"Sitting on the gold price of rockets" scared off jewelry consumers, and hundreds of customers flocked to the investment counter, and experts expected that "gold is expected to start a ten-year long bull"
At 2 p.m. on April 2, the crowd at the gold bar counter of Beijing Caibai Jewelry General Store. Dong Hongyan/photo
The flow of customers to gold jewellery stores is a "barometer" of the gold consumer market. As the price of gold continues to reach record highs, the reporter who visited the market found that the customer flow of Caibai jewelry stores has decreased significantly, and the consumption of gold jewelry has gradually cooled down and returned to a rational trend. However, the market for investment gold is still hot, and it has become the counter with the largest number of customers.
For the market outlook, industry experts told reporters that there is a possibility of a pullback in gold prices, but there is still momentum to continue to rise after the pullback. However, there is no consensus on the pace of gold price increases.
In addition, it is worth noting that following the price trend of gold, the non-ferrous sector has followed up. Among them, on April 2, spot silver rose 2% in the day to 25.57 US dollars / ounce, and on April 2, Shanghai copper closed at 73230.00 yuan / ton, up 0.56% on the day and 1.71% in 5 days.
Jewelry consumption cooled down, investment enthusiasm undiminished?
International and domestic gold prices are still soaring, staging "one price a day". Trading data show that on April 1, international precious metal futures generally closed up, COMEX gold futures rose 1.52% to 2272.5 US dollars / ounce; on April 2, Shanghai Gold Exchange Au99.99 also exceeded 530 yuan / gram; Jintou network monitoring data show that on April 2, the latest price of gold in gold stores across the country, most gold stores per gram were around 690 yuan, close to 700 yuan / gram.
On the afternoon of April 2, a reporter from China Times visited Beijing Caibai Jewelry Store. From the on-site reporter of the store, it was learned that the price of Caibai jewelry gold jewelry is 657 yuan/gram, and the labor cost of most gold jewelry is about 50 yuan/gram, that is, if the labor cost is included, the price of each gram of gold reaches more than 700 yuan.
In response to this high price, some consumers said that they bought gold jewelry for marriage when the basic gold price was 482 yuan/gram, "I thought that 480 yuan/gram was already very expensive, but now the basic gold price has reached 530 yuan/gram, and my heart is balanced."
The customer flow of Caibai jewelry stores is the "barometer" of Beijing's gold consumer market. As the price of gold continues to reach record highs, the customer flow of Caibai jewelry stores has dropped sharply, and gold consumption has gradually cooled down and returned to rationality.
In addition to the high price, the recent "runaway" incidents of gold franchisees and gold recycling traps also have a great impact on the overall reputation of the gold market. "Gold", which is regarded as a synonym for "reliable" by everyone, also makes people unable to fully trust it, which may also inhibit the enthusiasm for jewelry consumption.
At 2 o'clock in the afternoon on April 2, the reporter noticed that the customers in the gold jewelry consumption area of Caibai Jewelry Store were relatively scarce, and they were not as good as before. Customers pay more attention to cost-effective gold jewelry when choosing gold jewelry, and only products such as gold bracelets and other products that do not include labor costs in the hall on the first floor have some customers. There used to be only one customer at the counter of the gold transfer beads with "three layers inside and three layers outside".
At 2 p.m. on April 2, the passenger flow on the first floor of Beijing Caibai Jewelry Main Store. Dong Hongyan/photo
The customer is still in a wait-and-see state, she told reporters that there are more than 100 yuan of gold jewelry consumption coupons on her Caibai account, and the coupons are about to expire. However, the price of gold is too high, and I can't see the ups and downs of the market in the future, so I am very hesitant to buy it.
The staff of Caibai jewelry store told reporters that under the high price, the number of people who came to buy gold jewelry was indeed much less than before. Now the customer flow is concentrated in the investment gold counter. Previously, there were many fewer customers investing in gold counters than jewelry counters.
The reporter noticed that the Caibai Jewelry Investment Gold Counter was full of customers on that day, with continuous inquiries and busy transactions. Among them, there are many elderly people, and young people can also be seen, some young customers bought small gram weight investment gold bars after consultation, and some customers who seem to be older quickly buy investment gold products of 100,000 and 900 yuan.
In addition to physical gold investment, gold ETF fund investment has also risen significantly and is popular. According to the monitoring data of Oriental Wealth Network, as of April 2, the net unit value of Huaan Gold Easy ETF (518880), which tracks the underlying gold 9999, was 5.1579, an increase of 10.37% in the past 1 month and 20.58% in the past 1 year.
Non-ferrous metals are rising, what will happen in the future?
For the high enthusiasm of gold investment, Jintou.com reminds that the risk of gold investment is that the price of gold will not only skyrocket, but also the price of gold. Many investors think that the price of gold will only go up, not down, but in fact, the price of gold may plummet.
From the perspective of many people in the industry, most of them are bullish, but there are different opinions on the pace of gold price rise. Jiang Shu, a precious metals fund manager, said in an interview with the China Times that the gold price has been rising for a month since the sharp surge in early March, which is not very uncommon in the past gold price trend. Today's surge in the gold price is very similar to the trend in the two months leading up to the US interest rate cut at the end of July 2019, when gold prices continued to soar on the back of expectations of a US dollar rate cut.
So will the follow-up gold price trend be the same as in 2019, and the gold price will continue to soar until the US dollar cuts interest rates for the first time? In this regard, Jiang Shu said that although 2019 is in a very similar international macro environment as it is now. But the moment will not be an exact replica of 2019 either. Compared with 2019, the current round of gold price soaring and rushing to the time point is much earlier, once there is a delay in the US dollar interest rate cut or the number of US dollar interest rate cuts in the year, the gold price that is ahead of the early will inevitably have a weak follow-up and a large fall. However, as the expectation of a US dollar rate cut always exists, gold still has the momentum to continue to rise after the pullback.
"Gold is expected to start a ten-year long bull!" Cao Liulong, chief strategy officer of Founder Securities, publicly said that the gold price of the Fed's "interest rate hike" cycle generally falls, but this round of "interest rate hike cycle" gold prices continue to rise sharply, which means that the traditional gold analysis framework is invalid. The acceleration of de-globalization has led to the widening of the "dollar credit rift", which is the anchor of the recent "soaring" gold price. Gold is the most extreme "scarce asset", and the price center has begun to move upward. Once the petrodollar collapses, it will be difficult to rebuild, and there may be an era of "strife among nations" without a single reserve currency in the future.
Xie Zongbo, a financial writer and senior certified public accountant in Australia, told the China Times that there are many variables that affect gold prices, among which U.S. bond interest rates and the U.S. dollar play a decisive role. Judging from the consensus expectation of the market, in 2024, the Fed's interest rate cut and the decline in the real yield of US Treasury bonds are expected to drive gold prices to record highs again.
Why are U.S. Treasury rates and the U.S. dollar the main drivers of gold prices? Xie Zongbo believes that gold itself does not generate income, and gold prices tend to weaken when interest rate hike expectations are formed. Looking at the data from the past two years, gold prices fell when investors expected further tightening by the Federal Reserve, and rose when expectations changed to Fed easing. The US dollar and the gold price are both central bank reserve assets, and there is a substitution effect between the two, the price is in a seesaw relationship, and the gold price rises when the dollar falls, and vice versa. The Fed has ruled out a rate cut in March, but the market is widely expecting the easing cycle to begin in May and believes that the Fed will cut rates by at least 100 basis points this year. Once the Fed starts cutting interest rates, a weaker dollar will give gold bullish momentum.
At the same time, gold, as a safe-haven asset, has a high positive correlation with geopolitical risks. "The current geopolitical tensions in some parts of the world have brought great uncertainty to the global economy. This uncertainty has provided support for the rise in gold prices. While a correction is likely for gold, geopolitical risks will keep it elevated. Xie Zongbo continued to analyze.
"From the perspective of China's demand side, driven by a series of national policies to boost consumption, the national consumer market continued to recover and rebound, and gold, silver and jewelry became the fastest growing category among all commodity retail categories throughout the year. Gold prices continue to rise, and investment attributes are full, which also helps gold become one of the hottest investment targets at present, and the high attention of physical gold investment has led to a rapid growth in the consumption of gold bars and gold coins with relatively low premiums. Therefore, the huge demand is also expected to drive the continued rise in China's gold price. Xie Zongbo added.
In addition, it is worth noting that when the price of gold continues to rise, the recent price of non-ferrous metals, which also has certain financial attributes, has also risen as a whole. According to public data, on April 2, spot silver rose by 2% in the day, and is now at 25.57 US dollars / ounce; on April 2, the closing price of Shanghai copper was 73230.00 yuan / ton, an increase of 0.56% on the day, and an increase of 1.71% in 5 days, and the main contract of Shanghai copper futures 2405 has shown a maximum increase of nearly 10% during the year.
Editor-in-charge: Zhang Bei Editor-in-chief: Zhang Yuning