By Samer Hasn

Gold hit more record highs today, barely touching $2,790 an ounce, while December COMEX futures broke above $2,800 for the first time on Wednesday.

Gold’s gains come as demand for gold accelerates amid political and economic uncertainty and still-high levels of geopolitical tension.

Today, we saw the World Gold Council’s Q3 Gold Trends Report, which showed that global demand grown by more than 5% year-on-year to over 1,300 tons in Q3, with demand value exceeding $100 billion for the first time. This growth in demand for the second consecutive quarter was driven by increased investment demand, a recovery in jewelry consumption growth, and the return of physical gold ETFs to accumulate bullion for the first time after nine consecutive quarters of selling.

The following chart illustrates the development of demand for gold since 2020:

As for the supply side, with the successive increase in prices, mine production recorded growth for the second consecutive quarter to reach 989 tons.

While producers have almost completely stopped hedging against falling prices, which may reflect their optimism about the future of prices that may continue to gain, which may reduce their desire to hedge, which may be costly. The Wall Street Journal had also reported in March that the desire to hedge has declined in an effort by producers to fully benefit from the upward trend in gold, including the world’s largest producer, Newmont, which told the newspaper that it its policy is to not hedge.

There are many positive factors supporting the increase in demand for gold, while there does not appear to be a chance towards weakening these factors on the near horizon.

In the Middle East, with the approach of the presidential elections in the US, we are witnessing increasing momentum around ceasefire talks, whether in Lebanon or Gaza. This is not the first time, as it was preceded by many previous attempts regarding Gaza, which the US administration said at the time that an agreement was close to being reached, but those negotiations followed only escalated the conflict to become a regional war.

Regarding Gaza, which any agreement to stop the war there is expected to push for a calm in the entire region, negotiations are still ongoing this week with the participation of the US. However, it is unlikely that Hamas and Israel will reach an agreement on the terms at least before the end of the elections in the US, according to what The New York Times quoted from officials earlier this week. A Hamas official said yesterday that they will not agree to any agreement that does not include a complete cessation of the war and Israel’s withdrawal from the Strip, which the latter rejects.

The Times also quoted officials as saying that the Israeli Prime Minister will wait to know the identity of who will head the White House before entering a diplomatic path – in reference to the bet on Donald Trump’s victory to give Israel a free hand in the region.

Therefore, optimism about the calm will not be justified unless an agreement is actually signed, regardless of what the US administration may say later.

In Lebanon, the picture may seem more mixed. reported, citing officials, that US President Joe Biden will arrive in Israel on Thursday to try to reach an agreement to end the war in Lebanon. This agreement may take a few weeks according to Axios – beyond the election. It is also worth noting that Israel has abandoned a previous high-ceilinged demand to allow for “active enforcement” in Lebanon against Hezbollah even after the war has stopped, which would have been met with a Lebanese rejection. But there is no indication that the far-right coalition in Israel is lenient in pushing for an agreement and accepting an end to the war, as they call for continued military action and reject any agreement for a permanent calm.

After the election, we will be waiting for the next round of attacks and counter-attacks between Iran and Israel. The recent Israeli attack on air defense systems surrounding oil infrastructures may suggest its intention to target those facilities in the next round, which may prompt Iran to escalate its counterattack much more than before and to activate the role of its allies in the region more and obstruct the flow of supplies from the Strait of Hormuz, according to what Iranian officials told The Times last week. This will have an impact on the global economy as a whole through higher oil prices and fueling inflation again.

That said, I do not think that the region is heading in any direction towards calming down at least in the near future, which may maintain the geopolitical risk premium for gold and push it to continue its historical gains.

As for the economic front, the series of labor market numbers in the United States began with a negative surprise in the job openings in the JOLTS report, which was 7.44 million in September, which represents the lowest level in more than three years. This was in contrast to a greater than expected increase in Consumer Confidence Index.

While these figures did not change the assumption that the Fed will inevitably cut interest rates at the November and December meetings, they have strengthened it for next January, with a probability of more than 50% that we will see a quarter point cut, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

This contributed to reversing the upward trend in the 10-year Treasury bond yields, which continue to decline today after reaching their highest level in three months, which pave the way for gold to complete its gains.

Today and for the rest of this week, we look forward to the continued flow of labor market, GDP and core PCE numbers. While the emergence of more negative surprises could reinforce the negative picture for the US economy and push gold towards further gains by benefiting from the economic uncertainty.

Finally, gold is benefiting from the political uncertainty resulting from the approaching US elections, where neither candidate is significantly ahead in the polls. Kamala Harris is still leading by a small margin of 1.4 percentage points in the average polls, according to FiveThirtyEight. In addition, we see repeated talk about concerns about the worsening deficit and government debt, whether Trump or Harris wins, which could weaken the appeal of the dollar and be a positive factor for gold.

Hasn is Senior Market Analyst at XS.com