John Reade

The gold market has seen a significant rise in COMEX gold inventories, along with a widening of the spread between futures and spot prices, sparked by tariff uncertainty. This, combined with reports of falling inventories in London, has fuelled speculation about stability in the gold market

Over the past five years, gold and bitcoin have provided strong returns. There is no question that bitcoin has offered significant upside (and sometimes downside) - but at what cost as compared to gold?

This quarter the stand-out story has been Turkey, where exceptional demand has had a material effect on global gold flows. Bar and coin demand, central bank gold holdings and OTC flows were all noticeably affected by what has happened in Turkey during the year so far.

A spate of bank failures in March could be the first serious cracks to appear as a result of unprecedented monetary tightening. As a crisis hedge, gold is responding as expected. Read more here…

I recently presented virtually at Pension Bridge Alternatives APAC - Mid Year Review, and discussed gold's strategic role in a portfolio. 

Gold has fallen more than US$100/oz over the past month, with the bulk of the decline occurring over two days last week.

John Reade recently joined Fidelity International's MoneyTalk podcast for a conversation on gold.

Spot #gold is trading around $1827/oz with a $0.30/oz bid-ask spread on Friday morning in London.

Although it bounced after stronger US inflation data, it couldn't hold those gains as yields firmed late in the day.

But let's look at a slightly longer term perspective...

Between 23:30 and 23:45 BST 17,538 contracts traded on Comex, low was $1677.90. Between 23:45 to Midnight a further 7,825 contracts traded and 5,705 in the 15 minutes that followed...

I was pleased to speak at Fund Selector Asia's recent Spotlight on Alternatives virtual event. Watch the replay to hear my perspective on topics including: gold's characteristics, and why they may be attractive to investors in alternative assets, what makes gold a strategic asset and the drivers of gold performance.