In mid-April we saw gold plummet to just below $1400 an ounce, its lowest price since March 2011. The precipitous drop in April put the yellow metal technically in bear market territory, with people trying to figure out where it’s headed next.
Fast-forward to last Friday when gold closed above $1470.
Marcus Grubb, managing director of investment at the World Gold Council, told The Daily Ticker at the Milken Institute’s 2013 Global Conference it's headed in one direction: up.
“We feel the bull market is very much intact even if there’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment for investors,” Grubb says. “There’s some switching into equities in the United States going on – this has affected gold to some degree - but we don’t believe you’re seeing this great rotation as it's called.”
(Keep in mind that the World Gold Council is the market development organization for the gold industry. Its self-described purpose is to provide industry leadership while stimulating and sustaining demand for gold.)
Grubb argues that gold's decline was driven by a very big short sale in the futures market in New York, and he asserts that we’re seeing a recovery as physical demand rebounds. He cites consumers in India and China currently paying a premium for physical gold as two examples.
The World Gold Council doesn’t give price targets, but Grubb says the organization believes gold will return to pre-April levels because the long-term drivers of demand are firmly in place.
Grubb concedes that if investors are becoming more confident in the U.S. economic recovery that may change his outlook for gold. But he explains in the accompanying video why investors should continue to hold gold in their portfolios as insurance or a hedge (against, for example, inflation, currency debasement, or financial instability).
He also admits that during some recent tumultuous events, gold hasn’t always performed as a safe haven.
There are “times when gold is a safe haven and times when it moves with other risk assets like equities," he says.
But he says investors should still ultimately look at gold as a store of value and safe haven.
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