Gold priced in the Pound peaked Wednesday morning above £1990 per Troy ounce, setting its 25th new all-time high of 2024 to date for UK investors and savers and gaining 22.3% this year so far.
See the live UK gold price in Pounds per ounce here:
But while gold’s 2024 gains are dramatic – outpacing the FTSE All-Share’s rise of 7.3% so far almost 3 times over – the precious metal has risen faster year-to-date 11 times before, and then gone on to end December higher again 5 times.
Analysis from BullionVault – the online and mobile-app marketplace now caring for £3.6 billion in precious metals (US$5.0bn) for over 100,000 users worldwide – says that this year’s run already beats all but 6 full-year totals for new British Pound records over the past 57 years, since gold prices began trading freely in 1968.
2024’s run of new record gold prices marks the highest total since 2011 – when widespread riots in England coincided with US government debt being downgraded as the Eurozone debt crisis peaked, spurring 32 new daily highs in the UK price of gold by the middle of September. It also now matches the full-year total of 2008, when the global credit crunch became an all-out financial crisis with the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
This year in contrast has seen Western stock markets also set new all-time highs, even as political violence has worsened with growing fears of wider conflict in the Middle East, South China Sea, and over Ukraine.
Commenting on the figures, BullionVault director of research Adrian Ash says:
“Today’s bull market in gold contrasts with the precious metal’s jumps during both the Covid pandemic and financial crisis, because Western investors haven’t joined in to date.
“The precious metal’s latest run of new record highs is being driven by speculative trading in futures and options contracts rather than by demand for physical bullion. Most notably, demand in gold’s giant consumer markets of China and India is pulling back in the face of these new and sudden highs.
“However, gold’s latest record highs are beginning to gain attention, and UK investors are increasingly turning to gold as the gloom sparked by recent Labour decisions takes hold, matching the upturn in new interest among US citizens ahead of November’s presidential election.”
• Number of new UK account openings running at strongest since April
• Up 15% from August and 57% above the 12-month average
• Contrasts with Eurozone (-21% from August and -10% from 12m avg)
• Beaten by USA (+25% from Aug, +83% from 12m avg)
Adrian Ash continues:
“While there’s an element of FOMO in traders and investors now looking at gold because of its record-breaking prices, the long-term case for adding bullion to a spread of other investments remains very strong.
“Geopolitical violence and tensions worldwide are boosting central-bank gold buying among emerging-market nations. China’s steep economic slowdown raises big question marks over the global economy. The start of interest-rate cuts across the West, including from the Bank of England, reduces the returns to cash in the bank and raises the appeal of physical bullion as a safe-haven alternative.”
