Gold bugs are closely watching what happens with Treasuries. Last year, the gold price hit a record high of $2,034/oz, largely due to the fact that investors were piling into bonds as a safe haven against pandemic-related uncertainty. A descending US dollar and negative real rates (when bond yields minus the inflation rate fall below 0%) were also important antecedents. Over the past several weeks yields have been rising on expectations of inflation, due to trillions being spent by governments on covid-19 pandemic relief spending and infrastructure programs designed to revive flagging economies. Climbing yields, as investors rotate funds out of bonds into stocks, on increasing confidence in the economy, is the primary reason why the prices of precious metals gold and silver have pulled back in recent weeks. For now.