Against a backdrop of surging COVID-19 cases worldwide and economic uncertainties triggered by the health crisis threatening to send consumer spending plummeting and wipe out job gains, gold soared to $1,800 an ounce on 8 July.
Future Headline For 2020, #Gold Breaks Out To New All Time Highs Of $2k On More #QE From The #FED, For Today We Are Happy With This - Spot Gold Tops $1,800 For First Time Since 2011, #Silver Breaches $19 https://t.co/ld25seIgmD pic.twitter.com/ysPXZha6vb
— Crush The Market (@crushthemarket) July 8, 2020
By 0854 GMT, the price of spot gold had risen by 0.3 percent to $1,799.22 per ounce after briefly hitting its highest since November 2011, at $1,800.18, earlier in the session.
US gold futures rose by 0.2 percent to $1,812.90 per ounce.
Market analysts claim bullion is poised to potentially breach $1,850 and revisit its all-time high above $1,900 as economic fallout from the pandemic has investors dodging riskier assets in favour of safe havens.
“Investors are hedging their exposure to riskier assets simply because there’s a growing and widening belief that any recovery is unlikely to be v-shaped… Markets generally tend to operate through a prism of optimism and that optimism is being tested at the moment and gold is benefiting from that,” Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK was cited as saying by CNBC.
Capricious Bullion
As appeal for the precious metal reflects in gold-backed exchange traded funds adding 104 tonnes of bullion worth $5.6 billion in June, according to information from the World Gold Council said on Tuesday, traders underscore the capricious nature of gold as one of the most liquid commodity markets.
A $100 price gap, warn experts, can swiftly be closed in a day or two under varying circumstances, with gains either accrued or lost just as quickly.
Nonetheless, many trading houses predict lofty targets for gold prices beyond the $1,800 mark.
Citigroup analyst forecast a three-month rise to $1,825 per ounce, from a prediction for $1,715 for the second half of 2020 published at the end of May, with next year’s target set at $2,000, reports Investing.com. Goldman Sachs similarly forecasts gold reaching $2,000 overtime.
In more remarkable predictions, independent analyst Dan Popescu was quoted as believing gold had the capacity to reach $5,000 in the next five years.
The optimistic forecasts are supported by current market variables favouring gold.
“With (US) 10-year (Treasury) breakevens continuing to print new post-COVID highs, the normalization in inflation expectations may remain a powerful driver, lifting gold prices deeper into $1,800/oz territory,” analysts at Canadian bank-backed brokerage TD Securities said in a note on Tuesday.
Anuj Gupta, deputy vice president of commodity and currency research at Angel Broking in India, supported the notion that gold prices, currently close to their annual record, won’t “run out of steam”.
“Within the next few months, the precious metal is expected to break its $1,921 historical record reached in September 2011,” said Gupta.
