Why Is Everyone Buying Gold?

Gold last traded at $1,930 an ounce. Silver at $25.30 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices pulled back Tuesday as correctional profit-taking offered investors an excellent buying opportunity. U.S. stocks rose amid rumors of a new Russian Covid-19 vaccine as well as investor optimism that some major stocks would benefit from a reopening of the economy, such as cruise lines and airlines.

NEW YORK TIMES----"This year, gold is the best performing traditional asset in the world. Its price just topped $2,000 an ounce for the first time. From serious investors to newly minted day traders, everyone is talking up its virtues. A recent survey of 1,000 people found that one in six Americans bought gold or other precious metals in the last three months, and about one in four were seriously thinking about it. On Robinhood, the popular online trading platform, the number of users holding two of its largest gold funds has tripled since January. It seems we're all gold bugs now. It's tempting to attribute the vogue for gold to a desire for a safe haven during the pandemic - a kind of financial panic reflex that will release as the crisis abates. But the gold mania is also driven by a hunch that the easy money pouring out of central banks and government stimulus programs could trigger inflation, which makes it a more worrisome economic omen....Investors have driven up the price of gold more than 30 percent this year after a gain of nearly 20 percent last year. In recent weeks, that surge has been turbocharged by growing expectations that all the money governments are pumping into their economies will reignite inflation. In addition, with valuations of stocks well above their long-term average, gold appears relatively cheap. And with central banks printing money hand over fist, some see gold as a stable alternative to the dollar and other major currencies. (Gold is also pulling up the price of its less glamorous relative, silver, which is rising from an unusually depressed level because people see it as a cheaper play on the same trends.)....Unless a vaccine emerges quickly, central banks stop printing money frantically and real interest rates start rising again, it is difficult not to be a gold bug now."