Gold shines as it surges to record

Gold is the new global currency
Published: January 7 2008 19:05 | Last updated: January 7 2008 19:05

There was a time when gold was money. In today’s uncertain world, the yellow metal is back in fashion. Bullion prices rose to a record nominal high after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan added to nervousness about the world economy. Part of gold’s allure is its traditional status as a safe haven. It is seen as a store of value when everything else seems risky. But the bigger drivers behind the rising spot price are a depreciating dollar and the prospect of negative US real interest rates.

A better way to think of gold may be as central bankers used to before America dropped the gold standard: not as a commodity, but as another currency. As long as the dollar stays weak, gold’s bull run will last.

Prices have a long way to go before they approach the inflation-adjusted record touched in 1980 when Soviet tanks invaded Afghanistan. At Monday’s $859, gold was trading at less than half that level. It could top $1,000 and still be at the lower end of what some analysts argue is a safe haven range.

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Flight to gold as investors lose faith in money

Last Updated: 12:51am GMT 07/01/2008

The last time gold touched $850 an ounce, the world was visibly spiralling out of control.

Soviet tanks had just rolled into Afghanistan. The Mullahs had seized US hostages in Iran. Pax Americana was on the ropes, and so was capitalism. Inflation had reached 14 per cent in the United States.

he final spike in bullion occurred when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market, forcing up gold in tandem through arbitrage links. It collapsed within days.

If you strip out the Hunt anomaly, it is fair to say that gold established a "safe-haven" level of $600 - or $1,500 in today's money - that roughly lasted through the final phase of the Carter malaise, the oil shock, and the collapse of confidence in the monetary order.

By this benchmark, last week's jump to $869 looks tame. Yet gold is undoubtedly flashing warning signs. The price has jumped 42 per cent since the US credit markets suffered their heart attack in August. It has tripled since Gordon Brown sold over half Britain's reserves, deeming it a barbarous relic. That conceit has cost taxpayers £3.4bn, after adjusting for returns from dollar, euro, and yen bonds.

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