Factors Affecting Gold Price – Nationally and Internationally

Gold is so far the most popular precious metal that everyone is fond of. Different civilizations and cultures have given gold a very significant position in wealth building and transferring that to generations. Although now there are too many types of investment opportunities and products available, gold is still considered as the primary investment option by most cultures. For most gold is not just an investment; it holds much more value which are not achieved through other investments.

Thus the price and price changes of this yellow metal has always attracted attention. Having a Golden downer history of price appreciation, recent gold rate shows very fast price increases and decreases. There are many local, national and international reasons for these gold price changes.

Import Duties, Taxes and Transporting Costs: These are local factors affecting gold prices. These factors also directly affect the price of gold. Because most nations lack any mines with significant production, most of the this precious metal is imported from other countries. The duties and taxes widely differ among countries and major importing countries like India are keeping high duties and taxes on importing to reduce their import cost by reducing gold import because of high domestic price.

Central Bank Gold Reserves: A major portion of gold above ground other than gold ornaments is in safe custody of central banks of nations. Most European, Asian countries together with USA has high gold reserve which serves as the reserve for currencies in circulation. Although central banks do not directly interfere with this precious metal market, the occasional news of central banks buying or selling gold can result in great volatility in gold prices because of the high position size of these trades.

Dollar Value and Inverse Relationship: Internationally, the value of gold is denoted in US dollar. So any change in gold exchange rate is reflected on gold price. Additionally, gold and US dollar shows a great negative correlation. When US dollar weakens gold prices soar and when this precious metal price falls US dollar strengthens.

Gold Demand and Production: Most of this precious metal mined in the world is used for making gold ornaments. Top populace countries like China, India and United States are main consumers. The economic weakening or strengthening, festival seasons and investing trends of these countries can thus cause high deflection in gold needs thus in price. Also most of the ‘easy gold’ on this planet earth is already mined, and now we have to go deeper for more. This increases the production cost and thus the yellow metal price. Also, the production is declining or keeping stagnant in recent past; causing lower production but higher demand.