marketwatch.com /By Brett Arends / March 6, 2013, 7:00 a.m. EST
Commentary: Why the precious metal’s run isn’t finished just yet
Have you heard about the new boom in gold?
You won’t hear about it in the usual places. Everywhere you turn these days, all you hear is that gold is down, it’s finished, it’s heading for something called a “death cross,” which sounds terrifying. But away from the headlines, gold just rocketed to a new, all-time high.
Where? In Japan — the world’s fourth largest economy.
The arrival of a new government in December, and the launch of Japan’s own brand of “quantitative easing,” or money printing, has sent the yen tumbling dramatically on the international exchanges. Lots more yen means each yen is worth less.
An ounce of gold, which sold for 125,000 yen as recently as last July, now sells for 145,000. It touched 155,000, an all-time record, early in February.
Those Japanese who dumped their yen in the past couple of years and stocked up on gold are probably feeling pretty good at this point.
Gold has rocketed up 36% in yen in two years. So much for the collapse in gold.
And this isn’t an isolated case. In recent months, gold also hit new highs in other countries, including Brazil, Iceland and India.
