Gold has recently shot up in price, to nearly $1,300 dollars an ounce.
And the demand for it is shattering records. According to the World Gold Council demand for gold has surged 21% this year, the fastest on
There are a number of factors affecting this rise but the most prevalent have to do with a declining U.S. dollar and a small increase in interest rates.
More important to the gold buying frenzy is the negative interest rates in Japan and Europe, with talk of the Fed doing the same in the U.S.
A negative interest rate means that instead of your money in the bank earning you money, you would have to regularly pay to keep your money in the bank. In other words, government sponsored insanity.
Somehow I don’t think that’s going to sit well with most people, which is exactly why the value and demand for gold is shooting up.
Think about it, the U.S. dollar has value because the government tells us it does. But it’s no more than paper, an IOU with no backing behind it. If our government was to disappear overnight it would suddenly stop having value.
The Value of Gold
Gold though, always has value. It’s been used for thousands of years, on temples, in jewelry, and more recently in manufacturing and electronics. Gold will always be worth something. So when people see the economy heading off the deep end they rush to buy gold.
There are a lot of ways to invest in gold: buying into ETF’s, stock, actual gold bullion, we like physical gold you can bury in the back yard.
With prices likely to continue to rise, you’ll want to buy the dips before the easy money has been made.
To continue to read about the demand for gold, read the Yahoo Finance article.
Christian DeHaemer
Christian is the founder of Bull and Bust Report and an editor at Energy and Capital. For more on Christian, see his editor’s page.