The price of gold surged to a new record of nearly $1,500 an ounce after Standard & Poor’s warned that the US’s triple A rating was under threat.
Investors have flocked to gold in recent years as an alternative to paper currencies, and prominent hedge fund managers such as David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital and John Paulson of Paulson & Co have made large bets on the metal as an explicit bet that governments and central banks will be unable to manage the withdrawal of the extraordinary policies put in place during the financial crisis.
