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Gold: Off to the Races, or Just Another False Start? [Chart]

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Gold: Off to the Races, or Just Another False Start? [Chart]

Gold: Off to the Races, or Just Another False Start? [Chart]

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

Commodity traders know that gold is highly cyclical, and that it takes significant changes in the fundamentals and sentiment to change the long-term price trend. That said, the latest news on gold is cautiously optimistic for those waiting for a rebound in the precious metal. Over the last few days, gold has broken through its 200-day moving average to reach its highest price in three months at just short of $1,200 per oz.

This type of technical breakthrough is rare: over the last six years, gold has touched its 200-day moving average on the upswing six different times. Each time gold emerged from these technical circumstances, the downward momentum of the gold price would remain unaffected.

The most recent breakthrough was in early 2015, but gold subsequently fell back through its moving average to finish off -14% lower than it started six months earlier. In 2012 and 2014, similar technical breakthroughs also occurred, ending in similar bearish fates.

The subsequent trading was particularly nasty in 2012. After the technical event happened that year, the gold price continued to fall over the course of 16 months by a whopping -28%.

That said, crossing the 200-day moving average is still regarded as an important technical event to traders. If you need proof, look back to gold’s largest run in recent memory, which occurred in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis. Gold crossed its 200-day moving average while it was worth a measly $860/oz and soared 124% in value over the next 32 months. It would reach roughly $1,900 per oz, its highest price (in absolute terms) of all time.

So will crossing the 200-day moving average mean anything this time around? It’s impossible to say, but there is certainly no shortage of other indicators that may suggest that it is time for investors to pile back into gold stocks.

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Uranium

Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country

We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium reserves by country, with 3 countries accounting for more than half of total reserves.

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A cropped chart visualizing the distribution of the global uranium reserves, by country.

Charted: Global Uranium Reserves, by Country

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

There can be a tendency to believe that uranium deposits are scarce from the critical role it plays in generating nuclear energy, along with all the costs and consequences related to the field.

But uranium is actually fairly plentiful: it’s more abundant than gold and silver, for example, and about as present as tin in the Earth’s crust.

We visualize the distribution of the world’s uranium resources by country, as of 2021. Figures come from the World Nuclear Association, last updated on August 2023.

Ranked: Uranium Reserves By Country (2021)

Australia, Kazakhstan, and Canada have the largest shares of available uranium resources—accounting for more than 50% of total global reserves.

But within these three, Australia is the clear standout, with more than 1.7 million tonnes of uranium discovered (28% of the world’s reserves) currently. Its Olympic Dam mine, located about 600 kilometers north of Adelaide, is the the largest single deposit of uranium in the world—and also, interestingly, the fourth largest copper deposit.

Despite this, Australia is only the fourth biggest uranium producer currently, and ranks fifth for all-time uranium production.

CountryShare of Global
Reserves
Uranium Reserves (Tonnes)
🇦🇺 Australia28%1.7M
🇰🇿 Kazakhstan13%815K
🇨🇦 Canada10%589K
🇷🇺 Russia8%481K
🇳🇦 Namibia8%470K
🇿🇦 South Africa5%321K
🇧🇷 Brazil5%311K
🇳🇪 Niger5%277K
🇨🇳 China4%224K
🇲🇳 Mongolia2%145K
🇺🇿 Uzbekistan2%131K
🇺🇦 Ukraine2%107K
🌍 Rest of World9%524K
Total100%6M

Figures are rounded.

Outside the top three, Russia and Namibia both have roughly the same amount of uranium reserves: about 8% each, which works out to roughly 470,000 tonnes.

South Africa, Brazil, and Niger all have 5% each of the world’s total deposits as well.

China completes the top 10, with a 3% share of uranium reserves, or about 224,000 tonnes.

A caveat to this is that current data is based on known uranium reserves that are capable of being mined economically. The total amount of the world’s uranium is not known exactly—and new deposits can be found all the time. In fact the world’s known uranium reserves increased by about 25% in the last decade alone, thanks to better technology that improves exploration efforts.

Meanwhile, not all uranium deposits are equal. For example, in the aforementioned Olympic Dam, uranium is recovered as a byproduct of copper mining occurring at the same site. In South Africa, it emerges as a byproduct during treatment of ores in the gold mining process. Orebodies with high concentrations of two substances can increase margins, as costs can be shared for two different products.

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