auspicious to clean the home and shop for gold.

Why is India so significant to gold? As you can see below, from 2000 through 2011, the rising incomes in both China and India have been strongly correlated to the price of gold.

Investors now have two strong reasons to invest in gold: the Fear Trade, driven by an expanding monetary base, and the Love Trade, driven by rising gold demand in Chindia. If you’re already sold on gold, make sure to maintain a modest 5 to 10 percent weighting in gold and gold stocks. For those investors who don’t hold gold, what’s stopping you?

The FTSE Gold Mines Index Series encompasses all gold mining companies that have a sustainable and attributable gold production of at least 300,000 ounces a year, and that derive 75% or more of their revenue from mined gold. The NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index is a modified market capitalization weighted index comprised of publicly traded companies involved primarily in the mining for gold and silver.  The index benchmark value was 500.0 at the close of trading on December 20, 2002.

Commodities are the necessary building blocks of the world. Glance around you—commodities are what the world needs to live and prosper and are everywhere you look. The world’s seven billion people need resources, and that’s why we recommend investors consistently allocate a portion of their portfolio to a natural resources investment.

Not every investment is the same, though. Even within the commodities space, when looking at measures such as correlation, performance and risk, two indexes can have very different effects on a portfolio’s results.

Take two popular commodity-related indices for example, the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index (DJUBS) and the Morgan Stanley Commodity Related Index (CRX).

The DJUBS is made of futures contracts on various physical commodities that represent major commodity sectors such as agriculture, energy, grains, metals, livestock and precious metals. Basically, futures are contracts between a buyer and seller, where the buyer agrees to purchase a specific commodity for a specific price and specific time in the future.

The CRX is comprised of stocks involved in commodity related industries, such as energy, non-ferrous metals, agriculture and forest products.

Yet, while both indices are diversified across various commodities, their correlations to the overall market differ.

Take a look at the matrix looking at 10 years of data. The table lists the S&P 500 Index, which represents the overall U.S. stock market, and the two commodity indices. When two asset classes or investments are perfectly correlated to each other, their performance moves are in sync and they have a correlation of 1; 0 means that the two investments have no correlation to each other.

Over the past decade through June 30, 2012, you can see the DJUBS and the S&P 500 have had a correlation of 0.80. The CRX and the S&P 500 had a correlation of 0.62. This means the CRX is less correlated to the overall market than the DJUBS.

And why is a low correlation beneficial? In a diversified portfolio, it can reduce an investor’s volatility.

In the article “Material World,” Financial Planning found that a low correlation is a “valuable feature” for natural resources mutual funds. When author Craig Israelsen compared the correlation to the overall market to the 10-year annualized returns of 18 natural resources funds with 10 years of performance records, “a clear pattern” emerged. “Natural resources funds with lower correlations (that is, closer to zero) had better performances during this span,” he says.

See the article now.

Over the past 10 years, this pattern was prevalent in the CRX, as commodity producers far outperformed the index of commodity futures.

How to Optimize Your Portfolio with Commodities

So how do correlations and long-term performance translate to your portfolio? One way to look at this would be to create an efficient frontier, which charts a range of allocations to commodities and the overall market to see which portfolio would be most efficient, i.e., which portfolio enhances returns without adding risk.

To find the optimal portfolio between commodities and the overall market, the efficient frontier plots different portfolios, ranging from a 100 percent allocation to an investment in the S&P 500 and gradually increasing the percentage of commodities. Each dot along the path of the efficient frontier represents an incremental increase toward a 100 percent allocation to commodities investment.

First, we chart the efficient frontier of the DJUBS and the S&P 500. A 100 percent allocation to the S&P 500 would result in a portfolio achieving a 5.9 percent return and 20.3 percent annualized volatility.

Assuming the portfolio was rebalanced each quarter, our research found that a portfolio holding 25 percent allocation to the commodities futures and 75 percent allocation to an investment in U.S. equities would decrease an investor’s return by about 0.17 percent while decreasing volatility by a little more than 3 percent. Simply, the addition of commodity futures yields less volatility for about the same return.

A different picture emerges when you chart an efficient frontier for a portfolio invested in commodity equities and the overall market. In a portfolio of 25 percent commodity equities and 75 percent U.S. stocks, an investor reduces their risk by almost 1 percent while increasing their return by nearly 1.5 percent.

How Resourceful Is Your Portfolio?

The charts above illustrate how the power of commodities enhances a portfolio, although a 25 percent allocation may be a little too aggressive. For reference, about 15 percent of the S&P 500 Index is made up of energy and materials companies.

The Global Resources Fund (PSPFX) uses the CRX as its benchmark, and we’re pleased to say that over the past 10 years, the four-star fund* has outperformed its benchmark, resulting in even greater returns for shareholders.

Put commodities to work in your portfolio today.

* The Global Resources Fund earned a 4-star Morningstar Overall Rating™ among 121 natural resources funds as of 8/31/2012. The Global Resources Fund earned a 3-star Morningstar Overall Rating™ among 124 natural resources funds as of 6/30/2012.

Please consider carefully a fund’s investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. For this and other important information, obtain a fund prospectus by visiting www.usfunds.com or by calling 1-800-US-FUNDS (1-800-873-8637). Read it carefully before investing. Distributed by U.S. Global Brokerage, Inc.

Foreign and emerging market investing involves special risks such as currency fluctuation and less public disclosure, as well as economic and political risk. Because the Global Resources Fund concentrates its investments in a specific industry, the fund may be subject to greater risks and fluctuations than a portfolio representing a broader range of industries.

Morningstar Ratings are based on risk-adjusted return. The Overall Morningstar Rating for a fund is derived from a weighted-average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five- and ten-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. Past performance does not guarantee future results. For each fund with at least a three-year history, Morningstar calculates a Morningstar Rating based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a fund’s monthly performance (including the effects of sales charges, loads, and redemption fees), placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The top 10% of funds in each category receive 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. (Each share class is counted as a fraction of one fund within this scale and rated separately, which may cause slight variations in the distribution percentages.)

The Morgan Stanley Commodity Related Index (CRX) is an equal-dollar weighted index of 20 stocks involved in commodity related industries such as energy, non-ferrous metals, agriculture, and forest products. The index was developed with a base value of 200 as of March 15, 1996. The S&P 500 Stock Index is a widely recognized capitalization-weighted index of 500 common stock prices in U.S. companies. The Dow Jones UBS Commodity Index is composed of futures contracts on physical commodities, and includes commodities traded on U.S. exchanges, with the exception of aluminum, nickel and zinc, which trade on the London Metal Exchange (LME). Diversification does not protect an investor from market risks and does not assure a profit.

Negativity persists among investors, as evidenced by the ongoing stream of money leaving equity funds into bond funds. It’s challenging to pinpoint the origin of the pessimism because it comes from all over the globe. Daily polls finding Americans at an extreme political division, scenes of anti-austerity riots in Greece and Spain, and the Shanghai Composite Index falling to new lows are only three recent examples.

On one of my frequent visits to ted.com to seek different ways of thinking about very familiar subjects, I came across a presentation by Harvard University Professor Nicholas Christakis called, “How social networks predict epidemics.” I was fascinated by how he helped shed light on this unrelenting feeling of doom that has left so many people lacking confidence in equities.

Christakis showed how our world has an embedded social network fabric with various interconnections. Each person’s position in the social network varies, depending on his or her friends, families, coworkers, as well as genes. Where we are structurally located in this global network can impact our health, emotions and attitudes, he says. We all recognize how viruses spread through a network but don’t realize how a problem like obesity can also be contagious.

What does catching the flu or gaining weight have to do with negative sentiment? If you don’t think connections matter, consider the difference between a pencil and a diamond. Although these two common objects are both made of carbon, the atoms are arranged differently, causing the graphite to be soft and dark and diamonds to be hard and clear.

He explains:

“So, similarly, the pattern of connections among people confers upon the groups of people different properties. It is the ties between people that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. And so it is not just what’s happening to these people—whether they’re losing weight or gaining weight, or becoming rich or becoming poor, or becoming happy or not becoming happy—that affects us; it’s also the actual architecture of the ties around us.

“Our experience of the world depends on the actual structure of the networks in which we’re residing and on all the kinds of things that ripple and flow through the network. Now, the reason, I think, that this is the case is that human beings assemble themselves and form a kind of superorganism. Now, a superorganism is a collection of individuals which show or evince behaviors or phenomena that are not reducible to the study of individuals and that must be understood by reference to, and by studying, the collective.”

Christakis suggests that if we understand how social networks form and operate, we can understand how major events such as crime and warfare happen, how economic events including bank runs and market crashes occur, and how investor pessimism can persist.

Watch now:

Watch on the TED Website.

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