Central Banks Are the Newest HODLers of Gold
The oldest money is the everything hedge for its contemporary guardians.
These “beans” and other forms of gold jewelry are increasingly viewed as the safest investment bet for young Chinese.
Photographer: Bloomberg/BloombergA few weeks ago, when the gold price hit a record high, no one besides a few gold bugs seemed to care. Bitcoin also hit a record high. Everyone cared. Proof came in the personal finance pages of the UK newspapers. The FT had a piece on investing in crypto miners, a long read about what crypto still gets wrong and a cry of pain for UK investors denied the right to hold Bitcoin ETFs. The Telegraph had almost a full page on how to buy. Bitcoin also made made it into the Market Report section of the Daily Mail and got good exposure in the Times too — with another cry of pain for UK investors and the fusty bureaucrats who won’t let them get easy exposure to the asset of the century.
Unless I missed it, none of these papers had an article on gold. In March, it rose 9.1% (against 14% for Bitcoin and 3% for global equities) and this week the yellow metal hit yet another record high again to a remarkable lack of interest.