by Myra P. Saefong and Mark DeCambre
Market Watch
Moves for the metal came on the heels of a tumble in bitcoin and as U.S. benchmark stock indexes declined ahead of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s April meeting.
With the gold price jumping “as equities fall and cryptocurrencies slide, any debate about bitcoin challenging gold as a ‘safe haven’ just got a very blunt answer from the markets,” said Adrian Ash, director of research at BullionVault.
“While the precious metal isn’t immune to volatility, gold has never cut its price in half inside a week,” he told MarketWatch. “Whatever role crypto might play today or in future, it can’t replace gold as a diversification tool for savers and investors wanting to cut their overall portfolio risk.”