The Western mainstream media’s hype about gold losing its status as a safe haven appears to have fallen flat. A cascade of ‘doomsday’ MSM headlines two years ago had pushed the narrative that ‘stronger dollars’ were eating away at the yellow bullion's 'safety' luster. Suffice it to recall the headline that The Wall Street Journal’s ‘market and finance’ page of its print edition ran with on September 20, 2022, that read, ‘Gold Loses Status as Safe Haven.’
Screengrab of page from print edition of The Wall Street Journal dated September 20, 2022.
© Photo : The Wall Street Journal
Fast forward to today and the same WSJ is unabashedly trumpeting that ‘gold prices are setting new records.’
Screengrab of front page from The Wall Street Journal publication dated August 16, 2024.
© Photo : The Wall Street Journal
Here’s what is REALLY happening with gold:
The price of Spot Gold soared to a new record high on August 16, topping $2,500 an ounce, and surpassing the previous all-time high set in July.
Global gold reserves increased by 228 tons in the first quarter of 2024, breaking the previous record set in 2013, according to a report by the World Gold Council (WGC).
Global Central Banks doubled their gold purchases for reserves at the start of 2024. In 2023, purchase of the precious metal topped 1,037 tons, according to a World Gold Council survey published in June. (China, India, Turkiye led the bullion buy-up).
Central banks’ holdings of dollar-denominated assets reached a historic low amid Washington’s weaponization of the greenback.
Dollar and US Treasury-denominated foreign reserves hit 58.9 percent in 2024, down from about 70 percent two decades ago, per a spring report cited by Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei.
As part of the drive towards dedollarization, discussions about a BRICS payment instrument have reached an advanced stage. Forty percent of the value of the ‘BRICS Unit’ will be pegged to gold (by weight) while 60% - based on a basket of BRICS currencies. The Unit will have two value components, and, by attaching a commodity to the value, it will not be a fiat currency like the dollar.
As for Russia, its gold reserves averaged 1146.71 tons from 2000 until 2024, reaching an all time high of 2335.85 tons in the second quarter of 2024, according to the World Gold Council.