Gold Rises Again as Virus Fears Spook Equities

By Geoffrey Smith

Investing.com -- Gold prices resumed their relentless rise on Thursday as another powerful wave of risk aversion hit global financial markets, pumping up the price of all haven assets.

By 11:30 AM ET (1630 GMT), gold futures for delivery on the Comex exchange were up 0.6% at $1,652.85 a troy ounce, having earlier hit an intraday high of $1,662.35 as equities and other risk assets tanked.

The volume of portfolio capital seeking a hedge against volatility in equity and industrial commodity markets has steadily increased in recent weeks, while the growth of passively-managed exchange-traded funds since the last peak in gold prices seven years ago has created a wide funnel through which liquidity can pour.

Prices were supported by a report by Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), in which analyst Mikhail Sprogis reportedly put a price target of $1,800 on the metal. That follows similarly bullish upgrades from Citigroup (NYSE:C) and others in recent days.

Gold is becoming increasingly attractive as the “haven of last resort”, Goldman said, as yields on U.S. Treasury bonds – which have long resisted the secular trend toward negative interest rates – buckle under expectations of fresh monetary policy easing by the Federal Reserve.

A 25-basis-point cut at the Fed’s next policy meeting is now fully priced in, while the Fed-sensitive 2-Year Treasury now yields below 1.10%, implying at least two cuts over the next two years. The 10-year Treasury yield, meanwhile, hit an all-time record low of 1.24% earlier before rebounding slightl to 1.28% by 11:30 AM ET.

Gold’s nominal yield advantage over European bonds grew even wider, Germany’s 10-Year yield falling as low as -0.57% on expectations that the European Central Bank will lower its discount rate still further.

Germany’s economy minister Peter Altmaier said earlier that the country wasn’t planning any sort of general fiscal stimulus, but stressed the country had the means to support companies hit by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Elsewhere, silver futures fell 0.4% to $17.77 an ounce, while platinum futures fell 0.9% to $906.70. Copper futures, a rough proxy for Chinese industrial activity, fell 0.8% to $2.55 a pound – even though China is now reporting fewer new cases of the virus every day than South Korea.

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