Insights

Explore China's gold market in May - gold price, consumer demand, outlook and more!

Celia Dallas, Chief Investment Strategist at Cambridge Associates, is the latest industry expert to join us for our Strategic Edge Video series. In a dynamic discussion with our Head of Americas, Joe Cavatoni, she shares incisive and timely insights. 

As Krishan Gopaul’s blog post last week pointed out, central banks have been buying gold during the first four months of 2021. Over that period, we estimate that the official sector has added 150-200 tonnes of gold. 

The World Gold Council is launching the Central Bank Dashboard, an innovative web-based tool that allows the comparison of central bank gold reserve holdings across regions, income levels, foreign exchange arrangement and other qualitative and quantitative indicators.

The Central Bank Dashboard provides users with the flexibility to visualise trends in gold and foreign exchange reserve holdings across a multitude of vantage points. 

As Basel III comes into force, we look at the impact of the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR) on the gold market.

There has been much debate about the implications of Basel III on the bullion industry. What is clear is that the under the current rules the cost to banks of holding gold on balance sheet will increase – the NSFR requires 85% of required stable funding. 

Our short-term gold performance model enables investors to dissect monthly gold returns into key drivers of investment demand. Different estimation windows provide additional insights on the varying influence of drivers over time. During May, our model shows gold’s performance was only modestly impacted by rates but they still remain a relevant driver this year.

There has recently been a lot of discussion and debate around the possible similarities and differences of gold and Bitcoin (and, by implication, other cryptocurrencies), and this has often included consideration of their relative environmental impacts and, specifically, their carbon footprints.

We have written before about how, after a more inconsistent picture for central bank demand in the second half of 2020, our expectation was for continued net purchases in 2021 but at a more moderate pace than in previous record-setting years. So, how is that expectation holding up?

Listen to this podcast ‘Back to the gold fold’ for topics including US real rates, gold demand trends in consumer and investment markets, the COMEX market dislocation and the differences between gold and cryptocurrencies

Investor confidence in Germany recently jumped to a 21-year high, cheered by an acceleration of the domestic coronavirus vaccine programme and concomitant slowing of the domestic third wave of coronavirus. But while optimism for an economic upturn runs high, it brings with it growing fears of rising prices among inflation-wary German investors.

The volatility of numerous assets has shifted along with the performance of gold, which has recently rebounded to nearly flat on the year. Given this shift, we consider it important to assess the current gold market conditions from a volatility and derivatives perspective, along with what technical charts are suggesting about where gold could move in the near- and long-term. We believe that regardless of an investor’s gold sentiment, the following conditions are present and create an opportunity:

Net Managed Money positions in Comex gold futures increased again last week, although positions remain modest compared to highs seen in 2016 and 2019.

Explore India's gold market in April - domestic gold prices, retail gold demand, official imports, RBI gold data and more...

I recently had the pleasure of joining Rob Tyson for an episode of 'Dig Deep - The Mining Podcast' for a discussion on our latest Gold Demand Trends report. Listen now!

Explore China's gold market in April - gold price, investment demand, gold imports, retail gold consumption and more

We’ve had an opportunity to speak to Philipa Varris, Executive Vice President, Head of Sustainability at Golden Star to dig deep into the company’s achievements when it comes to contributing to SDG 3 (Good Health) and SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).

With inflation and interest rates increasingly top of mind for investors, the World Gold Council, in partnership with State Street Global Advisors, invited renowned financial author and historian James Grant of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer to share his perspectives on the direction of monetary policy and implications for gold and the broader markets.

As with all sectors, there will be challenges and obstacles on the pathway to Net Zero, but there is a relatively clear opportunity for gold mining to decarbonise which we believe will open up further opportunities and offer beneficial impacts to a wider set of stakeholders

Our latest Gold Demand Trends report was released last week, explaining in detail developments in the different elements of global demand in Q1 2021.

This article for Pensions Age reviews the key findings from a recent World Gold Council/Pensions Age poll and highlights why gold might provide an answer.