CommodityOnline | Apr 25, 2013 03:32AM ET
The last three major bull markets of the Dow were followed by some type of economic crisis and a major bull market in gold. This is no coincidence, since these massive bull markets have been mostly driven by the huge expansion of the money supply. When this expansion of credit is exhausted, confidence fails, causing a massive economic crisis and a rush to gold. We are still in the midst of the latest crisis.
The Dow’s last two bull markets are of interest due to the significance of their relation to the current monetary system. In 1944, a new global monetary order was established with the Bretton Woods agreement. The world had just come out of the Great Depression, and the Second World War was ending.
The creation of the new global monetary order was indeed a fresh start. The Bretton Woods system brought about an international basis for exchanging one currency for another. It also led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank).
The member states tied their currency to the U.S. Dollar which was in turn pegged to gold at a rate of $35 per ounce. The U.S. Dollar became the world’s reserve and premier currency. The Dow had just started a bull market, and it was with this new created order that it would rise to new highs.
Below is a comparison of the two Dow bull markets since the beginning of the global monetary order in 1944 (charts from Yahoo Finance):
The Bretton Woods agreement was in full use during the majority of the first bull market. It was altered only in 1971, when the link between the dollar and gold, at a fixed $35 per ounce, was severed. By 1973, the fixed exchange rate system created by the Bretton Woods Agreement became a floating exchange rate system.
Interest rates rose during this bull market (1944 to 1970s), until it peaked in 1981. The Dow rose 7.5 times in value from 1944 to 1973. The gold bull market started toward the end of the Dow bull market, taking gold from $35 to $850 in 1980 – a 24 fold increase.
The second (of the last two) bull market started at about 1980, and took place during a time of falling interest rates and an altered Bretton Woods Agreement. With more favourable conditions than the previous bull market, the Dow was able to rise 18 fold from 1980 to the current high.
Gold’s $1920 high is, for this bull market, 7.68 times the low of $250. Will gold have a more significant increase compared to its 24.8 fold increase, as the Dow’s increase was more than its previous bull market increase? Will gold increase more it did during the 70s, given the fact that conditions for the current bull market (especially as regards to debt levels) are far more favourable? If gold only matches its 1970s bull market increase, it could go to $6200 ($250*24.8).
Considering that the Dow had a fairly steady rise throughout its entire bull market (that started in the 40s), whereas the gold price rose violently towards the end of its entire bull market of the 70s, with a parabolic blow-off top. See chart, below:
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