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Last summer, someone predicted gold would fall to $1,000 by the start of 2016. The rationale is that gold is primarily a "safe haven" asset in times of economic and market turmoil and that the U.S. faced very little recession risk — so there is no reason for investors to seek the shelter of gold.
But gold bears fail to grasp what really drives the price of gold — and what has caused it to surge more than 15 percent so far in 2016.
Gold is not merely a "safe haven" asset. Rather, it is the best form of money known to humankind because of its scarcity and indestructibility.
The major rationale Wall Street has used for years to eschew the metal is that it pays no interest. After all, why own an asset that pays you nothing if you can safely earn money on bank deposits and short-term sovereign debt? But now this is no longer true. With negative interest rates on sovereign debt and near-zero percent customer deposit rates now the norm, there are no lost opportunity costs for owning gold.
Inflation has traditionally been great for gold because it is a necessary ingredient to push positive nominal rates down into negative territory. And, of course, when your real return on cash is negative, investors flock to a commodity that has a long history of retaining its purchasing power. What gold bears fail to recognize is that, since central banks have already pushed rates into the basement, inflation need not be present to make real interest rates negative.
But gold bears fail to grasp what really drives the price of gold — and what has caused it to surge more than 15 percent so far in 2016.
Gold is not merely a "safe haven" asset. Rather, it is the best form of money known to humankind because of its scarcity and indestructibility.
The major rationale Wall Street has used for years to eschew the metal is that it pays no interest. After all, why own an asset that pays you nothing if you can safely earn money on bank deposits and short-term sovereign debt? But now this is no longer true. With negative interest rates on sovereign debt and near-zero percent customer deposit rates now the norm, there are no lost opportunity costs for owning gold.
Inflation has traditionally been great for gold because it is a necessary ingredient to push positive nominal rates down into negative territory. And, of course, when your real return on cash is negative, investors flock to a commodity that has a long history of retaining its purchasing power. What gold bears fail to recognize is that, since central banks have already pushed rates into the basement, inflation need not be present to make real interest rates negative.
