The international gold price has fallen. Why are people still keen on buying gold?
Recently, the price of domestic gold retail market has been rising continuously, which has aroused heated public opinion. In 2022, the minimum retail price of gold was only 368 yuan/gram, but now the price of jewelry gold in some areas has reached 615 yuan/gram, which has soared by 63% in a year and a half. However, at a discount, the price is generally 570-600 yuan/gram.
The price of gold has risen, first of all, because of the arrival of the traditional holiday consumption peak season, and the demand for gold consumption such as marriage has increased. According to the data of China Gold Association, the national gold consumption in the first half of this year was 554.88 tons, a year-on-year increase of 16.37%. Among them, gold jewelry was 368.26 tons, up 14.82% year-on-year, accounting for more than 60% of the total consumption; Gold bars and coins reached 146.31 tons, a year-on-year increase of 30.12%. The domestic physical gold market is a relatively closed market, and the price will rise when the market demand increases greatly.
At the same time, the central bank’s interest rate cut has a certain impact on the price of gold. The central bank’s interest rate cut injects liquidity and encourages investment and consumption, which will lead to the flow of funds to gold consumption and safe-haven investment, thus pushing up the price of gold.
In this wave of gold buying craze, young people have become the main force, which is different from the traditional perception that aunts buy gold.
Young people buy gold more because they lack better investment options.
Not surprisingly, young people are also Chinese. Chinese always likes to buy gold, and the influence of this cultural gene is subtle. Many times, it is not that young people are different from the previous generation, but that they are not old enough. When they grow up, when the time is right, they often drink white wine, buy gold and dance square dance like their elders.
In fact, young people have long been the main buyers of gold. According to the White Paper of China Gold and Jewelry Consumption Survey in 2021, customers aged 25 to 35 account for 75.59% of the consumers in gold shops. Faced with this trend, in recent years, in order to attract young customers, gold jewelry brands have been making their products younger, launching cartoon models and joint models, such as tinkling cats, HelloKitty and Cinnamoroll, which are welcomed by young people.
Among them, new varieties such as "Jin Doudou" and "Little Yellow Croaker" are the most sought after, and "Save Golden Beans" has become a popular financial management method in the post-1990s, so buy a few once in a while. Many stores on the online shopping platform have a monthly sales volume of "Jin Doudou" products exceeding 10,000. These products have obvious saving function first. This product is simple in shape, usually one weight is one gram, and it is also easy to count. The slogan of the merchants is "saving money to be a good product" and "small golden bean investment fund", which also emphasizes the function of preserving value and saving. In fact, among gold products, the sales of gold beans, gold coins and gold bars have the fastest growth rate, surpassing all kinds of gold jewelry, which means that consumers, especially young people, pay more attention to the saving value function of gold products.
The price of one gram in Jin Doudou is 500-600 yuan. For young people, although there is no interest, it seems to be more reliable than risky stock markets and funds in the context of rising gold prices. At present, the economic pressure is great, and young people want to avoid danger. Buying gold is actually because there is nothing else to buy. The stock market is not good, and all kinds of jokes circulating on social media are viral. Young people are naturally more exposed to these paragraphs, and naturally they are afraid of the stock market and financial management.
In the face of the price increase of gold, a mentality is to buy up and not buy down. I feel that although the price of gold has risen greatly, I have this demand and I am worried that it will continue to rise, so I will still buy it. Moreover, there is hope in my heart: after buying it, the price of gold continues to rise, and it will be earned. There was an online poll on "Will the price of gold rise in the future" initiated by the media, in which 608 people voted and 67% of the respondents chose "Will it rise". This mentality will also affect young people.
Moreover, these Jin Doudou, small yellow croaker, because of their shapes, have a certain social function, and they can make friends when they buy them. To some extent, for young people, this is like a blind box or a hand-made one, which also has the function of showing off. Buying two blind boxes a week costs the same as buying a Jin Doudou a month, and Jin Doudou’s show-off function may be stronger.
However, from the perspective of financial management, buying physical gold is not a good choice for hedging or saving.
The price of gold fell in dollar terms, while the price of RMB rose. Did young people buy loneliness?
In most cases, gold is still a risky financial asset. Moreover, it is difficult to realize physical gold. Unless the financial collapse and social collapse, paper gold and gold contracts are much better than physical gold. Therefore, buying gold is actually a helpless choice for young people in the economic downturn, financial turmoil and lack of knowledge in the stock market.
In addition, the international gold price is falling now.
Since the beginning of this year, the international gold price has fallen from a high level after consolidation, and then rebounded, rising from $1,850 per ounce. On May 4, the international spot price of gold stood at $2,080. But since then, the international gold price has started to fall, and the current price per ounce is around $1,930. Therefore, although it is rising at home, it is falling internationally.
Domestic gold prices have risen strongly. In the previous period, the gold futures rose from 453 yuan per gram in mid-August to 480 yuan per gram on September 15th, which is a record high since the gold contract was listed for 13 years. During the year, Shanghai gold futures rose by 15%, which also set the best annual performance in 2019. In the physical gold market, the price of gold has exceeded that of 600 yuan per gram.
One reason for this price deviation is the exchange rate. In the gold trading market, the domestic gold price is quoted in RMB, while the international gold price is quoted in USD. Changes in the exchange rate between RMB and USD will also make the trend of domestic gold price and international gold price different. As the Federal Reserve keeps raising interest rates, the exchange rate of RMB against the US dollar has been in a depreciation channel, which leads to a greater upward trend of domestic gold prices. For example, when the international gold price is 1900 USD/oz, and the exchange rate of USD to RMB is 1:7, then each gram of gold is about 428 RMB. But if the exchange rate between the US dollar and RMB is 1:7.3, each gram of gold will rise to about 446 yuan. Therefore, this can also explain the deviation of international and domestic gold prices.
Another reason is that China has recently imposed some restrictions on the import of precious metals, and the domestic supply of gold is limited. Data show that China’s net import volume in July was 25.769 tons, lower than that in June, which was 34.648 tons. The total amount of gold imported through Hong Kong decreased by 21% to 30.239 tons. The reason for this may be related to domestic economic regulation and foreign exchange reserve management. Restricting the import of gold can better control the outflow of foreign exchange and help stabilize the value of RMB.
This means that the domestic gold market price is a policy city, which is greatly influenced by the policy. On the one hand, the policy follows the market and has its objective laws, but on the other hand, it also means that if the policy ends, the domestic gold price may withdraw sharply.
Young people are keen on social public opinion, but lack knowledge. Nowadays, most of the public opinions that young people are exposed to are lack of depth and analysis of key details, and most of them are directed at emotions and panic. Young people’s ideological background, few modern economic and financial knowledge framework. Therefore, it is easy to go with the flow. The upsurge of buying Jin Doudou has also become a microcosm of the lack of cognition.