Infographics
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May 09, 2019
This compares with a relatively weak Q1 2018, when demand sank to a three-year low of just 984.2t. Central bank buying continued apace: global gold reserves grew by 145.5t. Gold-backed ETFs also saw growth: quarterly inflows into those products grew by 49% to 40.3t. Total bar and coin investment weakened a fraction to 257.8t (-1%), due to a fall in demand for gold bars; official gold coin buying grew 12% to 56.1t. Jewellery demand was a touch stronger y-o-y at 530.3t, chiefly due to improvement in India’s market. The volume of gold used in technology dipped to a two-year low of 79.3t, hit by slower economic growth. The supply of gold in Q1 was virtually unchanged, just 3t lower y-o-y at 1,150t.
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November 27, 2017
Each state in the U.S. is unique, with different economic prospects and opportunities available to its residents.
For example, in a state such as New York, there is a surplus of high-paying jobs available in tech and finance sectors. Meanwhile, in places like North Dakota and Alaska, there is an incredible endowment of natural resources that help create an opportunity for the people living there.
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November 09, 2017
The third quarter saw a 9% year-on-year (y-o-y) drop in gold demand to 915 tonnes (t). Year-to-date (y-t-d) demand was down by 12%.1 ETFs had another quarter of positive inflows, but at 18.9t, they fell far short of the 144.3t influx in Q3 2016. A softer quarter in the jewellery sector (-3%) accounted for 17t of the y-o-y decline. Demand from other sectors firmed: central banks bought a healthy 111t of gold (+25% y-o-y) while bar and coin investment strengthened by 17% (to 222.3t), albeit from a low base.
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October 27, 2017
Millions, billions, and trillions…
When we talk about the giant size of Apple, the fortune of Warren Buffett, or the massive amount of global debt accumulated – all of these things sound large, but they are actually extremely different in magnitude.
That’s why visualizing things spatially can give us a better perspective on money and markets.
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September 27, 2017
The U.S. economy is massive on a global scale, and much of the country’s economic capabilities can be traced back to the innovation, knowledge, and productivity that tends to be clustered in urban areas.
The fact is that 80% of Americans live in cities – and the 10 largest metro areas alone combine for a whopping 34% of the country’s total GDP.
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September 06, 2017
From the 10 years of military dictatorship between 1948-1958 to the impeachment of Carlos Andrés Pérez for corruption in 1993, Venezuelan politics have often been both rocky and eventful.
But despite these challenges throughout its history, no one has ever denied Venezuela’s economic potential. After the discovery of oil in the early 20th century, the nation quickly built its economy on the back of black gold – and even today, Venezuela leads the world in proven oil reserves with 300 billion barrels.
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June 28, 2017
38 Incredible Facts on the Modern U.S. Dollar
We’ve previously showed you 31 Fascinating Facts About the Dollar’s Early History, which highlighted the history of U.S. currency before the 20th century. This was a very interesting period in which we looked at the money used by the first colonists, the extreme bust of the Continental currency, the era of privately-issued bank notes, and Congress’ emergency issuance of the fiat “greenback” during the Civil War.
However, the modern era of the U.S. dollar is just as interesting. We have it starting in 1913, when the Federal Reserve Act was passed by Woodrow Wilson. Not only did it establish a new central bank, but it also gave the Fed the authority to issue the Federal Reserve Note, which is now the dominant form of U.S. currency both domestically and abroad.
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June 02, 2017
For most people, our experiences in everyday life are with using lower numbers like one, two, or ten. We not only comprehend what it means to buy five apples, but we can also visualize exactly what that might look like. In other words, these are numbers that fall within a range that are very intuitive for most humans.
Extrapolate that a little higher and we can still comprehend the numbers, but we start to lose that intuition.
Are there 1,500 or 2,000 people at a music venue? It’s hard to know for sure, but we do at least have a basic comprehension of the sizes of those numbers. Every day, we do math with numbers in the thousands – a paycheck, a credit card bill, or paying rent.
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May 17, 2017
The Money Project is an ongoing collaboration between Visual Capitalist and Texas Precious Metals that seeks to use intuitive visualizations to explore the origins, nature, and use of money.
Today, we all know the U.S. dollar as an iconic currency that is recognizable to people around the world.
And while we’ve previously looked at the buying power of the U.S. dollar over time, as well as important events like the Great Depression, we have not looked at the history of the dollar itself.
How and why was it conceived, and why do we call it a “dollar” or a “buck”? How did the dollar’s early history help to shape today’s world?
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April 07, 2017
The Buying Power of the U.S. Dollar Over the Last Century
The Money Project is an ongoing collaboration between Visual Capitalist and Texas Precious Metals that seeks to use intuitive visualizations to explore the origins, nature, and use of money.
The value of money is not static. In the short term, it may ebb and flow against other currencies on the market. In the long-term, a currency tends to lose buying power over time through inflation, and as more currency units are created.
Inflation is a result of too much money chasing too few goods – and it is often influenced by government policies, central banks, and other factors. In this short timeline of monetary history in the 20th century, we look at major events, the change in money supply, and the buying power of the U.S. dollar in each decade.