As of 19th January 2016 was at 38.16 http://www.ptcalc.com/gold-to-oil-ratio-history.php Average is around 16.3 (since 1986)
If that's the only choice, then the answer is clearly oil. But I suspect those aren't the only options...
Either oil is cheap Or gold is expensive Relatively speaking. Personally, I suspect it is the former. Many oil producers need much higher prices to balance their government budgets.
It is because there is NO correlation between the two. The ratio will burn up like that big old meteorite in Russia a few years ago. As the world becomes less dependant on oil, this ratio will be placed in the "another completely useless ratio" bin along with all the others.
Agree, low correlation. However, over time, things have a tendency to revert to the mean. To do this, oil needs to rise or gold needs to fall. Gold miners outside of the USA are probably benefiting: relatively high gold price (compared to other metals), depreciating currency (compared to USD), and low oil price. Disclosure: I do own gold mining companies nor do I intend to.
Unfortunately for Norway, Canada, Russia, middle eastern countries etc. the global markets doesn't take that in to consideration. Besides, since when are governments trying to balance budgets?
Very true. Debt is a liability to someone and a asset to someone else. As we have seen in Greece, people are more than willing to take on debt, however, the same cannot be said to repaying it in full. Bond holders around the World will need to take significant hair cuts (either fractions in the dollar - although it is very difficult to get bondholder agreement on this!?!) or via grossly inflated currencies. That is why hard assets (like precious metals) offer protection from this counter party risk.
Or both Saudis and Chinese facing possible economic crisis, oil still down. This is the twilight zone
