Over at SLO Coin and Jewelry, manager Cynthia Wilcox is busier than she’s been in a while; there's a reason why.
“Gold is at an all-time high,” Wilcox said.
Over the past six months, the price of gold has gone up 20% to more than $2,000 which is close to gold’s all-time high of $2,075 according to Forbes Advisor.
“That's incredible and a lot of people are paying attention to that,” Wilcox said.
Over the past year, the Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates trying to bring down inflation.
When interest rates fall, gold prices tend to rise.
The increase in gold’s pricing is dictated by supply and demand.
Gold is considered to be a safe investment, in times of economic turmoil according to Forbes Advisor.
“I think one of the big reasons why we’re seeing an upload of gold going so high is many reasons but China and Russia are buying gold like crazy. There's talk of them backing their money by gold, and our dollar bill has been going down for a long time,” Wilcox said.
Silver is also on the move.
“Gold has gone up a lot and historically silver trails gold,” Nina Rice assistant manager at SLO Coin and Jewelry said.
Rice is seeing it play out locally.
“Probably ⅓ of our business is people coming in and selling their gold and silver jewelry and we had an uptick in that with gold going up,” Rice said.
The ratio of selling to buying gold at their store has been five to two Wilcox said.
The last time gold peaked was following the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis and after COVID-19 according to the National Institute of Health.
If you're looking to buy gold, historically the best months to do so are March and late April according to the US Gold Bureau, as gold prices typically surge during the winter months.
