This week, Your News to Know rounds up the latest top stories involving gold and the overall economy. Stories include: How the expansion of money supply is boosting gold’s allure, an overview of last year’s precious metals imports to the U.S., and U.S. Mint releases final batch of American Gold Eagle coins with current design.
Historic monetary stimulus is casting a bright light on tangible assets
The multi-trillion dollar stimulus appears to have achieved the desired effect, at least in the short term. The influx of freshly-printed, free floating money encouraged risk-on sentiment, increased bond yields and caused money managers to once again turn away from gold.
Yet, as Forbes columnist Frank Holmes points out, the pressures coming down on gold right now could turn out to be its most powerful tailwind further down the line.
According to the Forbes article, M1 (the amount of readily-available or liquid money in circulation) should be approached the same as any other asset class. This is usually the case; many investors treat cash as a part of their portfolios. Therefore, the law of supply and demand should also be applied to cash. In light of the recent monetary expansion, cash quickly starts to look overabundant in the economy.
Holmes notes that M1 has expanded by 355% year-on-year, marking the highest annual rate increase on record by a wide margin. Unsurprisingly, inflation expectations for the next five years based on the Treasury breakeven rate have risen to their highest level since 2011, when gold posted its previous all-time high. Today’s gold price may be some ways off from August’s peak of $2,070, but there are plenty of analysts calling for a retrace this year, and Holmes thinks inflation could kickstart the next round of gold price gains.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
