With many stock markets in the red and Dow Jones headed for worst April since 1932, gold could even reach $4,000
Gold has risen above $3,500 an ounce for the first time while many stock markets are in the red and the US dollar hit a three-year low, after Donald Trump’s blistering attack on the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, caused alarm among investors.
Spot gold reached the record price on Tuesday morning, extending a rally that has pushed bullion up from $2,623 an ounce at the start of this year. Analysts now predict the metal could even reach $4,000 only a matter of weeks after the price moved through $3,000 for the first time.
The US currency and its government debt are usually seen as a safe haven during times of market turmoil, but as America itself has caused much of the recent volatility investors have been turning to another “port in the storm”, gold, in large numbers.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I never understood the idea of hording gold in case of an economic collapse.
Think about it; the government is gone, there’s no gasoline or power of any kind, no way to get food. Who is going to want gold?
TheBat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The gold is for getting richer during the restructuring after the collapse.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 day ago
You have to survive the first ten years or so.
10001110101@lemm.ee 1 day ago
That kind of complete collapse, world-wide is unlikely. Gold could be useful if a country’s currency collapses, which does happen sometimes. Gold dealers will still exist and they can sell it to other countries if they have to. Central banks do buy gold for various reasons. Though, gold is super volatile and highly speculative compared to central-bank currencies (usually), so I don’t really trust it as a “store of value” or currency. Gold has the reputation it does mostly for traditional reasons. Theoretically, any rare, expensive to mine/acquire resource could take its place if enough people/institutions agreed on it.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 day ago
It’s fruitless to speculate on what the collapse would look like.
I think it was John Dillinger who said that there are a thousand things that can go wrong in a bank robbery, and if you’re a genius you can plan for fifty.
Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Agree 100%. Jewelry is ridiculous and only for stupid people obsessed with status symbols.
Gold is good for use as a coating to protect copper from corrosion in electrical circuits and wires.
Diamonds are good for drill bits?
Smart greedy people have been taking advantage of dumb people for centuries, millenia even. Spending hard earned money on this nonsense has never made sense to me, but the people selling sure are happy.
If society broke down, all this status symbol nonsense would become very quickly irrelevant. Food, water, ammo, medicine would be currency. Can’t do shit with gold unless other people think it’s valuable.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Gold has been used as a store of value for millennia and it still will be long after the dollar, yen and euro are distant memories. If society were to collapse, gold would literally be the only universal currency, as it has been until fairly recently. The only thing that could change that would be ubiquitous space mining that would produce gold in such quantities as to render it worthless. That’s hardly going to happen after a societal collapse, though.
kn0wmad1c@programming.dev 1 day ago
I’m starting to hoard bottlecaps, personally.
P00ptart@lemmy.world 1 day ago
.45 rounds for the spray and pray.
painfulasterisk1@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Gold doesn’t expire/gets moldy, unlike bread.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 1 day ago
But who is going to want it? You could buy things like hatchets that will last and are easily traded.
Copper tubing to make stills will be the most valuable currency.
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Currency is useful. If the government is gone, the dollar is gone.
Shiny metal is a very common currency. It isn’t consumed for anything useful and it’s scarce.
Dagwood222@lemm.ee 14 hours ago
People aren’t dependent on a particular currency.
Back in colonial America, one deer skin was the basic unit of trade. That’s why people still call a US dollar a ‘buck.’ Shells, salt, and other commodoties have been used.
njm1314@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
I guess it’s hope that they’ll be other governments that will want it?
OmegaMan@lemmings.world 1 day ago
That’s not really what it’s for, though. Putting cash reserves in gold can help your cash grow with inflation instead of suffer by it.
It’s all a way to keep your savings from suffering during high inflationary periods. So gold going up a lot means ppl believe a high inflationary periods is coming.