THE BEYONCÉ EFFECT: SWEDEN’S INFLATION FEELS THE HIT
Danske Bank economist estimates Renaissance Tour contributed about 0.2 percentage point
By JOSEPH PISANI
Thu, Jun 15, 2023 2:50pm
2 min
2 min
Call it Bey-flation.
Sweden’s higher-than-expected inflation in May was due in part to Beyoncé launching her Renaissance World Tour in Stockholm, according to an economist at Danske Bank.
Fans flocking to Sweden’s capital city sent hotel prices soaring, said economist Michael Grahn. Calling it a “Beyoncé blip,” he estimates that Beyoncé’s tour contributed about 0.2 percentage point to inflation.
“This is very rare,” Grahn said about the effect that Beyoncé’s Stockholm performances on May 10 and 11 had. “Basically, her fans vacuumed hotels around Stockholm with a radius of some 40 miles,” bidding up hotel rates.
Inflation in Sweden was at 9.7% in May, falling from 10.5% the month before, according to Sweden’s government. Economists surveyed by FactSet were expecting inflation to drop to 9.2% last month. Statistics Sweden, which puts out the country’s inflation and other economic reports, said hotel and restaurant prices rose 3.3% in May from the month before.
“Beyoncé probably had an effect on hotel prices in Stockholm the week she performed here,” said Carl Mårtensson, a price statistician at Statistics Sweden, “but it should not have had any significant impact” on Sweden’s inflation.
The Renaissance tour, named after Beyoncé’s most recent album, is making its way around Europe before coming to the U.S. next month. The superstar’s first tour in seven years is playing in soccer and football stadiums, where fans watch her dance with robots and sing while riding a mirrored horse that floats in the air.
Beyoncé, whose hits include “Crazy in Love” and “Formation,” broke the record for most Grammy wins in February after “Renaissance” won best dance/electronic music album. She’s had 32 Grammy wins over her career, the most of any person.
When Renaissance tour tickets went on sale earlier this year, Beyoncé superfans, who call themselves the BeyHive, tried to buy tickets in several cities, fearing they would go quickly. A day after tour dates were announced, Ticketmaster said fan demand for the first round of tickets exceeded the number of tickets available by more than 800%.
Grahn said Sweden’s currency, the krona, is weak, which means tickets and other costs are likely cheaper for fans outside the country.
Other superstars touring this year after a long break have also made an economic impact on the cities they have visited.
Taylor Swift, who is in the midst of her Eras Tour, helped Las Vegas nearly match pre pandemic visitor levels when she performed there in March, the Las Vegas tourism authority said. Cities have been going all out to welcome Swifties in town for the Eras Tour, lighting up monuments in her signature colours and temporarily renaming streets after her.
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Gold miners are emerging as a compelling way to navigate market uncertainty, with analysts pointing to strong cash flows, attractive valuations and rising profit margins. As gold prices stabilize above US$4,000 an ounce, mining stocks could offer investors both downside protection and long-term upside.
By Paul R. La Monica
Thu, Aug 6, 2026 3 min
3 min
Gold is one of the market’s go-to hedges in rocky times. Don’t forget that gold miners’ stocks are too.
The stock market’s gains in 2026 belie the rocky macroeconomic picture: elevated inflation, heightened geopolitical tensions, and jitters about the artificial-intelligence trade. That backdrop, in theory, should be the time for gold to shine. Instead, the price of the yellow metal has tumbled more than 5% so far, after last year’s blistering 65% rally. In part, the U.S. dollar’s recovery has stymied gold, which benefited from the greenback’s weakness in 2025.
Even with the precious metal’s recent weakness, gold mining stocks could be the best way to profit from this year’s uncertainty.
Gold miners “are a valuable hedge against macro risks that would likely be damaging for equities,” BCA Research’s Noah Weisberger and Rishabh Shah wrote this week.
Concerns about the Federal Reserve’s next moves to tackle inflation, the increasingly crowded AI trade, and steep valuations for tech stocks are just some of the drivers that could help gold’s price get on even footing— and lead to even bigger gains for miner stocks.
These stocks’ prices tend to outpace gold’s moves, because the companies have fixed operational costs. So when gold’s price rallies, their profit margins soar, and vice versa. For instance, the VanEck Gold Miners GDX +7.39% exchange-traded fund has fallen 11% this year as the metal has slumped.
Now, gold’s price just needs to stabilize to help miners’ stocks take off, and that seems to be happening. The precious metal has recently found support above the $4,000 level, and has stuck in a narrow range since the end of June. But its price rose ever so slightly in July, ending a four-month losing streak for the metal. Technical analysis also suggests that gold is due for a comeback.
Barron’s recently wrote that the pullbacks for both gold miners and the metal itself are overdone. Senior technical analyst Doug Busch noted that the VanEck ETF is on the “verge of a breakout” and has the potential to hit $11o in early 2027, up more than 40% from its current price.
Gold miners also have more than their role as a market hedge going for them. Their fundamentals are solid, too, says Chris Mancini, portfolio co-manager of the Gabelli Gold Fund.
“Precious metals miners are generating substantial amounts of free cash flow given profit margins of over $2,000 per ounce, and are returning this cash to shareholders through buybacks and dividends,” he said in an email.
“Buying the miners is a cheap way to get exposure to the price of gold,” he added. His fund owns Newmont NEM +6.71%, a Barron’s stock pick last year, and Agnico Eagle Mines as top holdings, as well as miners Northern Star Resources, Endeavour Mining, and Kinross Gold K+8.59%.
Miners are better businesses than they used to be, the BCA team added.
“Capex is more disciplined, margins are high and rising…and they are largely independent of the AI story,” Weisberger, BCA’s head of equities, and Shah, a senior analyst, wrote.
That last part is key. AI is disrupting the software industry and many other services and information-oriented businesses, and investors have piled into AI stocks. But ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and other large-language models aren’t going to replace the need to mine for metals.
“Equity portfolios can benefit from exposure to quality that is uncorrelated to AI risk, and gold miners fit the bill,” the BCA team said.
They recommend that investors buy the VanEck Gold Miners ETF, which owns top miners such as Agnico, Barrick Mining ABX +7.24%, and Newmont.
An important bonus for big gold miners’ stocks is that their valuations are attractive after the gold’s pullback, too. The VanEck ETF is now trading at just a little more than nine times next year’s earnings estimates. That’s a big discount to its five-year average price-to-earnings ratio of 14, according to FactSet.
What’s more, the ETF is currently valued at a more than 50% discount to the S&P 500 SPX -0.17%, which is trading for about 19 times earnings estimates for 2027. Mining stocks have typically traded at just a 25% discount to the broader market over the past five years. So there is significant upside for the group if valuations move back toward normal levels.
One factor that complicates mining stocks as a market hedge, of course, is if stocks bounce back, which has been the case so far in August.
But both the market and economic outlooks remain cloudy, and investors remain nervous about the Fed’s next moves and AI stocks. Gold miners should do just fine, even if the anxious mood on Wall Street persists.
