Gold price goes above $3000 US an ounce for the first time

The Australian share market has lifted slightly today, after a bounce on Wall Street overnight, with the price of gold reaching a new high.

Transcript

00:00Well, gold is regarded as a safe haven asset for investors, so when demand drives the price

00:06up, that's probably not good news, because it means there's something that investors

00:10think they need a safe haven from.

00:13And so it is at the moment, with gold the best performing asset this year, up 14% year

00:18to date and 50% since the start of last year, going above $3,000 US last night for the first

00:24time, or 4,700 Aussie.

00:27So what are investors worried about?

00:29Well, a year ago it was geopolitics, Ukraine and the Middle East, and now added to the

00:34anxiety is Donald Trump, or more precisely, tariffs, which are expected to cause a hit

00:40to economic growth, something that was endorsed last night by the OECD in its latest Global

00:46Economic Outlook, which downgraded world growth from 3.2% last year to 3.1% this year and

00:533% next year.

00:54US growth has been downgraded more, Europe has been upgraded, and the forecast for Australia

00:59cut from 1.9% this year to 1.8% next year.

01:05And that compares, by the way, with the Government's latest forecast for next year of 2.25%.

01:10So we'll see what they say about that in the Budget next week.

01:13The local share market went up again today, but not very much, and it was hard to discern

01:17any pattern.

01:18The US market also went up last night, as did Asian markets today.

01:22Iron ore fell 2.5%, apparently because of a fall in Chinese house prices.

01:26And the Aussie continued to rise as the US dollar falls, in anticipation of weaker growth

01:31and therefore lower interest rates.

01:34And that's finance.