Soaring since March

Gold price reaches new record

The price of gold has been soaring since the beginning of March and has set a new record every day so far this week. On Friday afternoon, the price rose at times to 2328.46 US dollars (equivalent to 2145.65 euros) per troy ounce (around 31.1 grams).

Surprisingly, the labor market figures in the USA did not lead to a contrary development. Expectations of lower interest rates have thus been dampened and gold is not yielding any interest. "Support is coming from chart-oriented market participants and trading systems as well as the tense situation in the Middle East," said Alexander Zumpfe, precious metals trader at Heraeus.

Central banks increased their gold holdings
The gold price is also being supported by central bank purchases. Central banks continued to increase their holdings in February, for the ninth month in a row. Eager buyers are banks from China, followed by India and Kazakhstan.

Zimbabwe's central bank introduced a new currency on Friday due to high inflation and pegged it primarily to gold, but also to other precious metals and foreign currencies. Zimbabwe Gold, or ZiG for short, is the name of the new currency. The economy in the country, which is home to 17 million people, has been stumbling for decades.