Ben Bernanke and Gold
How did Ben Bernanke impact gold prices during his tenure as Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve?
In May 2007, Ben Bernanke famously said: "We believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the broader housing market will be limited and we do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.”
And what happened next? The global financial crisis (GFC).
Who Is Ben Bernanke?
Ben Bernanke became the Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve after being nominated by President George W. Bush in February 2006. His policies helped encourage the housing bubble and he later led the Fed’s response to the Great Recession.
Bernanke was born on December the 13th, 1953, in Augusta, Georgia, and received his Ph.D. in economics from MIT in 1979. He worked in academia for many years, then entered public service. From 2002 to 2005, he was a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, and from 2005 to 2006, he chaired Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. After that, President Barack Obama elected him for a second Fed term in 2010 before he was succeeded by Janet Yellen.
Bernanke and Gold
Despite Bernanke’s disdain for gold, the yellow metal rallied ~134% during his tenure. The chart below tracks gold’s performance from early 2006 until early 2014, and the period was a boon for the bulls.
Chart 1: Gold prices (London P.M. Fix, in $, monthly averages) under Bernanke’s Fed tenure.
But, what drove the yellow metal’s ascent?
Well, Lehman Brothers’ 2008 collapse triggered the GFC, and the gold price initially declined, as investors liquidated their holdings to cover losses on other positions.
To stem the crisis,, Bernanke unleashed zero-interest-rate policy (ZIRP) by pushing the U.S. federal funds rate to the floor. But, since the U.S. economy remained stagnant, Bernanke added quantitative easing (QT), which ballooned the Fed’s balance sheet.
And this is where gold’s appeal kicked in.
The first two rounds of the asset purchase program were positive for the precious metals, as investors worried about the increasing money supply and inflation. In addition, with the USD Index making a new post-GFC low in 2011, the greenback’s plight also helped ignite gold’s bull market.
However, the enthusiasm sputtered near $1,900, as the U.S. economy recovered and inflation did not materialize. Subsequently, gold entered a bear market in September 2011 (two months after the end of the QE2), as increased confidence in the Fed and U.S. growth reduced the need for gold’s tail risk insurance. Consequently, the stock market rose and the gold price declined.
Does Gold Still React to the Fed?
With Fed policy heavily influencing real yields and the USD Index, the central bank has an indirect effect on the gold price. As a result, predicting the future directions of inflation-adjusted interest rates and the dollar basket are paramount to succeeding as a precious metals trader.
Luckily, our premium alerts analyze these metrics in great detail, and we augment the findings by studying sentiment and positioning. More importantly, our advanced technical analysis helps determine the best times to enter and exit positions. In other words, the technicals are a guiding light that reveal when the risk-reward is the most attractive.
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