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

Probably the first birds domesticated by people. War heroes (see: Cher Ami). A Christian symbol of the Holy Spirit. Doves. Glorious animals.

You are probably wondering why we write about birds on a website devoted to precious metals and other investments. The reason is that “dove” is a term used not only in ornithology, but also in monetary policy. It means a policymaker who is predominantly concerned about economic growth. Hence, doves generally favor lower interest rates and easy monetary policy to support economic growth and employment. They constantly fight with the hawks who are rather concerned about inflation and prefer higher interest rates and tight monetary policy to maintain price stability.

In this tug-of-war, the Fed sometimes adopts a more hawkish or a more dovish tone. The former signals a more aggressive stance towards monetary tightening, while the latter indicates a preference towards easy monetary conditions to combat unemployment, even at the expense of rising inflation.

What do the Dow Jones and my ex have in common? They are both doing really well and all my friends are in them except me…

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (also known as the DJIA, the Dow Jones, or simply the Dow) is a stock index of 30 large and well-known publicly-owned companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq (such as Apple, Coca-Cola, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, or Walt Disney). The index was created by Charles Dow in 1896, which makes it one of the oldest stock indexes in the world. It also remains one of the most closely monitored and regularly cited stock indexes as a measure of stock market performance, especially by the general public. However, it does not take into account the market capitalization of each stock, and it includes only 30 companies – which is why some analysts consider the S&P 500 a better representation of the overall market performance.

Dow Theory is a general theory that attempts to describe the behavior of the stock market: the way that price trends develop and the reasons behind it. It also gives some ideas on how to determine whether a particular move should be seen as a continuation of the current trend or rather a sign of a trend reversal.

What is the most important season? Most people prefer summer as one can swim and sip drinks on the beach shirtless. Personally, I like winter when the earth is covered by snow and you can ski then and drink tea with rum without causing strange looks. Spring and fall have their own charms, but the most important season for the Wall Street is earnings season!

The European Central Bank, based in Frankfurt, Germany, is the central bank of the 17 member states of the Eurozone. In the short run, ECB's actions can drive the gold price, but over the long run, other factors appear to be more important.

Electronic Communication Network (ECN) in capital markets refers to an electronic system that attempts to eliminate the role of a third party in the execution of orders.

Usually, everything is going fine. But from time to time something bad happens and the crisis breaks out. It may either apply to our business (or personal life), or the whole economy. Then, we talk about “economic crisis”.

Comex has several warehouses for metals (as investors may take delivery), which contain lots of gold. The bullion held in these warehouses is divided into two categories: eligible and registered gold.

Elliott wave theory is one of the most popular theories used in technical analysis, that might be helpful in understanding the way that trends develop, and therefore in making more accurate prognoses. EWT is often applied to many markets, including gold and silver.

No longer underdeveloped country. But not a developed economy yet. Emerging market is a country which has some features of the developed markets, but does not fully satisfy all of their standards. The term is, thus, imprecise or outdated and some people prefer talking about developing countries or low income countries, middle income countries and high income countries. However, the main features of emerging markets are as follows: lower income than in advanced countries, relatively rapid economic growth, high volatility, capital markets less mature than in developed markets, higher than average returns.

E-mini is an electronically traded futures contract on the CME that indicates a ‘smaller version’ of the normal future contracts. E-mini enables market participation with a lower capital. In other words, it refers to a contract with miniature size of normal contracts.

After the outbreak of the COVID-19, we are now all epidemiologists! But what does an “epidemic” really means? Well, it is an outbreak of disease that spreads quickly and affects many individuals at the same time. What is important, an epidemic refers to a sudden increase in the number of cases of a disease above what is normally expected, or to diseases that have grown out of control. So, a regular, seasonal flu is normally not called an epidemic, although it may affect many people. But when the flu virus mutates and infects much more individuals than normally expected, then it becomes epidemic.

The epidemic occurs when people do not have immunity to a new pathogen (or their immunity to an established pathogen decreased significantly). The latest example is, of course, COVID-19 caused by a new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 that passed from animals (possibly bats or pangolins).