Gold is not a particularly good investment. It yields no interest and pays no dividend: the only way its owners can earn a return is if other investors value the shiny metal more tomorrow than they did today. For a “haven” asset, which investors can use to preserve capital in times of crisis, it is remarkably speculative: aside from some niche industrial uses, most of the permanent demand comes from jewellery. Its rise in value this week to a near-record high of $2,000 per troy ounce reflects the fact that many other options are even less attractive, rather than any intrinsic merits.
Many traditional “safe assets” such as government bonds similarly either yield nothing or will gradually lose their value thanks to inflation and negative interest rates. As with gold, earning a return on US Treasuries relies on speculating that prices of the bonds can continue to increase. With interest rates already at virtually zero in the US and little indication that the Fed intends to drop them into negative territory, that does not strike many as a good bet. In that situation, some investors see gold, which is less vulnerable to inflation, as more attractive.
The current rise in gold is also an indication of fear: what gold primarily offers investors is an alternative to the dollar. Adjusting for changes in overall prices, the metal has been more expensive only twice before: during 2011, when a congressional stand-off over the US debt ceiling and the potential for the eurozone to break up drove demand; and in the early 1980s, when a new Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran contributed to concerns that the, partly oil-driven, inflation of the 1970s would erode the value of the greenback. Its rise today once again reflects worries over the safety of investing in the world’s largest economy.