news

editor of every economic report: bi luming

recently, the international gold price has once again set a new record.

spot gold once hit a high of $2,589.

the retail prices of gold shops in china have also risen. today, many gold jewelry stores have raised their listing prices, with the highest price increase being 15 yuan per gram to 761 yuan per gram.

according to guangdong radio and television,recently, a customer from guangzhou cashed in a pile of gold bars and gold jewelry, including more than 320 grams of gold bars and more than 450 grams of gold jewelry, including a dragon and phoenix bracelet weighing more than 120 grams, with a total value of more than 400,000 yuan.

on the other hand, gold shops have experienced a cold snap.chow tai fookthe financial report shows that after the net closure of 89 stores in the first quarter, the net closure of 91 stores in the second quarter of the year was 180 stores less in just six months, an average of one store closed per day. similarly, other brand jewelry companies are not having a good time either.

according to qianjiang evening news on the 17th, a row of deserted gold shops in a high-end shopping mall in hangzhou is a concrete expression of this "cold wave".

song cheng (pseudonym) is the person in charge of a franchise store of a certain brand, with two gold shops in jiaxing and hangzhou. he told reporters that in previous years, may day, mother's day and chinese valentine's day were all peak seasons for gold sales. before 2019, when the market was good, it was common to sell hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan a day. "in the past, sales in the half month before and after may day usually reached four or five million, but now we can only sell a fraction of that, less than one million," said song cheng.

a gold shop owner pointed out to the reporter, "even though we made concessions on the processing fee for gold jewelry and reduced the actual price of gold jewelry to around 680 yuan per gram, there were still only a handful of customers who actually bought gold jewelry. among the more than 10 customers in the gold shop this morning, at least 80% were scared by the high gold price."

he looked around other gold shops in the same mall and found that they were also "empty". faced with this situation, he has considered "closing the shop" at the end of the year for transformation. in fact, the record high gold price is having an increasingly significant impact on the layout of gold shops of downstream gold companies.

"for gold jewelry, gold is the raw material. if the gold price only rises slightly, consumers buying jewelry can be said to be investing. but after rising to 700 yuan per gram, the price of gold jewelry has obviously exceeded consumers' expectations, and sales have plummeted." song cheng said that before the spring festival this year, consumers' enthusiasm for buying gold once reached a peak in recent years, and merchants were full of confidence at that time.

according to the daily economic news, wang lixin, ceo of the world gold council china, said in an exclusive interview with reporters that, normally, if the gold price fluctuates within a certain range for a period of time and shows an upward trend, consumers' willingness to buy gold jewelry will recover; but the recent gold price has fluctuated relatively violently in the process of setting new highs, causing consumers to be afraid to "take action" because they are worried that they will buy at a "high price" and suffer losses once the gold price falls sharply.

the report "review and trend analysis of china's gold market in the second quarter of 2024" released by the world gold council shows that the demand for gold jewelry in the chinese market in the second quarter was only 86 tons, a decrease of 35% from the same period last year and a decrease of 53% from the first quarter. correspondingly, china's gold jewelry consumption in the first half of this year fell by 18% year-on-year to 270 tons. behind this, the continued rise in gold prices and the slowdown in economic growth have led to a decline in consumer purchasing power, which in turn has suppressed gold jewelry consumption.

the report also pointed out that the surge in gold prices and the slowdown in economic growth were the main factors that hindered consumers from buying gold jewelry in the first half of the year. in march, the domestic gold price soared by 10%, breaking the healthy trend of gold jewelry consumption since the beginning of 2024; while in april and may, gold prices continued to rise and set new highs, coupled with the slowdown in china's economic growth, consumers' gold purchasing power fell to the lowest point since 2013.

"this is also a fundamental factor for the sudden increase in business pressure since may." the operations director of the above-mentioned shenzhen gold jewelry processing company said frankly. since may, he has increasingly felt that downstream gold shop customers have been "complaining" about the increasingly bleak sales, and their willingness to purchase and stock new gold jewelry has continued to decline.

at present, he can only accept some orders for investment gold bars that are processed with supplied materials, and no longer engages in any self-operated business (first purchasing gold raw materials and designing and processing them into new gold jewelry, and then selling them to downstream gold shops at market prices). although the processing fees for such orders are relatively meager, they can barely cover the company's operating expenses.

michael hartnett, a strategist at bank of america, said in his latest research report that gold is "the best hedge against reaccelerating inflation in 2025." as in 2021 and 2022, gold has provided an early warning signal for explosive inflation in the past two years by becoming the best performing asset, and the price of gold is expected to rise to $3,000 per ounce.

michael hartnett has been bullish on us bonds this year. his predictions have proven to be accurate. since hartnett started to be bullish on us bonds, the 10-year us bond yield has fallen by 100 basis points, once reaching a new low this year.

citic securitieswang jiechao, chief analyst of metal new materials, said that the market has no dispute over the rate cut itself, but there are differences in the extent of the rate cut, that is, there are differences in the way the us economy will land. if a hard landing occurs, a more radical rate cut will be very helpful in driving gold prices; if the rate is only cut by 25 basis points, there will be a retreat for further observation of the economy. gold is still a defensive asset to deal with economic data that is lower than expected during the next rate cut. therefore, in the first half of the rate cut, gold is an excellent tool to deal with uncertainty.

daily economic news comprehensive guangdong radio and television, qianjiang evening news, daily economic news