Strategists at Goldman Sachs say gold is a way to hedge the inflation risks stemming from the U.S. election.
Their view is that a Republican sweep in presidential and Congressional elections would present the biggest risks to inflation and bond returns, stemming from higher import tariffs, slower immigration, tighter sanctions on Iranian oil, lower taxes and “stronger attempts to influence Fed policy.”
. . . . The strategists led by Daan Struyven give four reasons why gold can be a hedge.
I included the byline of Marketwatch’s Steve Goldstein above because I suspect it was him, and not actually Goldmann Sachs who injected Trump policy proposals into the discussion.
A more conventional view of inflation is that
When there is a whole lotta money on the sidelines, anything from a war in Ukraine , to a blown-up pipeline to a new tariff or spending program cand “cause” inflation.
But when there is not a lotta money sitting on the sidelines, those things do not “cause” inflation but instead lead to a recession-like contraction.
.
.
.
Simply put, if you have a million dollars cash in the bank,
when a pipeline blows up or Congress enacts a “green new deal” you just pay the higher price. (inflation)
But if you are cash-poor because you have already deployed all your cash when those things happen, you do not simply pay the higher price but instead you consume less of something. (deflation, contractions etc.)
Failing to frame the article this way, and instead framing the article around Donald Trump and the GOP is a pretty obvious error and probably an intentional swipe at Donald Trump.
Afterall the author is MarketWatch’s former DC-based political correspondent and is currently based in the UK because he “responsible for MarketWatch’s coverage of financial markets in Europe.” Seems a rather odd choice. Did all their inflation guys, all their Fed watchers and their entire US staff have the day off?
Probably not working because its Juneteenth. .
Since last year my employer has had Juneteenth as a corporate holiday.
I suspect the article could have been written on any day
and I also suspect lots and lots of Marketwatch articles from US based writers have appeared today.
No, something else happened.
More likely:
the politics guy who is now based in London wanted to take a swipe at Trump policies so he connected his own personal views to whatever report recently came out.
(I’d know more if I could find the original article from Goldman)