Explanations of "Gold" investment-related terms A to Z

The world's fourth largest economy by nominal GDP, and the fifth largest by purchasing power parity. The third largest exporter of goods in the world and the richest country in Europe. The country famous for automotive industry, great culture and excellent beer. Germany. What are its links to the gold market?

Chemically, gold is an element with the symbol Au and atomic number 79. It belongs to noble metals and is a unique element. First of all, it is extremely rare. In the Earth’s crust, gold occurs 19 times less frequently than silver and 15 thousand times less frequently than copper. It is the only metal being yellow with a high luster, to which it owes its Latin name ‘aurum’, meaning “shining dawn.”

Gold had served as money for thousands of years until 1971 when the gold standard was abandoned for a fiat currency system. Since that time, gold has been used as an investment. Gold is often classified as a commodity. However, it behaves more like a currency. The yellow metal is very weakly correlated with other commodities and is less used in the industry. Unlike national currencies, the yellow metal is not tied to any particular country. Gold is a global monetary asset and its price reflects the global sentiment, however, it is mostly influenced by the U.S. macroeconomic conditions.

People need to feel their money is safe, leading them to seek safe assets. How does gold function as a safe-haven?

You have probably heard this term many times. You may know someone who you would say is this type of person. Perhaps you are or have been called so, even though you are not. Goldbug – it’s very common term in the financial sector, sometimes used as a belittling pejorative. Rightly so? Not necessarily. You see, the problem is that the term is used to describe several interconnected yet distinct aspects.

The price of gold, as each price, is determined by the market forces of demand and supply. The demand is the amount of a good demanded for purchase at a given price. Therefore, the demand for gold is the amount of a gold demanded for purchase at a given price. Gold demand is often analyzed on an annual basis and divided into jewelry demand, technology demand, central banks demand or investment demand.

The golden cross is a relatively infrequent technical indicator which occurs when an asset’s (gold’s) short-term moving average (like the 50-day moving average) crosses above its long-term moving average (like the 200-day moving average). The golden cross is often associated with important upward price movement and it is considered a bullish signal. The crossover is considered more significant when accompanied by high trading volume. Once it occurs, the long-term moving average is considered a major support level.

The Gold Forward Offered Rate (GOFO) is the swap rate for a gold-to-U.S. dollar exchange. It is not the price to lease gold but rather the price to swap gold for U.S. dollars. In other words, it is a rate at which someone is ready to exchange gold for the greenback. You can think of GOFO as the interest rate on a U.S. dollar loan secured by gold as collateral. Since a swap can be described as a series of forward contracts, the Gold Forward Offered Rate resembles the gold forward rate and may be interpreted as the difference between the U.S. dollar interest rate (LIBOR) and the gold lease rate (GLR).

In the gold market, there are many derivatives available for investors who want to hedge or speculate. They may use gold futures which are quoted on exchanges (like Comex). In the over-the-counter market, gold forwards and swaps are traded instead.

Some hedge funds specialize in the gold market and in this case, one can benefit from both: gold's price gains, and portfolio manager's abilities. Naturally, there are some drawbacks as well, such as the fee that the fund charges.

Once upon a time, a little girl called Goldilocks came to a house of Three Bears... We guess that you have heard the whole story. For sure, you have, Goldilocks and the Three Bears is one of the most popular fairy tales in the Western world. Now, you might wonder why we refer to the story for children in the dictionary for terms related to the precious metals investing. The reason is, of course, the Goldilocks economy we still have, to the despair of gold bulls.

What is gold inventory? Well, inventory usually means goods available for sale or raw materials used to produce these goods. In other words, it is the goods and materials that companies hold for the ultimate goal of resale. Hence, we could say that all gold held by jewelers, dentists and technology companies is gold inventory. The same applies to gold coins or gold bars held by bullion dealers.