来源|鲸商(id:Bizwale)
Author | Three
In the past, Chinese aunts were always able to "dominate" in the tide of gold prices, but this time the aunts seem to be emo.
Recently, the price of gold has repeatedly hit record highs. After breaking through the $2,200 per ounce mark on March 26, the price of gold in New York has continued to rise in the past three trading days, and as of April 10, the intraday price of spot gold in London exceeded $2,355 per ounce.
The price of gold, which continues to refresh its all-time highs, has also begun to go crazy in the domestic futures spot market. In early March, after the gold price exceeded 650 yuan/gram, the price of domestic brand gold jewellery also rose rapidly. At the beginning of April, the price of gold jewelry of many brands such as Chow Sang Sang, Chow Tai Fook, and Chao Hongji exceeded 700 yuan.
However, at a time when everyone is entering the game to "hoard gold", the phenomenon of gold stores closing their doors and running away is increasing, including many leading gold store brands such as China Gold and Chow Tai Fook. Another "black-headed swan" phenomenon has "wiped out" economists and university professors, that is, the appreciation of the US dollar, the rise in international crude oil prices and the price of gold have soared together.
In the face of international turbulence, the sluggish real estate market, and the sharp increase in inflationary pressure, when the money in everyone's hands is becoming less and less valuable, we originally wanted to find the "hedging" channel of gold, but it is also full of uncertainty.
Buying "gold" is hot, who is the master of ups and downs?
Gold price fluctuations have always affected the hearts of investors.
In the past, when the price of gold rose, the dollar would depreciate. But now due to the Fed's interest rate hike, the bank interest rate continues to rise, and the dollar returns, causing the dollar to rise simultaneously. So now it's gold, the dollar, the oil collectively rising.
On March 9, someone fled after robbing a jewelry store in the MixC shopping mall in Hangzhou and was later arrested by the police. Combined with the rising trend of gold, netizens are hotly discussed, regretting that they bought less before and should stock up a little more. Some netizens who plan to get married in the near future said, "Don't go up, if it rises again, you won't be able to afford three golds."
Wang Yuan (pseudonym), a clerk at a gold jewelry counter in Hangzhou Vientiane City, told whale merchants, "Buying gold is buying up rather than buying down, and now gold prices continue to rise, especially since March, the price of gold has risen by about 30 yuan / gram, and the increase is still obvious." Therefore, there are more and more people consulting online and offline, and the number of people buying has obviously increased. ”
Another cabinet sister sighed: "The price of gold has been rising a few pieces from a year ago to the present, and now it is more than a dozen pieces of land, and when I joined the company two years ago, the gold price of jewelry reached 500 yuan / gram." At that time, I thought the price of gold was so high, but I didn't expect it to break through 700 yuan directly. ”
It can be seen that the price of gold is an issue of great concern to both practitioners and investors. According to the quotations of major domestic brand gold stores, on April 9, the highest price of Chow Tai Fook was 728 yuan/gram, the lowest price of Chinese gold was 660 yuan/gram, the price of Chow Sang Sang gold was 726 yuan/gram, the gold price of Lukfook Jewellery was 728 yuan/gram, the gold price of Xie Ruilin was 712 yuan/gram, the price of gold supreme was 728 yuan/gram, and the price of Chao Hongji gold was 728 yuan/gram. During the Qingming holiday, many brands have activities that reduce 30-50 yuan per gram. The second-tier brands are a little stronger, and the discount is about 600 yuan/gram.
Moreover, the price of gold varies depending on the time of day. According to the counter sister, gold bars are sold according to their official prices, and the price is adjusted once a day at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., and the price is 549 yuan/gram on the afternoon of April 7, with an additional 10 yuan handling fee per gram.
Seeing the price of gold soaring, some consumers chose to buy gold bars at the bank at this time. For a while, the entry of buying gold bars and jewelry in the bank became popular. There are a lot of related discussions on social media such as Xiaohongshu, Weibo, and Douyin. On the whole, there is not much difference in the price of gold bars between different banks, and major banks are continuously optimizing their services through online transactions, mailing to homes, and exchanging physical goods at any time to stimulate consumption.
If you buy it, you sell it. Because the price of gold is too high now, some counter sisters said that not many people have bought recently, and some consumers even choose to sell at this point. An investor said: "I bought 50 grams of gold at a price of about 255 yuan per gram in 2015, and recently I wondered whether to sell it, but I knew whether to buy up or down, so I was struggling with whether to buy another 100 grams." Salespeople said that after this round of price increases, the number of inquiries and recycling has increased significantly, and many investors hope to take advantage of the high gold price to liquidate.
For countless investors who have gone forward and succeeded, some regret buying late, and some people buy early soberly. "It was the most successful investment. An employee of a major Internet factory told Whale Business that she said: "I bought more than 500 yuan/gram all the way from the gold price of less than 320 yuan/gram, and the cost was about 400 yuan/gram, making almost 30%." Another investor regretted that he had been paying attention to the price of gold bars from time to time, and now the price is no longer available.
With trading comes risk. Not only have there been robberies in gold stores in Hangzhou, but there have also been a number of recent cases of telecommunications network fraud gangs using fraudulent funds to trade in gold stores in Shenzhen, and many merchants have had their bank accounts frozen after receiving payment.
On April 2, a merchant in the Shenzhen Shuibei Trading Center said that real-name registration is required to buy gold bars and recycle gold, regardless of the amount, but not to buy gold jewelry. Some merchants said that real-name registration is required to purchase gold bars of 100 grams and above, and not for those below 100 grams.
The reason why gold prices can rise has brought about a chain reaction, from macroeconomic uncertainty, monetary policy easing expectations, weakening dollar expectations, and investment demand growth, to the slowdown in global economic growth, persistently high inflation, and intensifying geopolitical tensions, all of which have made gold more attractive as a safe-haven asset.
Why is the price of gold soaring?
In the pre-20th century agrarian society, Europe was on the gold standard and the continent was on the silver standard. After the 20th century, the economic development under the industrial society began to accelerate, the original gold and silver dollars were not enough, and various countries began to issue paper money, and said that every banknote is equal to 1 gram of gold. In the days when gold was used as collateral for paper money, the United States claimed that every $35 was equal to one ounce of gold.
At that time, the United States made a lot of war money during World War II, and obtained more than 80% of the world's gold. So after World War II, the United States established an international monetary system centered on the dollar, the Bretton Woods system.
By the 70s, the United States was printing money in large quantities, reversing the original promise of exchanging dollars for gold. After the bankruptcy of the dollar's credit, it regained its status as an international currency by relying on food wars and oil wars, and gold became a "scarce item" for countries to compete for.
Recently, gold prices at home and abroad hit new highs, and one of the main drivers was the temporary rebound in real interest rates in the US dollar and then fell again. The Fed raised its inflation forecast for this year after its March monetary policy meeting and maintained its expectation of three rate cuts this year.
With U.S. inflation rebounding slightly and the outlook uncertain, the Fed remains highly cautious about the timing of interest rate cuts, and the path of rate cuts remains uncertain. But on the whole, the expectation of interest rate cuts has brought stronger heat to gold.
The quest for economic security and independence has become more urgent, and gold has become the safe-haven asset of choice due to its inherent monetary and financial characteristics. Therefore, in order to hedge the credit risk of the US dollar and resist inflation, the increase in gold holdings by countries will inevitably lead to an increase in demand for gold prices.
In addition, the establishment of a new international order was preceded by frequent geopolitical conflicts, which was another important reason for the continued rise in gold prices. In recent years, there have been wars in Iran, the Middle East and other places, and the credit of the US dollar has been weakening.
Especially after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Western countries' sanctions on Russia have caused countries to reduce US dollar assets in international reserves and increase their holdings of gold. Coupled with the approaching U.S. election, political uncertainty has once again stirred up consumers' risk-off sentiment, so the safe-haven function of precious metals such as gold continues to be highlighted, stimulating the demand for gold.
Standing at this point in time in 2024, in order to hedge against the fact that the credibility of the dollar is declining, central banks around the world are stepping up their gold reserves. According to the World Gold Council, central banks have bought record amounts of gold over the past two years, and global central bank demand remains strong this year.
According to Fortune magazine, in addition to central banks, investment banks, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional buyers from various countries have also participated in the purchase of gold.
At the same time, global central banks are stepping up their sell-offs on US bonds and reducing their dollar reserves, and everyone is worried about whether there will be a repeat of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 970.
After all, the relationship between the US dollar and gold is similar to the relationship between sovereign currency and universal currency, which is essentially a game between a credit currency backed by national credit and a precious metal currency backed by natural attributes.
As the global trend of "de-dollarization" continues to intensify, gold's inherent financial and safe-haven characteristics will continue to strengthen in the short term. Consumers will follow suit. But whether they will be cut leeks is another matter.
Be wary of gold "pits"
Many industry experts believe that the price of gold has risen this year, fully reflecting the optimistic expectations of the market for the fundamentals in the near future, and it is possible that the gold price can rush to $2,500 per ounce this year, and there may be adjustments in the second half of the year, but the overall trend is upward, and the range shock should be greater than last year.
However, the price of gold soared, and some gold stores that had been open for more than ten years suddenly "closed down", which caught consumers off guard.
Recently, a large number of consumers have found that they have deposited gold in Chinese gold stores, but the gold has "disappeared". For example, China Gold's Beijing concept store in Shuangjing R&F Plaza in Beijing's Chaoyang District has "closed down", and many consumers have been unable to withdraw the gold they had previously "booked without worry" at the store. They angrily asked, "What will we do with our money and gold?"
At present, the stores involved have closed and lost contact, and some consumers have no way to defend their rights, pointing the finger at the brand China Gold. It is understood that the store involved operates a gold "custody" business, whereby consumers can enjoy some discounts and interest. One victim said that when communicating with China Gold staff, the other party "flatly denied" the relevant responsibility on the grounds that the store involved was a franchise store.
In response to this matter, netizens hotly discussed: "What else can you believe if the gold store is also running away?" "China Gold must be responsible, when you buy it, you recognize it as China Gold, who will identify what franchise store concept store, what you recognize is the brand and credibility of China Gold as a state-owned enterprise."
In fact, many gold stores now usually persuade consumers to buy gold and let them hold it in escrow. In return, the gold store promises to give consumers an interest rate of 2.5% per year, which is significantly more attractive than the bank's interest rate of about 1.6% per year.
Specifically, the custody operation model of the gold store is to sell consumers' gold to others to achieve one gold and ten sales, or even one hundred sales. As long as the gold store pays the interest to the consumer on time, the escrow can continue forever. In the past two years, gold has skyrocketed, causing many consumers to want to get their gold back and no longer hold it in escrow. And as the price of gold rises, so does interest. Gold stores that are unable to take out gold and pay interest choose to donate and run away.
In short, consumers are interested in interest, and gold stores are interested in principal. When this Ponzi scheme can't be sustained, there will be a thunderstorm.
On the other hand, consumers who want to settle in their pockets also need to pay attention to recycling channels. Branded gold stores usually recycle their own products, most commercial banks only recycle the gold sold by the bank, and pawn shops do not limit the brand, but the discount will be large. The recent rise of online recycling may have the problem of merchants increasing prices.
The price of pure gold jewelry in many brand gold stores is more than 700 yuan/gram, but the recycling price is only about 530 yuan/gram; the online recycling price of Chinese gold is 549, but there is a service fee of 3 to 10 yuan per gram; the repurchase price of ICBC brand gold is 533, and the gold recycling price of non-ICBC is 527; and the loss of gold for identification is also deducted from the cost of gold identification when pawnshops recycle gold.
In short, investment is risky, and the phrase "you need to be cautious when entering the market" applies to any financial asset at any time.