[Once] rates begin to tear at the structure of credit… Gold’s very sterility—no coupon, no counterparty [risk], no embedded options—may seem plenty fetching in its own right.
—Jim Grant
Gold: For What Ails You
Jim Grant is writing about Gold again in his erudite historian way. In a brief but tightly-worded comment in this week’s Interest Rates Observer he touches on: The press infatuation with pronouncing Gold dead, Central Bank purchases and history, Gold’s performance in 2022 as inflation hedge, the potential for European Central Bank revaluations and more
“Gold set for its longest monthly losing streak since the late 1960s,” was the headline over a Halloween Bloomberg bulletin. “Gold prices are down for seven consecutive months, the longest decline since 1869,” Business Insider reported the next day, seeing Bloomberg and raising the date by 100 years.
Gold is the topic, and Grant’s is bullish on it. Not a new thing for us, admittedly, but mark the monetary mandarins.