A 160 Year View of the Gold-Oil Ratio
2020 has ushered in a new era of prices for two historically significant assets—gold and oil. The market has driven the pair in polar opposite directions breaking historical patterns. This year, gold brushed above $2,000 an ounce, while oil futures even went temporarily negative in the spring. The gold-oil ratio tells us how many barrels of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) are needed to buy an ounce of gold, serving as a price-based indicator of the relative value of these two important assets.
