Linux Flourishes In 200-Year-Old Gold Markets 195
tbarkerload writes "H-Online [a spin off of a major German daily] reports on a gold trader managing over 15 tonnes of gold, worth $660m, with a platform built on open source tech. BullionVault operates a 24-7 electronic market in gold bullion open to both retail and professional traders. Their systems handle thousands of daily transactions from both human traders and bots operating through their API. If Linux has reached the world of hundred year old assaying firms, and Swiss vaults buried in mountains, can final world domination be too far away?"
Anyone else hoarding gold? (Score:4, Interesting)
Quick question: Is anyone else buying up physical, in-your-possession gold? Given all that's been going on, it seems like it's virtually impossible for major currencies *not* to get severely devalued. The massive underfunded pension tidal waves, medicare programs, new spending, banks that will be unable to pay back loans...
I recently bought at Bullion Direct [bulliondirect.com], a few Canadian Maple gold coins. Well, Bullion Vault just got some free advertising, because it looks like they offer a better deal on an ounce of gold. But I think you're best off buying in coin form since you may have some defense in the even the government decides to seize gold; it will probably exempt some small amount for "collector's purposes", which wouldn't apply to bars.
Re:Anyone else hoarding gold? (Score:3, Interesting)
What is the "price"? Most people think of price in nominal terms, EG: so many Dollars/Pounds/Marks/Sheiks/Yen/Whatever.
But when the amount of money available on the marketplace fluctuates, then the "price" of commodities fluctuates.
Gold, as valued in dollars, has fluctuated in price internationally roughly as much as other internationally traded commodities such as oil and iron, indicating that it's not the price of gold that's fluctuating so much as the value of the money used to buy it. On the surface, this appears to indicate inflation, but at the same time, the actual amount of money that the average joe takes home is dropping, which appears to indicate deflation.
Of course, the marketplace is all over the map, with all indications that we're seeing stagflation, which is really bad. [wikipedia.org]
Re:how much? (Score:1, Interesting)
Yeah, not sure how this is news...
thousands of daily transactions
Thousands you say?