The Gold Guarantee, a company that had a gold buy-back with discount scheme similar to companies like Genneva Gold and The Gold Label, made its way onto the front page article of the Business Times recently.

Of course, all of us know what happened to The Gold Label.

Anyway, since The Gold Guarantee started in July last year, it has managed to sell almost 2 tonnes of gold.

You can read the entire article about The Gold Guarantee here:

New gold player emerges with ’buyback offer’ (Business Times)

Bao Jing Trading, a company that offered a gold investment scheme, appears to have defaulted.

Investors with Bao Jing Trading were promised monthly returns of 1.5% to 3% through an elaborate buyback scheme. If they left their gold bars with the company, the returns could go up to even 7-10%.

At least 120 investors are now feared to have lost up to S$40 million with their gold investments.

The office of Bao Jin in Rochor is currently empty and the Malaysian owners have also since gone missing.

Many investors were also afraid to make a police report as the owners had threatened them that they would not be able to get back their money if they did so.

According to ACRA, the Bao Jing Trading was registered using a HDB flat address in Jurong East. The owner of the flat denied any links with the company.

Actually, there were already tell tale signs a couple of years back that Bao Jing was in trouble. According to this article in the Straits Times back in February 2009, an investor who invested $5000 with Bao Jing and was promised a monthly return of $150 had problems getting back his money when he tried to end the agreement.

Despite this, the company was able to continue operating for another two years and con Singaporeans of their hard earned money.

If there is any company out there that promises to give you a guaranteed monthly return of 2-3%, you better be very careful. Because if it turns out to be a scam, you are very much on your own and can forget about getting back any money.

For the second time this month, the CME Group, the operator of New York’s Comex exchange (the main metals and energy exchanges in the U.S.), announced an increase in margin requirements to trade gold. It raised the amount of money needed to trade gold contracts by 27% to $9,450 per 100-ounce contract.

This followed a 22% increase in margin requirements two weeks ago.

After Shanghai Gold Exchange raised its margins on Tuesday, there were rumors that CME would follow suit. This led the price of gold into a correction even before the news was announced.

This price of gold has now dropped more than $160 per ounce from a high of US$1911 on Tuesday to below US$1750 on Wednesday. This was the largest two-day absolute fall in more than thirty years, and a more than 8% correction.

The last time CME hiked the margin requirements for silver four times in May 2011, the price of silver dropped more than 20% in a week.

The current pullback gives a nice entry point for long term bulls on gold to add to their positions, although if the price fails to hold at the current levels, we could be seeing a quick drop back to the US$1650 region.