How Gold Got Hot

Of the $142.8 billion James Burton supervised in 2002 as chief executive officer of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest public U.S. pension fund, not one peeny was invested in gold. Why would it be? The metal had been in a bear market for two decades.  Yet in early June of that year-when gold was trading in London at about $328 an ounce-he was wooed over a round of gold on a rain-soaked U.K. course to become CEO of the World Gold Council, a mining industry trade group that sought to maximize global demand for the metal.