Friday, November 5, 2010

Gold vs USD, is the dollar useful for predicting gold?







Look at the top chart.  This chart shows no trend.  This chart is of a dollar proxy which is being traded as an ETF or exchange traded fund.  This is a weekly chart that goes back two years as of this writing.  Now look at the bottom chart.  This chart is for gold since 1985.  It shows no trend until 2004, and afterwards, a very strong upwards trend which continues today.  I have isolated the last two years of this monthly chart with a small slice of it to the right.  This shows the chart going straight up.  I take it to mean that the price of gold has nothing to do with dollar strength or weakness for the last two years.  The reason I don't have a longer range comparison is that this ETF doesn't go back all that far.  But a little thought will convince you that the price of gold has little to do with the dollar.  Anybody who tells you to buy gold because of weak dollar needs to look at this chart.

I don't have a chart for oil, but I suspect that the same is true.   One may conclude that commodities tell you nothing about inflation.  But that wouldn't be right.  If you go back far enough, you will see that the dollar is in the range that it has always been in.  The dollar tells you nothing about inflation.  This goes for gold and oil and for everything else.  The prices for things go up, but the dollar is about the same as always.

Back in 2008, when the price of oil spiked up to 150 dollars a barrel, some people were blaming the high prices on the weak dollar.  The dollar isn't much different now, but the price is about half of what it was then.

No comments: