Don’t look now, but gold is back—in a big, big way.
On Friday, the price of gold hit a record high, with U.S. gold futures reaching more than $2,700 an ounce and sticking around that threshold. And it’s finding newfound appeal among everyday American investors who’ve never turned to the stuff before.
Gold is the big recommendation in bullish investor reports from Citibank, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase (the latter of which formerly had to pay nearly a billion dollars to the government for manipulating the precious metals markets). It’s plated over the highly overpriced Trump campaign watches and present in various other pieces of merch. It’s the hot new fashion statement for white guys, with gold chains draped around the necks of celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg and Justin Theroux. It was at the Republican National Convention. Its biggest advocates are going on tour with Tucker Carlson. It’s on the shelves of Costco, which, earlier this year, was reportedly selling up to $200 million worth of gold bars every month—and is now rapidly running out of the stuff. The precious metal is even a part of a revived business strategy for luxury watch brands, whose yellow-gold timepieces were the accessory of choice for Ryan Gosling in Barbie.
Gold also frequently appears on the ads that sponsor the podcasts hosted by far-right conspiracists Charlie Kirk, Matt Walsh, and Candace Owens—and, yes, it’s also on Fox News and Newsmax. Beyond that, you can find even more on Rumble and on Truth Social, which will sell you everything from “free” gold bars to collectible gold coins featuring Trump’s mug shot to “info kits” on investing. There’s gold in Sen. Bob Menendez’s basement, and Sam Altman’s as well. No wonder we’re still mining for it under the hills of South Dakota.
Gold has always been an American status symbol and object of fascination for doomsday preppers, evangelical end-timers, and right-wing commentators like Glenn Beck; it’s easy bait for older retirees, anxious about the savings they’ve built up throughout their life and alienated by the changing world around them, and it’s always been a sensible advertising choice for the types of radio stations and TV networks they tune in to. But this moment of peak hype is particularly notable, since we’re not in a typical climate for such a massive, extended precious metals surge. Gold and silver purchases (and their prices) usually shoot up during economic conditions that aren’t quite like the current one: eras of poor GDP outlooks, low interest rates, a weak U.S. dollar, and skittish investors and consumers. Still, keeping in line with the much-scrutinized economic weirdness of the past half-decade, gold has stayed lofty even as the economy booms, interest rates mostly remain high, consumer sentiment improves dramatically, and the dollar’s muscular value prevails.
Usually, the price of gold is as reliable an indicator of economic orthodoxy as any other. But now it appears to be the outlier. And, irony of ironies, bitcoin has gone from stand-alone “digital gold” status and financial hedge to acting as just another commodity that swings with stock-market trends.
As the Wall Street Journal explained earlier this year, a curious trend gripped the goldbug universe in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before then, most of the gold-curious got their hands on physical manifestations of the metal (jewelry, doubloons, etc.) but also expressed healthy interest in gold-backed exchange-traded funds, an easier and more virtual way of placing your monetary confidence in the metal. But in 2020, demand for both physical gold and ETFs reached an equivalent level—then diverged sharply in the years after, with physical gold reaching new heights and ETFs plunging squarely into the negative. Meaning: A lot of goldbugs lost their faith in the market model for gold trading and decided to ditch it in favor of the actual stuff. Understandable, considering how the apocalyptic vibes of the prevaccination era and the systemic effects of the shutdowns spurred more everyday consumers to keep gold as a safe backup and to hold on as things began to recover in jittery fashion. (Only recently did gold ETFs regain some of that lost demand.)
Another significant trend of the 2021 recovery: Central banks began racking up gold bullion in droves as a hedge against the U.S. dollar, whose home government dithered on raising interest rates even as inflation started becoming an issue. The ensuing “de-dollarization” panic among emerging economies, heightened by the massive global impacts of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, made gold seem even more attractive for international reserves.
The global economy was improving, sure, but also: Everything was chaotic, countries around the world saw their currencies lose their worth due to inflation, the United States and its dollar no longer seemed as sturdy as they once did, and wars were breaking out. Why wouldn’t nations like China, Singapore, India, Zimbabwe, Poland, and Turkey set aside some gold for themselves, as a treat?
Financial analysts are effusively claiming that we’re hardly at the peak of the gold rally and could see even more records in the near future, as geopolitical nerves and distrust in institutions buoy mass interest in the metal. And when gold demand and prices go up on such a far-reaching scale, the ripple effects are unavoidable. Controversial, exploitative mines across West Africa open, or reopen, for business. Far-right propaganda outfits like the Epoch Times (notably run by Chinese expats) often include gold ads in their influence operations.
Traders put off by the strange nature of this economic moment espouse gold’s stability on financial TV, just a few channels’ flip away from all the other right-wing outlets propped up by gold sponsors—which then point to messy current events to keep aged retirees scared and wondering whether anything is safe and stable anymore. Forget the meme stocks. Gold is forever.