Dust flux, Vostok ice core

Dust flux, Vostok ice core
Two dimensional phase space reconstruction of dust flux from the Vostok core over the period 186-4 ka using the time derivative method. Dust flux on the x-axis, rate of change is on the y-axis. From Gipp (2001).

Sunday, June 23, 2019

USDX vs gold in new territory

Again.


The last deflationary move has carried the system out of the immense head that has been building for the past four-and-a-half years. We are in new territory, with the possibility of continuation along the deflationary trend that as been operating for over ten years, or a switch to an inflationary trend, which could potentially result in another big runaway reaction as begain in 2011.

The isoquants in the above figure are lines of constant product of the gold price and the USDX. They represent the apparent gold price to a company that is mining gold outside of the US, and are the theoretical trajectory that the system would show if the only factor affecting gold price was the US dollar.


If we just look at the last 14 months, we see three distinct behaviours in the system. From April until mid June 2018, the system followed the 1200 isoquant, showing an almost perfect inverse relationship between the gold price and USDX.  From mid-June to late September, there was a sharp fall in the gold price with a nearly constant value for the USDX index. This phase was bad for gold companies. Since September, we have seen both rising gold and rising USDX, which this space interprets as a deflationary indicator. This is the sweet spot for mining companies, especially those outside the US, who get more dollars per ounce produced, and also see the value of the dollars rise. This improvement in fundamentals is well reflected in the GDX index, as seen below.



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