Certainly can elaborate crcr. I got the future forecast numbers (although the underlying assumptions are questionable) from a few commercial analysts (including: Yahoo Finance, The Economist, The Times), and created a simple regression using SPSS 18. The results seemed quite interesting as the correlations were quite high, so I decided to view historical trends (although only novice traders tend to focus on historical trends and incorporate charts into there analysis).
In particular, I researched dependent asset classes that may have an influence on the FTSE index and certain economic indicators that attempt to predict the economic climate over the next 6 months. Most importantly, analysed many of the companies quarter two reports. They seem to be ostensibly healthy and 6000 by years end is rather pessimistic.
Gold is safe in terms of robust demand and scarcity of supply. Unlike other minerals (namely oil), bringing more gold onto markets can take up to 10 years and billions need to be invested first (this is now a bigger concern than ever before). This combined with the inherent nature for the demand of gold in certain cultures (Indian & China) makes it a almost certain gainer in the longer term for the backbone of a portfolio, hedging for riskier bets. Did you know that rural India has the same quantity of gold as that in the US reserve.
I tend to execute trades over the phone and therefore follow my portfolio using demo accounts, so any trade I do make on a demo is usually followed up over the phone.
Indeed, demo accounts don't mean ****. I could open up 40 accounts, of which 20 going long and 20 going short. Of the 20 that rise, again I could go 10 short, 10 long. Of the 10 that rise, I could go 5 short, 5 long. Of the 5 that rise again I could go 2/3 short, 2/3 long. Of the 2/3 that rise I could go 1/2 long, 1/2 short. This could plausibly generate 500K profit over a few months. What point are you trying to make?