Investors are seeking new safe havens from Bitcoin to Birkin bags, but are they really as good as GOLD?

These days, when it comes to the unexpected on financial markets, usually all roads lead to China. And so it is with the surge in the gold price.

In a week when most British eyes were focused on the Budget, the market herd was chasing the ‘barbarous relic’ – as the economic alchemist John Maynard Keynes once described the precious metal.

But it is not just gold – which has been hitting record highs – that is benefiting from the search for assets beyond shares (currently hitting new peaks in New York) and government bonds.

The gamblers’ instinct is alive and well in crypto currencies, with Bitcoin scaling new heights.

Fashionistas will know the prices of the Birkin handbag and its Dior and Prada rivals are also soaring amid insatiable demand.

All that glitters: The market herd has been chasing the ‘barbarous relic’ – as the economic alchemist John Maynard Keynes once described gold

There is one resident of Scotland who, one suspects, will not be celebrating this year’s comeback of bullion.

It is unfortunate for former Prime Minister Gordon Brown that the present renaissance, spurred by geopolitical gyrations, comes a quarter of a century after he disposed of 50 per cent of the UK’s gold reserves.

The UK’s treasure chest had been held in the vaults below the Bank of England, although during the Second World War our gold holdings were flown to Canada for safer storage.

Brown’s sales were eventually completed at an average price of $276 (£215) per troy ounce yielding $3.5 billion and converted into dollars, euros and yen.

Had the then Chancellor Brown held on to his bullion and sold it in the last week, at the peak price of $2,185 per troy ounce, the Bank would have been sitting on an asset worth $27.7 billion.

That could have funded much more than two pence off National Insurance that was announced in the Budget. The strategic forces that are driving gold to its current peaks are very different to those fuelling the Bitcoin rally.

Laura Lambie, senior investment director at Investec Wealth & Investment (UK), described it as a contrast from the ‘sublime to the ridiculous’. She told the BBC: ‘Bitcoin is not an authorised investment in the UK whereas gold is.’

The World Gold Council reports that the present gold rush is being fuelled not just by speculators but by central banks.

The biggest buyers are the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, the People’s Bank of China and the Reserve Bank of India.

The National Bank of Kazakhstan, which used to hold some of its holding in an ingot pile under the Bank of England, has also been a buyer.

Two main factors are driving enthusiasm for gold holdings. Private buyers in China are in search of more tangible assets. Faith in property collapsed amid the bankruptcy of Evergrande, the region’s biggest real estate empire, and a similar crisis at Country Garden.

The central bank purchases are driven by fears over security.

The frightening conflagration in the Middle East, along with Russia’s war on Ukraine, the building military presence in the South China Sea and a perceived Beijing threat to Taiwan have all contributed.

China and countries such as Turkey and India have learned from recent experience about the need for caution over how reserves are held.

When the governments of the Group of Seven richest democracies want to punish combatants, their first weapon of choice is sanctions.

The West holds many of the financial cards as was demonstrated by the seizure of some $300 billion of Russian reserves after its brutal assault on Ukraine.

A large part of Russia’s wealth is held in various European and global banks in the form of US bonds and other instruments. Only the gold, held in the Central Vault of the Bank of Russia in Moscow, has proved to be secure.

The longer term danger of Western seizure has been exposed by the current – at times heated – debate in the G7 on using some of the sanctioned funds to pay for reconstruction and new weapons systems for Ukraine.

Celebrity appeal: Actress Jennifer Lopez with a Birkin handbag

Foreign Secretary David Cameron is among those arguing for such steps. But it has raised profound issues of legality.

It also has led to questions as to whether the West can be trusted by wealthy rising powers such as China and India as they accumulate currency reserves held in dollars and other Western currencies.

F aced with the potential permanent seizure of cash and bonds, it is not surprising that gold is glistening again. In the past, when sanctions regimes have been eased, as with Iran and Libya, seized funds (and accumulated interest) have been returned, usually as some part of a peace accord.

The problem for investors in gold is that it earns no interest. Indeed, if held by one of the Western depositories, such as the Swiss National Bank, there is a charge for safe-keeping.

For private investors gold is only attractive – as in current circumstances – when the price is rising.

Backdoor ways of making gold pay include investments in derivatives and exchange traded funds that invest in bullion-related assets such as mining shares.

The clamour for Bitcoin, which was trading at $69,000 in the last week, is a whole different game.

The demand is a mania similar to the Dutch tulip bulb bubble in the mid-17th Century.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission lit the blue touch paper when in January it reluctantly approved the first crypto exchange traded funds, which excited global demand for a previously unregulated asset.

The market for Hermes handbags, including the Birkin, is also freewheeling. The Wall Street Journal reports that in the last week Hermes raised the price of its ten inch handbag by 10 per cent to $11,400 (before sales tax) with the price of the crocodile version up 20 per cent. Buyers of luxury handbags see them as a hedge against inflation with the previously used market also booming.

Enthusiasts now regard what was once simply a fashion accessory as being as good as gold.