Gold passes major milestone of US$3000 per ounce

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The price of gold surpassed US$3,000 per ounce early on Friday, hitting a symbolic milestone that precious metals mining executives have long thought could rejuvenate investor interest in their sector.

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“Gold breaking through US$3,000 is a major psychological milestone,” said Stephen Stewart, chair of Toronto-based Ore Group, which has a long history of starting gold exploration companies. “While it may test this milestone multiple times before holding, history suggests that once it breaks through barriers decisively, it tends to keep running.”

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The price of bullion has been steadily rising for more than a year. In 2023, it dipped below US$2,000 per ounce, but has since climbed back and risen more than 38 per cent in the past year alone, spurred by central banks around the world buying bullion and increasingly by investors looking for a safe haven that is disconnected from the volatility of equity markets.

Stewart predicted the first impact of gold hitting US$3,000 would be for the so-called majors — industry slang for gold mining companies that are already producing ore — to expect to post larger profits. That will attract more investors, strengthen their balance sheets and grease the wheels for more acquisitions, he said.

Eventually, he said, the benefits will “naturally trickle down” to junior miners, who are exploring for gold, but do not yet have a source of revenue.

As a general rule, gold mining and exploration companies have not enjoyed the same bull run during the past few years that has propelled the yellow metal they mine to ever higher peaks, but that’s changing.

The VanEck Gold Mining ETF, a US$13-billion exchange-traded fund primarily indexed to companies that mine gold and silver, is up 42 per cent in the past year as of Friday morning, which is more than gold itself.

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The VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF, a US$4.7-billion fund indexed to precious metal explorers, has risen 50.5 per cent in the same timeframe.

“There’s a real disconnect between people’s perceptions and reality,” said Ammar Al-Joundi, chief executive of Toronto-based Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd., which in February surpassed Colorado-based Newmont Corp. as the world’s largest gold mining company and now has a market cap of more than $74 billion.

Since 2000, the price of gold has multiplied 10 times, which Al-Joundi characterized as a greater value appreciation than the stock market, broadly speaking.

But he said most gold mining equities have not risen tenfold during that period.

“The (gold mining) equities haven’t kept up with gold, so people look at the equities and say gold is a crappy business, but actually gold is quite good,” he said.

Al-Joundi said many gold miners have not managed their capital well in the past, having blown holes in their balance sheets during the last bull run between 2010 and 2012, when gold first poked above US$2,000 per ounce, only to settle down to a range between US$1,400 per ounce and US$1,200 per ounce until around 2019.

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Although gold poked through US$2,000 per ounce in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic shook investors, it ultimately dipped below that milestone until after Russia invaded Ukraine. Afterwards, Canada and many other Western countries imposed sanctions to freeze Russian assets.

Many analysts say the current rise in gold prices can be attributed to increased purchases by central banks, particularly the People’s Bank of China, which is often seen as a preemptive defensive action to preserve economic independence as geopolitical turbulence rises.

For example, central banks in 2022 and 2023 purchased 1,082 tonnes and 1,037 tonnes of gold, respectively, compared to average annual purchases of 492 tonnes between 2012 and 2021.

On top of that, United States President Donald Trump has stormed back into office and asserted a more aggressive foreign policy and economic strategy, including threatening — if not always imposing — a wide array of tariffs that have spooked equity markets.

Since early February, the S&P 500 has declined 7.5 per cent while the Nasdaq composite has declined 10.2 per cent.

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“Right now, what’s impacting gold is just (market) volatility,” Al-Joundi said, “and people are looking at what’s happening geopolitically, which is causing the craziness in the stock markets, which is causing people to worry.”

But he said the longer-term trend underpinning the rise in gold’s price is that it is both a monetary asset and a hard asset. As governments, such as the U.S. and Canada, print more fiat currency while running larger deficits, he said gold prices will rise.

“I’ve never considered myself a gold bug,” he said. “I’ve considered myself a hard asset bug … as long as governments are printing money like crazy, it will continue to go up.”

Such sentiments are widespread in the industry. Eric Sprott, the Canadian billionaire who widely invests in the precious metal exploration sector, recently predicted gold would rise to US$8,000 per ounce because of the U.S. government’s fiscal irresponsibility.

“We’ve had an incredibly bullish stock market, so everybody in the stock market is making a fortune, so they’re all saying, ‘What do I need gold for?’” he said.

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But he said it’s been “a whole new era” since gold poked through US$2,000 per ounce in 2023, and investors are once again realizing that it provides a safe haven from many forms of risk.

Still, he said hitting US$3,000 per ounce may be more symbolic than meaningful because gold mining equities continue to be grossly undervalued.

Many gold miners and explorers trade at market capitalizations that don’t provide full value for the gold deposits they claim to have discovered, suggesting perhaps that investors are skeptical they can actually pull it all out of the ground.

Sprott said many junior miners, which are exploring but not yet producing, trade at prices that value their gold assets at US$10 per ounce, which he called ridiculous.

“Ultimately, it won’t be very significant,” he said about the US$3,000 per ounce milestone. “In reality, gold can get to US$8,000.”

• Email: gfriedman@postmedia.com

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