A Chengjie DiaryA One Chart Understands a Century of Gold Trends

Many people are asking: now that gold prices have soared so high, is this really a bubble? 🤔

If you only focus on the K-line of the past one or two years, you'll see only the game of rising and falling numbers. But if you extend the timeline to 100 years, you'll find that the gold trend hides an entire chapter of modern human history. Every fluctuation is a true reflection of "world order" and "technological productivity."

Looking back over the past hundred years, gold actually tells three core stories:

1️⃣ First Stage: The Caged Beast (1944-1971)
After World War II, the United States led the creation of the Bretton Woods system, simply put—35 dollars could exchange for 1 ounce of gold, and the dollar's credibility was directly linked to gold. At that time, the world order was very stable, and gold was like a beast locked in a cage, with its price firmly fixed at 35 dollars, unable to move. Until 1971, when Nixon decisively announced the dollar would decouple from gold, the cage was fully unlocked, and Pandora's box was opened.

2️⃣ Second Stage: 20 Years of Obscurity Under Technological Domination (1980-2000)
These twenty years were the most frustrating days for gold. Why? Because human productivity experienced a huge explosion! The internet emerged suddenly, the Cold War ended, and U.S. national strength was at an all-time high. When technology can help you achieve more than 10% wealth growth annually, who still wants to hold onto something like gold that "lies flat and doesn't generate interest"? Remember one thing: gold's biggest enemies are always the prosperity and peace brought by technology.

3️⃣ Third Stage: The Return of the King Under the Twilight of Order (2000-Present)
From the burst of the internet bubble, 9/11, to the subprime mortgage crisis and the global pandemic... In these more than twenty years, gold prices have fluctuated but the overall trend has been upward. The logic behind it is simple: the "incremental cake" of the global economy is hard to divide, so everyone starts competing for the "stock." To respond to various crises, central banks around the world have launched "nuclear-powered printing presses" to flood the markets with money. When the credibility of the dollar no longer remains strong, and anti-globalization becomes the norm, gold, as the only "supra-sovereign currency," is bound to be re-priced.

💡 Final Summary
From a hundred-year macro long cycle, the logic behind gold's rise boils down to two iron laws:
1️⃣ When the world is chaotic, safe-haven demand emerges;
2️⃣ When there are no new technological breakthroughs, the economy can only be stimulated by printing money.

Before the next productivity explosion led by AI truly lands and benefits the world, gold's "safe-haven mission" may still be far from over.

#黄金 #金价