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Prices for gold have soared over $1,800 an ounce, a range that hasn’t been reached in nine years. Neil Hume reports for the Financial Times:
Gold prices rose to more than $1,800 an ounce on Wednesday for the first time in nine years as data showed investors had stashed a record $40bn of cash into funds backed by the precious metal during the first half of the year.
The commodity, widely favoured by investors as a store of value in times of stress, breached $1,810 during afternoon trading in London, with a gain of more than 1 per cent on the day.
Gold has risen about 19 per cent so far this year, cementing its position as one of the best performing major asset classes of 2020 as investors have looked for safe places to park their cash at a time of heightened uncertainty for the global economy due to the Covid-19 crisis.
James Steel, chief precious metals analyst at HSBC, one of the world’s biggest bullion banks, said prices “were already rallying well before the emergence of Covid-19”, which has further added to their momentum.
Net inflows into gold-backed exchange traded funds hit $5.6bn (or 104 tonnes) in June, taking global holdings to a new all-time high of 3,621 tonnes, worth more than $200bn, according to data published by the World Gold Council this week.
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