Gold: Helping to provide inflation protection – UBS

Economists at UBS believe gold can protect against inflation and act as a portfolio diversifier. XAU/USD is sitting at 1700.42.

Key quotes

“Post-crisis, emergency spending measures will end, but fiscal spending will remain high well beyond 2020. There will be regional variations in how governments finance this debt, but broadly we expect continued financial repression, higher taxes, and moderately higher inflation.”

“The experience of the last decade has shown that generating inflation is not straightforward. We also don’t think governments will try to inflate away their debt, because large parts of government spending are directly linked to inflation and thus higher inflation increases deficits.”

“Given the risk that potential debt monetization leads to higher inflation, gold can help provide inflation protection. With high-quality bond yields remaining low due to financial repression, the downside protection from nominal bonds will be more expensive, and gold could also serve as an alternative portfolio diversifier.”