The price of gold saw a notable surge this month driven by a confluence of various factors, including investors concerns surrounding economic growth and the potential overvaluation of artificial intelligence, the point the precious metal neared record highs.

Data from Google Trends shows, as Finbold reported, that investor interest for gold in the United States skyrocketed after amid a massive equities market sell-off seen earlier this month, with data showing interest over time surged from around 61 to a maximum of 100 amid the sell-off.

Google Trends uses an index-like approach to represent search interest, but doesn’t show exact figures.

Source: Google Trends

Interest in bullion skyrocketed as economic data in the United Stated started pointing to a potential recession after worst-than-unexpected unemployment data triggered what’s known as the Sahm rule, an indicator that measures the three-month moving average of the U.S. unemployment rate against its previous 12-month low.

Meanwhile, rising tensions in the Middle East exacerbated investor anxiety as Iran is expected to soon attack Israel in response to the killing of Hamas’s leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

The sell-off saw equities markets plunge, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index seeing its worst two-day performance ever to lose nearly 20% of its value in that period and was so intense that some brokerages went down briefly. Markets have, however, seemingly already started recovering.

Bitcoin, amid the sell-off, saw a low around the $48,200 mark before recovering. Following conformation of a dovish outlook, the price of gold surged to nearly $2,500 before dropping to $2,400 at the time of writing over the global market sell-off.

Analysts and traders surveyed by Kitco, as reported, are overwhelmingly bullish on gold for the coming week, however, with some expecting gold to break previous highs due to the weakening U.S. economy and potential Fed rate cuts.

Featured image via Unsplash.