Fund manager: Why gold is going to $1,550
Thursday, 24 Oct 2013 | 1:07 PM ET
Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital says "you either believe in math or you believe in magic," and math points to gold going much higher. With CNBC's Jackie DeAngelis and the Futures Now Traders.
Brent Johnson, the CEO of Santiago Capital, believes that economic problems in the United States will lead to a $200 rally in gold over the next two months.
"It wouldn't surprise me to be back at $1,500 or $1,550 by the end of the year," the portfolio manager said on Thursday's "Futures Now."
Gold, which settled on Thursday at $1,350 per troy ounce, hasn't touched $1,500 since early April, when it shed more than $200 in two harrowing sessions.
Johnson does note that sentiment around gold is "really low." The latest example of that came on Oct. 8, when the head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, Jeffrey Currie, said that gold would become a "slam dunk sell" after the government shutdown ended and the debt ceiling debate was settled.
"A number of different firms around the world are saying 'Sell gold,' that it's a 'slam dunk sell,' so there's still a lot of negative sentiment out there," Johnson said. "And there are a lot of shorts out there."
(Read more: Gold breaks $1,350; Fed hopes lure traders back to bullion)
To Johnson, this is actually good news.
"You can get a bit of a pop, and all of the sudden those shorts start to cover, people start to realize that QE is here to stay and not going anywhere, and things can change very quickly," he said. "I mean, gold can go up just as quickly as it came down."