ROCKFORD, Mich. — The price of gold is at an all-time high, hitting $2,300 an ounce for the first time.
"We're seeing a lot of new people coming in to buy, and also, a lot of people coming in to sell with record high prices," Ben Soldaat, owner of Grand Rapids Coins in Rockford, said. "We've got record inflation right now, record deficits. We have a lot of central banks buying all over the world, so there's a lot of factors that are pushing gold to new highs every week."
"Generally, people want to hold gold when inflation is happening," Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University Associate Dean Dr. Paul Isely added.
He explained to FOX 17 Thursday that not only inflation is driving up the price of gold, but also, other countries are buying large amounts of it.
"There's a lot of fundamental support for gold right now because countries, like China and India, are buying so much of it. So, it sort of puts a floor on how far it can fall," Dr. Isely added. "We certainly see a very strong effect when people start to see the prices rise. They see people reacting to it, then they want to get in on it. And so, we start to see a lot of that happening, and that's probably a large chunk of what's really pushed the price so much in the last two months."
However, inflation and political uncertainty can create some volatility of the price of precious metals.
"When you're going into a market like this, you have to understand what the risks are, and you have to have the wealth to survive if it doesn't do what you think it's going to do," Dr. Isely said.
Meanwhile, Soldaat thinks and hopes gold prices will continue to rise, but there's no guarantee.
"The factors that are driving gold higher, I don't see going away," he said. "Nice part about gold is it's never gone to zero."
Follow FOX 17: Facebook - X (formerly Twitter) - Instagram - YouTube
