Gold is winning new fans

(Aug 31): After nosing above US$1,300 ($1,761.63), gold is winning new fans as tepid US inflation anchors Federal Reserve policy and President Donald Trump’s growth agenda risks running into the sand.

The metal should trade above that level in 2018 as the dollar weakens and the Fed sticks to just two rate hikes, in December 2017 and then March, according to Luc Luyet, a currency strategist at Pictet Wealth Management, a unit of the Pictet Group, which managed US$500 billion as of the end of June. Luyet’s “constructive” call is based on inflation lagging the Fed’s 2% target and Trump’s administration failing to deliver any significant fiscal boost.

“Given the fact that inflation should remain relatively low, we do not expect the Fed to be capable of doing much more than one hike in 2018,” Geneva-based Luyet said in an interview this week. “The dollar should be penalised next year by the weaker growth outlook and by the less active Fed, so we would expect the dollar to gradually weaken and that should support gold.”

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