Asian shares touched a one-year high yesterday, while gold prices hit US$1,000 an ounce for the first time in six months in a sign of investor concerns about the sustainability of the global economic recovery.
Asian shares shrugged off a lack of direction from holidaying US markets and most powered higher, including laggards such as the Nikkei, which has yet to recover levels it touched a year ago despite a rise of nearly 50 percent from its March lows.
The MSCI index of Asian shares excluding Japan rose to its highest in a year, gaining 0.9 percent.
Spot gold and US gold futures both rose as high as US$1,000 an ounce, the strongest since February, with both simmering economic worries and longer term inflation concerns driving the gains. But both soon fell back.
Analysts warned volume was thin and that momentum could soon wane, with a tendency of big Asian consumers to sell into rising prices.
“I don’t know if it will stay there for a particularly long [period]. My view is that by the end of the year the gold price will be lower, probably down to around US$950 an ounce,” said David Moore, a commodities strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Many investors are worried that stock market rallies have got ahead of a global economic recovery that they fear will not create jobs and will be hard to sustain once government stimulus efforts fade.
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