Gold, how long can you be crazy？

Text | market value observation Xiao Li flying knife

Editor | Xiao Shimei

Recently, the international gold price is witnessing history every day, and the current price once exceeded $2,380 per ounce.

Under the skyrocketing price of gold, ETFs tracking the spot price of gold also ushered in brilliant performance. Among them, the gold ETF Huaxia (518850) rose nearly 16% in more than one month, which was more than 50% higher than the low point in March 2021, which caused great concern in the market. In the eyes of many professional organizations, this round of gold bull market is far from over.

【 cycle cycle 】

Historically, the price of gold has experienced many rounds of bull-bear cycles.

After the Great Depression in 1929-1933, most developed economies abandoned the gold standard and implemented the paper money system. As a functions of money, gold has been greatly weakened, and the price of gold is facing revaluation, which has soared by more than 70% in just a few years. This is the first time that people have witnessed the power of gold.

Since then, the international gold price was tepid, and it was not until 1970-1980 that the second super bull market was ushered in, with a cumulative increase of 430%.

In 1971, Nixon brazenly announced the suspension of the exchange of dollars into gold, the Bretton Woods system collapsed and the value of gold was revalued again. In addition, after the decoupling of the US dollar from gold, the US fiscal and monetary policies were like wild horses, which eventually led to a round of hyperinflation, which also drove the current round of gold prices to rise sharply to some extent.

Subsequently, gold ushered in a 20-year super bear market. During this period, gold continued to depreciate, in sharp contrast to the rising prices of major economies around the world. Among them, American prices soared by 500%.

In 2000, before the bursting of the Internet bubble in the United States, the global stock market was extremely enthusiastic, and gold was at the end of the bear market cycle, gradually bottoming out and opening the road to rebound.

From 2006 to 2008, there was a super bubble in the American real estate market, and the price of gold continued to rise to a high of $1,000. Since then, with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the subprime mortgage crisis has swept the world. As a major asset, gold has also fallen more than 20% following the stock market and bond market in just a few months.

In November 2008, the United States officially launched the QE policy, and large-scale over-issuance of money saved finance and economy from fire and water. The European Central Bank also implemented quantitative easing policy and expanded its balance sheet rapidly. The huge amount of liquidity continuously depressed the market interest rate and entered the zero interest rate range in December 2011. In the same period, the Bank of Japan’s QE and QQE policies came out.

The global mainstream currencies flooded, the real interest rate of the US dollar fell, and gold rose all the way to 2011, with the highest exceeding $1,900 per ounce.

▲COMEX gold main futures price chart, source: Chocie

After this bull market, gold ushered in a bear market for nearly seven years. The price of gold once dropped from a high level to $1,045 per ounce in 2015, with a cumulative decline of 46%. After that, it oscillated at the bottom for several years and started a new bull market cycle in October 2018.

From the perspective of historical deduction, once the gold price enters the bull market or bear market cycle, the trend will not end soon, and the duration can often last for more than 10 years. If this gold bull market follows the historical laws, it is a good choice to invest in gold-themed index funds such as gold ETF Huaxia (518850).

"Different bull market"

As we all know, gold has three attributes, including finance, hedging and commodities.

Financial attributes are mainly priced by two major indicators, one is inflation expectation and the other is nominal interest rate. To put it simply, gold has been used as a "hard currency" against inflation over the years-inflation has gone up, and gold tends to rise; Deflation, gold tends to fall. Nominal interest rate generally regards the yield of 10-year US bonds as opportunity cost. When the nominal interest rate goes down, gold tends to go up, and vice versa.

The combination of two factors, that is, the real interest rate (nominal interest rate-inflation expectation), is one of the important logics that determine the long-term trend of gold prices.

Hedging is the most important attribute of short-term fluctuation of gold, but it can’t support the performance of gold price in the medium and long term. Commodity attributes are weaker than the first two, because the demand for gold consumption (such as gold ornaments) is relatively stable and the supply is relatively stable, which often has little impact on the price of gold.

Then, since October 2018, why has a sharp bull market broken out in gold? How is this different from previous cycles?

From October 2018 to the end of 2022, there was a relatively obvious negative correlation between gold and the real interest rate as a whole, which was not very different from the past big cycle.

▲ US real interest rate VS gold futures price trend, source: m square

At the end of 2018, the Federal Reserve entered the end of the interest rate hike cycle since 2015, and then cut interest rates three times in 2019. In 2020, when the COVID-19 epidemic crisis hit, the Federal Reserve quickly lowered the federal benchmark interest rate to zero, and its balance sheet expanded by $5 trillion. Massive currency liquidity flooded into the market, the real interest rate fell sharply, and gold as a whole showed a continuous upward trend.

Since the end of 2022, the real interest rate in the United States has fluctuated and risen, but gold has continued to strengthen. Recently, the macro data of non-agricultural employment and inflation in the United States have performed strongly, indicating that the economic fundamentals are strong, and the yield of 10-year US bonds has also rebounded to above 4.4%, driving the real interest rate to rise, but gold is still unmoved and crazy.

From the real interest rate in the past big cycle, the main pricing factors can no longer effectively explain the surge in the second stage of this gold bull market. The main reason is that the crazy purchase of gold by global central banks has become another important factor leading the trend of gold prices.

In 2022, global central banks bought 1,082 tons of gold, a significant increase compared with the previous 450 tons, setting a record high. In 2023, the net purchase again was 1,037.4 tons, which continued to maintain a high level, close to 20% of the annual gold supply. Among them, the biggest buyer originated from the Bank of China.

▲ The central bank’s demand for gold purchases has increased rapidly. Source: Zeping Macro

As of March, 2024, the gold reserve of the Bank of China was 72.74 million ounces, up 160,000 ounces from the previous month. It is worth noting that this is the 17th consecutive month that the Bank of China has increased its holdings by 10.1 million ounces, or about 286 tons. According to the current gold price, the increase in holdings exceeds 170 billion yuan.

Since March, gold has continued to skyrocket, which has stimulated the rapid increase of global non-commercial long positions in gold for speculative profits and the relative decline of short positions. This undoubtedly exacerbated the soaring price of gold with a very steep slope.

From the short-term and medium-term perspective, the Fed will enter the interest rate reduction cycle for several years in the future, and the high interest rate of US bonds will have a large downside in the future. From a long-term perspective, due to distrust of the sovereign currency of the US dollar, central banks around the world systematically increase their holdings of gold, which will drive the upward trend of gold prices.

Long and short period resonance, the future gold market is still expected.

[investment at the right time]

Since the gold price in the afternoon is expected, it will be a good choice to vote for gold. You know, gold is the only legal and compliant global allocation asset that most people in China have access to.

In addition to buying physical gold, a more convenient way to invest in gold is to use ETF for layout. For example, the latest scale of gold ETF Huaxia (518850) is over 400 million yuan, with good liquidity, and it has recorded nearly 50% return performance in the past three years, which deserves special attention.

Of course, participating in the gold market can also focus on outstanding A-share gold listed companies.

Specifically, the middle and upper reaches of the gold industry chain are mainly engaged in gold mining and smelting, with Zijin Mining and Shandong Gold as the leading companies, while the downstream is mainly engaged in the production and sales of gold jewelry, with Lao Fengxiang and Zhou Dasheng as the leading companies.

The leading enterprises in the upstream resources are relatively more profitable, especially Zijin Mining, which has a market value of over 440 billion. Its gross profit margin increased from 8.5% in 2015 to 15.8% in 2023, and its net interest rate increased from 1.8% in the same period to 9%.

Zijin Mining’s gold business scale is undoubtedly the largest in China. In terms of reserves, it will reach 1,191 tons in 2022 (gold resources will reach 3,117 tons), far exceeding the 507 tons and 417 tons of Zhongjin Gold and Shandong Gold. In addition to the gold business, Zijin Mining also mines non-ferrous metals such as copper and zinc, and its output ranks among the top in the world.

These businesses have experienced explosive growth in the past few years. From 2005 to 2023, the revenue expanded from 3.07 billion yuan to 293.4 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 29%. The net profit of returning to the mother increased from 700 million yuan to 21.1 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 21%.

One of the core competitiveness driving the continuous growth of performance stems from low cost. On the one hand, Zijin Mining has mining technology that its peers don’t have, or can’t reach, to realize the benefit of mining low-grade mines. On the other hand, Zijin Mining is good at using the cycle and purchasing mineral resources at low prices against the trend.

In addition, Zhongjin Gold and Shandong Gold are not bad in operation, but their cyclical properties are stronger than Zijin Mining, and their share prices generally fluctuate with the gold price.

Lao Fengxiang, the core leader in the downstream of the gold industry chain, is also a super bull stock. Although the level of gross profit and net profit is very low, which is not much different from that of most manufacturing companies, fortunately, the business scale continues to expand, which also drives its profits to continue to grow.

Lao Fengxiang’s good growth stems from the bonus of China’s gold jewelry industry. According to Euromonitor, the market size of the industry was 815.9 billion yuan at the end of 2022, and it will reach 942.9 billion yuan in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 7.8%. In addition, from the perspective of per capita jewelry consumption, China’s jewelry consumption is US$ 82, which is lower than US$ 693 in Hongkong, China, US$ 309 in Singapore and US$ 250, and there is still much room for growth in the future.

In China’s jewelry market, the consumption of gold products is significantly higher, accounting for 58.3% in 2021 and above 60% in many years. In the global market, the largest market segment is diamond jewelry, accounting for 47%, followed by gold, accounting for 42%. It can be seen that the leading enterprises specializing in gold jewelry in China will benefit more.

In short, from the historical dimension and driving logic, this round of gold bull market may be far from complete. In this uncertain era, the allocation of gold-related assets should be a relatively certain choice.