Friday January 20, 2017 17:24

At noon today, the world witnessed the peaceful transfer of power, the passing of the baton from one administration to the next. Just as it has been done for over 200 years, beginning with our first president George Washington, today’s presidential inauguration confirmed the wisdom of our founding fathers. They sought to create a systematic approach to governing, ensuring that a dictator, monarch, or king would never rule us. They wanted a president to be the leader of our country, and through a series of checks and balances, a leader that would never have absolute power.

Peaceful Transfer of Power Deepens Nation’s Divide

What our founding fathers could not control is the national divide between opposing factions that sometimes exists. Our system is great but it is does not necessarily contain the methodology necessary to bring the opposing factions together. That issue falls squarely on the shoulders of the president. In his first words as president, Donald Trump clearly did nothing to address the highly polarized factions or attempt to bring them together. Rather, his inaugural speech contained a vision in which “American carnage,” characterizes our urban cities and “rusted out factories,” are “scattered like tombstones”. These words did nothing to address how divided and polarized our nation is.

President Trump’s Words Lead to Higher Gold Prices

Gold had been trading quietly throughout the evening session, in a defined narrow range, with an intraday low of 1198. Just prior to the inauguration, gold in essence, was unchanged on the day, trading roughly at $1201 per ounce. However, gold prices jumped dramatically immediately following President Trump’s inaugural address to the nation. This alludes to the fact that his inaugural speech and its populous overtones characterized the timbre of his message.

This caused gold futures to spike to an intraday high of $1214 per ounce, and as of 4 PM EST, gold is trading at $1209 per ounce, gaining approximately seven dollars on the day. In less than four hours President Trump has raised genuine concerns about his ability to unify the nation and offer an olive branch to those who oppose his ideology. A great leader unifies the nation rather than divides it. If President Trump wants to be a great leader (although he probably thinks he is greatest leader ever), he must work to heal the nation through unification in tandem with the new policies he wishes to implement, moving the nation forward.