Just when the vaccine rollout and economic optimism left gold looking like last year’s metal, it staged a recovery.
Bullion is one of the best-performing commodities this month, erasing almost all of this year’s losses. Investors have been lured back by gold’s appeal as an inflation hedge, while the Federal Reserve maintains its monetary stimulus and says price pressures should prove temporary. Spot gold was little changed at $1,895.41 an ounce on Friday and is up more than 7% in May.
Diego Parrilla, who runs the Quadriga Igneo fund, is among those who recently boosted their exposure to gold, saying that central banks won’t risk increasing interest rates to combat inflation for fear of “pricking the enormous bubbles” they’ve created.
“We have entered a new paradigm that will be dominated by deeply negative real interest rates, high inflation, and low nominal rates — an extremely supportive environment for gold,” said Parrilla, who manages $350 million.