Gold investing is a topic that has been very popular in recent years. The economy is still in decline and the stock market continues its volatility. Congress has failed to control government spending. This chaos is why Americans are confused about how gold can be used in their retirement plans. Let’s be clear, you came here because you heard gold investment could provide greater security and long-term growth. It’s hard to give you all the information that gold investing has to offer. But let’s just focus on one key factor: inflation and gold prices. You can get the best guide on gold etf in ira account.
There are many reasons why people choose gold to be part of their portfolios. Most notably, they believe that it is an effective way to protect against inflation. There is a hard truth to this: inflation and gold are not in perfect harmony. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the official measure to determine inflation in the United States. This means that changes at the price of gold may not be the same as changes at the CPI. There are times in history when gold didn’t keep up to inflation and you lost purchasing ability holding this asset. The same goes for periods in which the CPI has grown significantly. For example, the Consumer Price Index rose only 31% in January 2001, and gold prices increased by around 350% between January 2001, 2001, and January 2013.
We will now look at the relationship between them over a longer duration. Look at the chart below. The yellow line is indicative of changes in average gold price and the red shows changes within the average CPI. The two would have to be perfectly correlated for them to move in the same direction all the time. However, as you can see they don’t. The most recent example of this is the period around 2001 when inflation and gold start to move almost in opposing directions.
Why is this happening? There are many factors that can explain this phenomenon. First, CPI calculations can change over time. Because of the potential for small adjustments in the formula to make a difference for Social Security benefits increases and other government programs, it is common for federal governments to change these calculations. The second reason to invest in gold is that you are buying a product. As with all commodities, the prices of gold can be affected by investor psychology. Gold has been an asset of choice for wealth-preserving investors around the globe for centuries. The price of gold can rise more quickly during times of uncertainty than inflation because investors anticipate the looming crisis. That is exactly what happened in recent years, when smart investors jumped on the gold bandwagon.