1662.60 price of Gold 4/29/2012
Of all the precious metals, gold is
the most popular as an investment.
Investors generally buy gold as a
hedge or harbor against economic,
political, or social fiat currency
crises (including investment market
declines, burgeoning national debt,
currency failure, inflation, war and
social unrest). The gold market is
subject to speculation as are other
markets, especially through the use
of futures contracts and derivatives.
The history of the gold standard,
the role of gold reserves in central
banking, gold's low correlation with
other commodity prices, and its
pricing in relation to fiat currencies
during the Late-2000s financial
crisis, suggest that gold behaves
more like a currency than a commodity.
Gold has been used throughout history
as money and has been a relative
standard for currency equivalents
specific to economic regions or
countries, until recent times. Many
European countries implemented gold
standards in the latter part of the
19th century until these were
temporarily suspended in the
financial crises involving World War
I. After World War II, the Bretton
Woods system pegged the United States
dollar to gold at a rate of US$35 per
troy ounce. The system existed until
the 1971 Nixon Shock, when the US
unilaterally suspended the direct
convertibility of the United States
dollar to gold and made the transition
to a fiat currency system. The last
currency to be divorced from gold was
the Swiss Franc in 2000.
Since 1919 the most common benchmark
for the price of gold has been the
London gold fixing, a twice-daily
telephone meeting of representatives
from five bullion-trading firms of
the London bullion market. Furthermore,
gold is traded continuously throughout
the world based on the intra-day spot
price, derived from over-the-counter
gold-trading markets around the world
