Is it Gold to the Rescue?

In recent days, newsletter writer Dennis Gartman, reversed his call on gold saying,"The authorities have no choice but to inflate their way out of themorass that they’ve found themselves falling into and that shall meanthe diminution of currencies generally and the advancement of gold asthe only currency not diminished."

Not to be outdone, James Turk, renowned gold market analyst and fellow newsletter writer, recently joined the chorus making a case for gold at $11,000 an ounce.Turk is hardy alone in his lofty predictions as numerous well-known writers and analysts agree with the prospect of gold at $10,000 an ounce or higher.

Is this possible?Is this why you should own gold?

Let's put things into perspective.Since the credit crisis began, gold prices have more than doubled, up 125% even after today's pullback.Custom Chart MakerMeanwhile, the Dow is down 16%, the S&P is down 21% and the NASDAQ is down 6%.To arrive at these current standings, $11 trillion of printed money has been pumped into the economy.Oh, and by the way, that was 7 million jobs ago.

Basically, we're in worse shape now than we were pre-crisis which begs the question.Do we pull the plug on any further stimulus and risk depression or do we print more money.Either way gold is in a win win situation.We know what gold can do if we stimulate.What we can only imagine is how high gold will go if we don't.Stocks on the other hand appear to be in a lose lose position.We stimulate and they lose a little.We don't stimulate and they crash.

Do the math.A stock portfolio diversified with 20% gold at the outset of this crisis could have been rescued from negative returns.So while it may be exciting to speculate about $11,000 an ounce gold, the real reason to own gold is to be diversified into something that has potential to rescue your other investments if the worst comes to pass.