Listen carefully fellas! The last time inflation reached this sort of level – 40 years ago – gold was flying. Inflation means a reduction in the buying power of paper currencies, including how much gold can be bought for a given amount of paper.
Also, the US economy – which is two-thirds driven by consumer spending – may slow this year. The rising costs of essential goods and services are now heaping pressure on household finances, leaving consumers with less left over to spend each month.
Furthermore, cryptocurrencies have fallen well short of being viable methods of payment. Fleeting money flows mean they have been behaving more like highly volatile risk assets, increasingly correlated with US technology shares. Bitcoin is currently trading around US$42,000 compared with a record high of US$69,000 just two months ago.
Gold also has the proven ability to perform when the world throws us a curveball and tends to do well when other assets are performing badly.
Events that could derail shares and bonds this year include: interest rate rises pulling the rug from under debt-ridden parts of the economy or fragile emerging markets, for example, Turkey; or a surge in geopolitical risks, for example, starting in Ukraine, the South China Sea, Iran or my beloved country Afghanistan, Where Taliban tries to invade a neighboring country.
If any of these risks or other, unforeseen shocks come to the fore in 2022, gold could well go on to do what it has done in the past and provide a useful decoupling from falling asset prices elsewhere.
Regards:
The Boy Who Fought Along With US Army To Defeat Taliban, But Couldn't. SURELY BECAUSE NATO DID NOT HAD THE BALLS TO FIGHT FACE TO FACE LIKE A REAL MAN IN THE BATTLE GROUND.