• 287 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 288 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 289 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 689 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 694 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 696 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 699 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 699 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 700 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 702 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 702 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 706 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 706 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 707 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 709 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 710 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 713 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 714 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 714 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 716 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

Gold's 800(pound) Goodbye to Gordon Brown

As Britain goes to the polls, gold says "Goodbye" in fine style to the man who dumped half the UK's reserves on the market in May 1999...

HOW SWEET of gold to mark Gordon Brown's last day in power with a new all-time high against the Pound Sterling.

He did so much, short term, to dent the former. But his famous "prudence" - in truth, an abject misreading of both economics and history - has in fact worked to destroy the latter instead.

Perhaps today's valedictory jump...leaping 3.7% to touch £805 an ounce...was just one last blow-off to mark Brown's political passing. But the gold price in Sterling looks more ironic than toppish given his legacy of debt.

Gold Price Under Gordon Brown

The man who sold over 55% of the UK's reserves 11 years ago - advising the market two months in advance so it could get itself short...and in fact lending out one-fifth of the UK's total reserves* so gold-sellers could do precisely that, as well - had come to power with gold trading around £200 per ounce.

But rather than leaving gold prices lower...as his ill-advised sales (well, Goldman Sachs-advised, in fact) did at first...the Irn-Bru chancellor has instead given long-term British gold buyers 23% gains for every year of his prudence.

Cheers, Gordon! We might (grow to) miss your smile. Thanks to your fiscal incontinence, however, it should be a few years yet before we miss your impact on gold.

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment