① On Friday, gold hit a new historical high, due to the close relationship between the prospect of the Federal Reserve's interest rate cuts and increased geopolitical risks. ② Data shows that in the first half of this year, emerging market countries are still the main buyers of gold, while most developed countries have not participated in trading, and even reduced their holdings slightly.
Caixin News, August 17th (Editor Ma Lan) The optimistic sentiment for loose monetary policies and central banks' buying gold has been rising, coupled with the increasing geopolitical risks such as the Middle East tension and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the price of gold broke through $2,500 per ounce this Friday, reaching a historic high.
Data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission shows that in the week ending on August 13, speculators' net bullish bets on Comex gold rose to a nearly four-year high. In addition, capital continues to flow into gold ETFs in recent months.
As a traditional buyer of gold, many central banks of countries have been frequent players in the gold market this year, especially in emerging markets, where they have become the main buyers of gold. Countries such as India, Uzbekistan, the Czech Republic, Egypt and Turkey have all been increasing their gold holdings for several consecutive months.
This is in stark contrast to the actions of traditional major gold-holding countries. Among the world's top ten gold-reserve countries, only Russia, China and India chose to increase their gold holdings in the first half of this year. Most developed countries have not traded and have even reduced their holdings.
This deviation trend highlights the risks brought by frequent financial sanctions being imposed by Western developed countries in recent years. Due to the widespread use of the dollar and the euro in economic sanctions, many emerging countries have begun to attach importance to assets such as gold in order to seek trade stability.
According to the latest data for June, the net purchase of gold by central banks worldwide was 12 tons that month, of which both Uzbekistan and India increased their gold reserves by 9 tons. Singapore was the largest gold seller in June, selling 12 tons of gold reserves.
In addition, the People's Bank of China, a major buyer, paused its gold reserve purchases for the third consecutive month in July, after buying gold continuously for 18 months prior to that. Some experts point out that this is related to the trending high price of gold this year.
But the rise of gold may not end here. Bart Melek, the global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities, pointed out that gold investors generally believe that the Federal Reserve will be aggressive in its interest rate cuts, and many expect that the price of gold will continue to rise to $2,700 in the coming quarters.
Alex Kuptsikevich, Senior Market Analyst at FxPro, predicts that gold could eventually trade between $2,800 and $2,900. Some also predict that the price of gold will be closely related to the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine situation, and that Trump's election as President of the United States will further push up gold prices.
Editor / jayden