Barron's: The Case for Owning Gold Keeps Getting Stronger

Article by Brett Arends in Barron's Financial Publication

Bullion prices surged Monday, while everything else fell apart, rising 1.5% to a fresh six-year high. Gold is proving the hot asset of the trade battle between Donald Trump and China.

Gold has now risen a hefty 17% since the moment last December when Trump warned: “I am a Tariff Man.”

During that time it has left a lot of other popular investments trailing in the dust. It’s beaten the S&P 500 stock index by a hefty 15 percentage points, include three on Monday. It’s crushed popular investments like Apple, Alphabet and Netflix. It’s beaten Tesla by 53 percentage points.

Gold is also up because European government bond yields are now so low that when you keep your money in cash, you actually have to pay people to lend them money.

Oh, and gold is also up because nobody knows what’s going to happen to the euro and the British pound if Britain crashes out of the European Union in a “hard,” no-deal Brexit. And that outcome, notwithstanding my previous hopes, is now starting to look more and more possible. After three weeks in Britain talking to political insiders there, I am now much less optimistic than I was.

“Everybody wants a lower currency,” says Josh Strauss, money manager at Appleseed Capital and a long-term gold investor. “If that’s the case, and they’re not making more gold, it’s the place to be.”

Wall Street, including the Wall Street media, usually only pay attention to gold once it’s already risen.

To read this article in Barron's in its entirety, click here.