Gold is having a moment as demand for safe havens rises amid geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, Europe and Asia, but the rally won’t convert one of the biggest bullion haters — Warren Buffett. The main reasons that the Oracle of Omaha dislikes gold is that it doesn’t produce anything, like profits, it’s impossible to value and rises and falls based on nothing more than speculation. “Gold … has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative,” Buffett said in his 2011 annual letter. “True, gold has some industrial and decorative utility, but the demand for these purposes is both limited and incapable of soaking up new production. Meanwhile, if you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end.” Gold hit a new, all-time high above $2,400 an ounce on Friday, enjoying its third straight week of gains. Investors have been bidding up the precious metal as geopolitical risks rise. Meanwhile, because of its limited supply and the inability of governments to print more of it, gold is sometimes used as an inflation hedge. @GC.1 YTD mountain Gold Buffett once conjured up a scenario to illustrate his point about gold: if you took all the gold in the world, you would have a cube 67-feet high and 67-feet wide, which would have been worth $7 trillion based on then prevailing market prices (he said in a 2011 interview. ) “So you could have a choice of owning a third of all the stocks in the United States or you could have a choice of owning that little block of gold, which can’t do anything but kind of shine there and make you feel like Midas or Croesus or something of the sort,” he said. The Berkshire Hathaway CEO said he would much rather buy productive assets, whether they are businesses, farms or real estate, which could increase output — and value — even in an inflationary environment. ‘Going long on fear’ The legendary, 93-year-old investor believes that what motivates most gold purchasers is their belief that the ranks of the fearful will grow. “Basically gold is a way of going long on fear,” Buffett said in the 2011 interview. “You really have to hope people become more afraid in [a] year or two years than they are now. And if they become more afraid you make money, if they become less afraid you lose money.” Silver buying spree Buffett’s vocal criticism of gold doesn’t mean that he’s never dabbled in precious metals. In the late 1990s, the Ben Graham acolyte went on a big silver buying spree, with Berkshire owning 129.7 million ounces of silver. He said in 1997 that he started buying silver as bullion inventories fell, leading him to believe that a higher price would be needed to establish equilibrium between supply and demand. Buffett said inflation expectations played no part in his silver bet at the time. The silver position was less than 2% of Berkshire’s investment portfolio at the time. Buffett made his first purchase of silver in the 1960s in anticipation of the government removing the metal from U.S. coins .
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