Gold's Inflation-Haven Appeal Means 'Violent' Run-Up May Be Ahead

Gold last traded at $1,797 an ounce. Silver at $24.14 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices steadied Wednesday on a weaker dollar. U.S. stocks fell as the momentum from a strong earnings season started to fade.

Bloomber/Yahoo Finance--"One after another, commodities from aluminum to natural gas have surged as pandemic aftershocks rattle supply chains. Gold could be next, although for very different reasons.

That's the view of two of the biggest names in Canadian mining - the former chiefs of Goldcorp Inc., David Garofalo and Rob McEwen - who predict investors will catch on soon that global inflationary pressures are less transitory and more intense than central bankers and consumers price indexes suggest.

When that realization sets in, gold's inflation-protection appeal probably will send prices to $3,000 an ounce, from about $1,800 now, according to Garofalo, who ran Goldcorp before it was gobbled up by Newmont Corp. and now heads Gold Royalty Corp. Such a run-up would be a 'down-payment' to McEwen's $5,000 long term prediction....

If other metals are any indication, the gold rally, when it comes, will be dramatic, Garofalo said in an interview Friday alongside McEwen. 'I'm talking about months,' he said. 'The reaction tends to be immediate and violent when it does happen. That's why I'm quite confident that gold will achieve $3,000 an ounce in months not years.'

The global monetary and debt expansion to cope with the pandemic, as well as secondary drivers associated with supply disruptions, will have people turning back to traditional methods of protecting wealth, said McEwen....

'It's not just the dollar,' he said. 'All currencies are buying less than what they were buying a year ago. So I look at that as an unprecedented development at least in our lives that is going to affect the value of fiat currencies around the world.'

Its universality and 4,000 year-old history mean gold is better positioned than crypto-currencies as a hedge against an inflationary environment that 'will have deep and meaningful impacts on our capital,' Garofalo said."