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Gold Price 2018 Forecast

It may be time, for those who haven’t done so already, to consider “safety” again. It’s time to consider gold.

It may sound boring but there’s a reason gold has lasted this long. Still, many have forgotten the value of gold; in 2017, the World Gold Council (WGC) said that gold demand was at its lowest in eight years. (Source: “Gold demand slid to eight-year low in 2017 -WGC, CNBC,” CNBC, February 6, 2018.)

It’s unclear how long the market will remain in “shock” mode. Investors appear to have come to terms with the fact that interest rates are about to increase to offset potential inflation.

The world lost its appetite for gold in 2017. The WGC said that demand dropped by as much as seven percent to 4,071.7 tonnes in its demand trends report. Much of the blame goes to smaller inflows into bullion-backed exchange traded funds. Yet it’s also true that gold prices increased in 2017 as the U.S. dollar dropped—given the Federal Reserve’s soft interest policy—but not everyone jumped. The stock market remained too appealing; there were these magical new “investments” called cryptocurrencies, which seemed like such a foolproof and innovative way to make money…

Gold Comes from the Stars and It’s as Rare on Earth as in the Universe

In other words, gold wasn’t cool. But nobody said it was a bad or risky proposition. Gold itself is a material that exists in much of the known universe. Iron and other metals come from stars—their cores. But gold is as rare on earth as it is in the universe because it occurs after the collision of two neutron stars—the ultra-dense nuclei of two stars that have exploded. (Source: “Earth’s Gold Came from Colliding Dead Stars,” Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, July 17, 2013.)

The famous astrophysicist and PBS personality, Carl Sagan, used to say that “we are made of star stuff.” Gold is made of rarer star stuff. It’s one of the few things in the universe, not just earth, which could establish the basis of a “currency” if and when space exploration brings humans to form space colonies or settle on other planets. Bitcoins, which exist only in cyberspace—and are dependent on the power running—can hardly offer that kind of value guarantee.