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Gold Stuck Between High Inflation and Strong Dollar

Gold Stuck Between High Inflation and Strong Dollar | FXMAG.COM
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Table of contents

  1. Implications for Gold

     

    Inflation supports gold, the expected Fed’s reaction to price pressure – not. Since gold ended November with a small gain, what will December bring?

    I have good and bad news. The good is that the price of gold rose 2% in November. The bad –is that the price of gold rose 2% in November. It depends on the perspective we adopt. Given all the hawkish signals sent by the Fed and all the talk about tapering of quantitative easing and the upcoming tightening cycle, even a small increase is an admirable achievement.

    However, if we focus on the fact that US consumer inflation rose in October to its highest level in 30 years, and that real interest rates have stayed deeply in negative territory, gold’s inability to move and stay above $1,800 looks discouraging.

    We can also look at it differently. The good news would be that gold jumped to $1,865 in mid-November. The bad news, on the other hand, would be that this rally was short-lived with gold prices returning to their trading range of $1,750-$1,800 in the second half of the month, as the chart below shows.

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    gold stuck between high inflation and strong dollar grafika numer 1

    Now, according to the newest WGC’s Gold Market Commentary, gold’s performance in November resulted from the fact that higher inflation expectations were offset by a stronger dollar and rising bond yields that followed Powell’s nomination for the Fed Chair for the second term.

    Indeed, as you can see in the chart below, the greenback strengthened significantly in November, and real interest rates rallied for a while. Given the scale of the upward move in the dollar, and that it was combined with a surge in yields, gold’s performance last month indicates strength rather than weakness. As the WGC notes, “dollar strength was a headwind in November, acting as a drag on gold’s performance, but not enough to outweigh inflation concerns.”

    gold stuck between high inflation and strong dollar grafika numer 2

     

    Implications for Gold

    Great, but what’s next for the gold market in December and 2022? Well, that’s a good question. The WGC points out that “gold remains heavily influenced by investors’ continued focus on the path of inflation (…) and the Fed’s and other central banks’ potential reaction to it.” I agree. Inflation worries increase demand for gold as an inflation hedge, supporting gold, but they also create expectations for a more hawkish Fed, hitting the yellow metal.

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    It seems that the upcoming days will be crucial for gold. Tomorrow (December 10, 2021), we will get to know CPI data for November. And on Wednesday (December 15, 2021), the FOMC will release its statement on monetary policy and updated dot plot. My bet is that inflation will stay elevated or that it could actually intensify further. In any case, the persistence of high inflation could trigger some worries and boost the safe-haven demand for gold.

    However, I’m afraid that gold bulls’ joy would be – to use a trendy word – transitory. The December FOMC meeting will probably be hawkish and will send gold prices down. Given the persistence of inflation, the Fed is likely to turn more hawkish and accelerate the pace of tapering.

    Of course, if the Fed surprises us on a dovish side, gold should shine. What’s more, the hawkish tone is widely expected, so it might be the case that all the nasty implications are already priced in. We might see a “sell the rumor, buy the fact” scenario, but I’m not so sure about it. The few last dot-plots surprised the markets on a hawkish side, pushing gold prices down. I’m afraid that this is what will happen again. Next week, the Fed could open the door to earlier rate hikes than previously projected. Hence, bond yields could surge again, making gold move in the opposite direction. You’ve been warned!

    If you enjoyed today’s free gold report, we invite you to check out our premium services. We provide much more detailed fundamental analyses of the gold market in our monthly Gold Market Overview reports and we provide daily Gold & Silver Trading Alerts with clear buy and sell signals. In order to enjoy our gold analyses in their full scope, we invite you to subscribe today. If you’re not ready to subscribe yet though and are not on our gold mailing list yet, we urge you to sign up. It’s free and if you don’t like it, you can easily unsubscribe. Sign up today!

    Arkadiusz Sieron, PhD
    Sunshine Profits: Effective Investment through Diligence & Care


    Arkadiusz Sieron

    Arkadiusz Sieron

    Hi, my name is Arkadiusz Sieroń. Call me a liar, but I am writing about the precious metals thanks to Arthur Laffer, Alan Greenspan, John Keynes and Fredrich Hayek. Really! Would you like to know how these economists, some of whom have been dead for a long time, triggered my adventure with gold? When I was in high school, I took part in the Entrepreneurship Olympic, one of the biggest thematic competitions for pupils from secondary schools. During my preparations, I studied an academic textbook, in which I came across a Laffer curve. Eureka! If the tax revenues are the same at low and high tax rates, the government should lower them! I did not win the competition, but I achieved much more. I decided to become an economist! And I loved the idea of small government and economic freedom since that very moment. After graduating from high school, I moved to the capital. I was very excited, as I started to study economics at the best economics university in the country. However, the professors disappointed me very quickly. Why? They all were statists, supporting extensive government intervention and fiat currencies. Gold? It is a barbarous relic! Have you not read Lord Keynes? I was very depressed. I even considered giving up my studies in economics and enrolling in the Philosophy Faculty! You can see now that I was really desperate. When I was contemplating nothingness and vanity of vanities, a few of my classmates lent me a handful of fascinating books, such as Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman. I also discovered the publications of the Austrian economists who supported the idea of the gold standard. It sounded crazy in the 21th century, but it was inspiring. I rediscovered the sense of studying economics. I continued my studies and one day I read these words: “Gold and economic freedom are inseparable”. Try guess who wrote them. Don’t give up, try once again. Don’t know? Alan Greenspan. Shocking, right? This is a quote from his “Gold and Economic Freedom”, an article published in 1966. Several years before he became the Fed Chair, and several more before the real estate bubble, that he helped to pump, up burst. Quite ironic, don’t you think? Both his essay and the Great Recession (and the accompanying bull market) motivated me to study investment portfolio management and the precious metals. I became a certified Investment Adviser very soon and I started to work for the biggest pension fund in the country. My corporate career seemed to be very promising. However, I quickly discovered that the company invested most of the participants’ funds into Treasuries or shares of the big state companies. And they didn’t even want to hear about investing in precious metals. I quit. I found a shelter at the university, as a Ph.D. candidate and – after a defense of my thesis about certain negative consequences of inflation (i.e. the Cantillon effect) – as an Assistant Professor. I was finally free to study economics, freedom, and gold. The more I read about gold, the more I was terrified. Most of the so-called experts who write about the precious metals, don’t have any idea about the subject they discuss. They treat gold as a mere commodity. Or they claim that gold is either worthless as it does not bring any yield or that its price should always rise. I was really let down by the state of understanding of the gold market among the analysts and investors. But I could not do too much. Until the sun shined down on me. I got a job offer at Sunshine Profits. I didn’t hesitate a second and accepted it, although many professors discouraged me: “You are a scholar, focus on science and do not write silly newsletters about bullion" -they advised me. But I did not listen to them, as they clearly didn’t understand the nature of gold. It is not a barbarous relic, it is the longest used money in history, and a clinking witness of human civilization. Gold is the asset, which used to serve as the safe- haven and portfolio diversifier for investors from the entire world for years. I wanted to study its properties and to share with my knowledge with people who do not have time for that. I wanted to help investors to better understand fundamentals of the gold market and improve their investment decisions. I’m happy that I can do that at Sunshine Profits. I’m really proud to be a member of our team and provide investors with high quality investment analyses about the gold market.


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