Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Not Just Speculators and Paranoid Conspiracy Theorists Who Are Buying Gold

Commodities / Gold and Silver 2011 Aug 12, 2011 - 12:27 PM GMT

By: Ben_Traynor

Commodities

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleZoe Tustain writes: Squirreling away a gold reserve no longer seems nuts…

THERE ARE some who seem to think only western speculators buy gold – either that or paranoid conspiracy theorists preparing for Armageddon.


This couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, China and India alone account for more than half of the world's gold demand, while central banks – not exactly known for being gung ho – are increasingly using their reserves to buy gold. 

In fact, the world's central banks bought more gold in the first half of this year than they did in the whole of 2010, according to figures published by the World Gold Council.

Away from the debt-laden economies of Europe and the US, both advanced and developing nations have added to their official gold bullion reserves:

  • South Korea almost tripled its gold reserves by buying 25 tonnes of gold in the last two months.
  • The Bank of Thailand bought 30 tonnes of the metal over the same period.
  • Mexico bought over $4 billion worth of Gold (about 90 tonnes) in the first quarter of 2011.

And it's not just central banks. All across the world, private individuals are choosing to store more of their wealth as gold. 

Take India. The world's largest gold market last year spent a staggering 2.5% of its GDP on gold. Four years ago the figure was only 1.5%. The implication is clear – as India's economy grows, Indians are putting a bigger slice of their income into gold.

In economic terms, Indians' marginal propensity to buy gold – the share of additional income allocated to the metal – has gone up.

In 2006, Indians on average spent around $1.40 of every extra $100 they earned on gold. By 2010, this had jumped to over $7. 

We find the same story in China – source of the world's second-largest private gold bullion demand.

In 2010, the percentage of GDP spent on gold in China was a mere 0.4%, a figure dwarfed not only by India, but also neighboring Vietnam – where the equivalent of 3.1% of GDP was used to buy gold in 2010. 

But if we look at China's marginal propensity to buy gold we see the same sort of growth.

Four years ago, for every extra $100 of income in China, less than one third of a Dollar went on gold. By last year it had jumped to $1 – lagging behind India, but still a remarkable rate of growth.

Individuals in these emerging powerhouses have increasing confidence in gold and are willing to invest more of their money in it.

"Paper money is increasingly worthless and they are worried about inflation" explains Shi Heqing, an analyst at state-backed metals consultancy Antaike in Beijing. 

Hardly surprising – China's consumer price inflation rose to 6.5% in July – up from 3.3% a year earlier.

But why are people choosing to buy gold? Of all things, why an industrially useless piece of shiny metal? 

Because, in a sense, it's uselessness is what makes it so valuable. Because it has no industrial use – and because, unlike paper money, it cannot be produced from thin air via "quantitative easing" – its stock is stable over time.

Thanks to these properties, gold has proven itself as a store of value over thousands of years. And with returns elsewhere so difficult to attain – thanks to low interest rates and stock market weakness – investors are now more interested in preserving capital than chasing return.

So it is not a random choice that has led so many to buy gold. They're choosing gold because it works.

They may be squirreling away a winter reserve, but these days, that's not nuts.

Zoe Tustain
BullionVault.com

Gold price chart, no delay   |   Buy gold online at live prices

Zoe Tustain is working as a research assistant at BullionVault, the No.1 gold and silver ownership service for private investors.

(c) BullionVault 2011

Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in