Gold Tops $5,000 as Investors Seek Safety (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Now, the price of gold has risen above $5,000 an ounce for the very first time, extending a historic rally that saw the price jump by more than 60% last year. Gold and other precious metals are seen as so-called safe haven assets that investors buy in times of uncertainty. Simon Jack has that story.

[00:00:21] Speaker 2: People have treasured gold for thousands of years. All the gold ever mined in history would fit into three and a half swimming pools. It never rusts or decays, out of its attraction as jewellery, coins, and a safe investment in times of trouble and strife. And recently, its value has been rocketing like never before.

[00:00:40] Speaker 3: As of last year, that would have been about $70,000. Today, we're looking at close to $120,000.

[00:00:46] Speaker 2: Zoe and Emma Lyons' family firm buy and sell it, and business is booming.

[00:00:51] Speaker 3: We've never seen the queues around the block for people waiting to cash in on the gold price. It is unprecedented times. It's busy, it's exciting, and these prices are unbelievable.

[00:01:04] Speaker 2: Exciting for them, but worrying perhaps for the world, as gold prices tend to rise when there are trouble hotspots. The recent boom in the price of gold really is unprecedented. Now gold tends to rise in times of crisis, as it's seen as a safe haven, because unlike things like dollars, pounds, euros, or yen, you can't make or print any more of it. The supply is fixed. It can only be mined slowly. Now this is the price of gold per ounce in dollars, adjusted for inflation over the years. Now look back at previous crises. This one here in 79, 80, reaction there to high inflation, oil price shocks. Over here in 2011, we had the financial crisis and then fears about whether the eurozone would collapse. Got a little spike here in 2020, that little one there, that's the COVID crisis. But this current one here dwarfs them all, which begs the question, are we in a crisis now? And if so, why? Rising national debts and fears of future US inflation have been joined by a relatively new geopolitical concern.

[00:02:04] Speaker 4: The main driver is certainly US political leadership and uncertainty whether the dollar will be used as something of an economic and political and security weapon against other countries. And at times like that in history, in the early 1980s, in 2010, 2011, investors have gone for a safe haven of gold and they've gone again just at a much faster rate.

[00:02:26] Speaker 2: The queues to cash in get longer as some choose to turn modern global fears into an ancient but trusted form of money. Simon Jack, BBC News.