Great Wall of uncertainty
The yellow metal made new highs last month, crossing US$3,600 ($4,622) and is perhaps en route to US$4,000 as gold bugs would hope. Once again, I kicked myself for not following my own hypothesis at the beginning of the year to be more bullish on this asset class. However, to be sure, if I had used my 10% CPF investment account limit to buy Singdollar (SGD)-based gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs), most of its gains would have been wiped out by the decline in the US dollar (USD) across the board.
So, therein lies the conundrum for investors who may be SGD-based versus USD-based in terms of measuring return in an era where the greenback is softening in tandem with a weaker US economy and interest rate cuts, a topic that received some airtime at a recent JP Morgan outlook conference.
