Sean O'Grady: Instability will keep gold on a high, for now

To all intents and purposes, gold is at an all-time high in its nominal price – now in excess of $1,900 an ounce in trading – and in real terms. Strictly, depending on which measure of inflation you use to adjust the headline value, gold scaled its zenith in January 1980, at around $2,200 an ounce (at today's prices; it was more like $900 then). That, however, was a very short-lived spike, to do