Gold futures exploded higher on Monday to finish up 3.75% with stocks, scoring a greater than seven-year high as overarching concerns related to the spread of coronavirus fueled investor appetite for the safe-haven metal, regardless of the fact that U.S. stock indexes rallied on the belief that deaths from the pandemic will soon plateau.
The U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Sunday said “this is going to be the hardest and saddest week of most Americans’ lives, quite frankly,” telling “Fox News Sunday” that “this is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized.”
But after two days of range trading, equities rocketed higher on Monday, helping to recover from the pullback last week, as the tally of fresh coronavirus cases in the U.S. appeared to diminish in New York.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied as much as 1,200 points higher, or more than 5.5% by 2 PM EST, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed roughly 5.4% apiece.
Gold joined the party, climbing from $1638 an ounce to just above $1715, giving gold bugs more optimism along with interest rates, that the metal will continue on target for $2000 an ounce as some analysts have projected.
“The consequences of negative rates in a liquidity rich environment will continue to fuel the gold price higher as sellers are less eager to sell to the more hungry buyers,” Spina said. So the “march to $2,000 and beyond continues. The next stop is $1,700 now, with a move above kicking up the momentum buying-energy even more into a bullish state.”
Overall, “this somewhat encouraging news appears to be a goldilocks scenario for gold, as buyers are more confident to step in and purchasing the safe-haven metal, while knowing there are still very tough times ahead, including the specter of problematic inflation farther down the road,” said Jim Wyckoff, senior analyst at Kitco.com.
While there is some feeling that the stay-at-home orders in many states will help to curtail the damage and spread of the coronavirus pandemic, market analysts still see further equity market destruction, which will support safe-haven assets like gold.
“Fiscal and monetary stimulus will provide a nice backdrop for gold, but safe-haven demand will be high due to upcoming financial stress that will persist over the coming months as the U.S. economy enters a very dangerous place,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda, in a market update.
Gold investors can continue to use ETFs like the Direxion Daily Gold Miners Bull 3X ETF (NYSEArca: NUGT), which was up more than 11% Monday, the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners (NYSEArca: GDX) and the Direxion Daily Jr Gold Miners Bull 3X ETF (NYSEArca: JNUG).
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