Gold as an investment; a long-term perspective

To many investors, gold was a disappointment during the COVID-19 pandemic and the high-inflation period that followed. Instead of protecting a portfolio from inflation, the price of gold declined from its all-time high reached in 2020.

At the same time, inflation in the US and other advanced economies kept rising. Nowadays, inflation in the UK is expected to reach double-digit territory at the end of this year and runs at more than four decades high in the US.

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Moreover, the news that a huge gold deposit was discovered in Uganda made many wonder what the point of investing in gold is if it isn’t so scarce. The new deposit has some 320,000 tonnes of extractable pure gold.

But time is on gold’s side. As an uncorrelated asset with the main financial markets, gold has its place in an investment portfolio.

Because of that, an analysis of the price of gold from a long-term perspective is useful as it helps filter the noise. After the bullish breakout in the early 2000s, the price of gold is in a bullish run, unlikely to end despite the recent underperformance.

Only bullish patterns followed the early 2000s bullish breakout

In the early 2000s, gold traded below $400/ounce. A bullish breakout led to several bullish patterns – including the current one, which may end up being bullish after all.

First, it was a pennant – a continuation pattern that was responsible for sending the gold price to $1000/ounce for the first time ever. What followed was an ascending triangle.

After the market had cleared the horizontal resistance given by the $1,000 level, it did not stop all the way to $1,900 in 2012. The move was reversed in the years to follow, but an inverse head and shoulders pattern propelled the price to a new all-time high in 2020, as uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic reigned on financial markets.

From that moment on, gold is in a consolidation area. Because it hesitated at horizontal resistance, one may argue that the price of gold forms an ascending triangle. The last time it did so, the market traveled more than $900, so bears might want to watch the current pattern closely.

Gold price’s resilience against the dollar has been impressive

Perhaps the best way to interpret the market is through the eyes of the US dollar. The gold price has been resilient against a rising US dollar, and the chart below shows it accurately.

From June 2020, the gold price did not move much, while the US dollar declined initially, only to recover the lost ground. Hence, gold’s price resilience in an environment of a rising US dollar adds strength to the yellow metal because a strong dollar limits the effects of inflation by offsetting the price of imports.

To sum up, gold is consolidating. A move to a new all-time high should trigger more strength, and a higher dollar might accompany it.