Gold Is Rising Because of Demand for ‘Fallback Money’

By John Stepek – Bloomberg

Gold is having a moment. A fairly quiet one, given its performance this year (it’s beaten all the major stock markets in the year to date, measured in US dollar terms), but a moment nonetheless.

The very rich are fuelling a run on storage vaults to hold their gold bars. The price has hit a fresh record in any major currency you care to name at some point this year. A standard gold bar saw its value rise to more than a million dollars for the first time.

There are a few interesting things about this bull run.