Yes. Gold has become (or always was?) as much a speculative asset as pretty much anything else. It's difficult to find a safe haven asset in any crash, because there are so many feedback loops and non-obvious relationships. Ex post we see of course many asset managers come out of the woodwork beating their drum on how their expertise allowed them to buy the safe haven asset that happened to work in a crash. This is survivorship bias at it's clearest.
After 2008, central banks managed to stop every single market stress with a firehose of money. Eventually this became an actual trade. Every single selloff was bought heavily by traders because of the near-certainty that CBs will provide a hard backstop to the panic.
Until last week, where a new regime is starting emerge perhaps where CB tools have suddenly stopped working, at least short term. Perhaps once the selloff stops, the massive money supply support will re-accelerate the buying, but right now we are in uncharted territory. The current market behavior is unprecedented. We saw the 3rd biggest one day loss in the entire history of S&P 500. Intraday volatility is through the roof.
After 2008, central banks managed to stop every single market stress with a firehose of money. Eventually this became an actual trade. Every single selloff was bought heavily by traders because of the near-certainty that CBs will provide a hard backstop to the panic.
Until last week, where a new regime is starting emerge perhaps where CB tools have suddenly stopped working, at least short term. Perhaps once the selloff stops, the massive money supply support will re-accelerate the buying, but right now we are in uncharted territory. The current market behavior is unprecedented. We saw the 3rd biggest one day loss in the entire history of S&P 500. Intraday volatility is through the roof.