These interventions on the futures markets now only have very transitory effects, and at the same time, they are reinforcing the tensions on the physical side. Each enforced correction on the paper market prompts a veritable run on the physical metal. This holds true for the entire metals compartment (whether precious or otherwise), with all the metals finding themselves in backwardation with each new raid.

The Fed, for its part, is continuing to print money at the same crazy pace as before. The central bank promised to reduce its asset purchases, but by refusing to hike its rates and continuing to grow its balance sheet, it is exacerbating the rise in prices even more. There is ever more money in circulation, chasing fewer and fewer tangible assets available. How do you expect the inflation to dissipate, in those circumstances?

The consumer prices index (CPI) published in the United States is a shock for the last of the faithful believers still clinging to the myth of ‘transitory’ inflation. Prices of gold and silver are breaking out. Over the long term, we note that this Gold/Copper pairing is a fairly reliable indicator as to the steering effects of the Fed’s monetary policies, since its first interventions in 2008.

With the sheer quantity of cash accumulated in bank accounts in Western countries, the disruption to supply chains and the melting of the stocks in the futures markets (the last ‘tools’ that are putting the brakes on the rise in precious metals), the virus of physical gold and silver will likely spread from China to the Western countries...as and when the economic difficulties catch up with us.

The rise in the price of gold in a cycle of yield increases is the signal that the monetary authorities are late to act on the inflationary cycle. Historically, gold has never performed so well as when the central banks ‘run’ after inflation, and lag behind in terms of the rate of increase. Today, this lag is even larger than it was during the inflationary cycle of the 1970s...

The tension on the copper prices is at risk of spreading to other metals such as magnesium, aluminum, silver, tin, zinc...These rises are not limited to the metals sector. All of the prices of commodities are undergoing a rise that is accelerating as the markets re-evaluate the extent of the monetary expansion policies.

We have entered the cycle of stagflation, which combines a continuous rise in prices and a slowing down of economic activity, precisely because of these sudden losses of purchasing power.

After the Kaplan scandal, the Fed is fighting against another case of suspected insider trading this week. This time, the case concerns the trades made by the vice-president of the U.S. central bank, Richard Clarida. Clarida traded millions of dollars out of a bond fund into stock funds one day before Chair Jerome Powell issued a statement flagging possible policy action as the pandemic worsened, his 2020 financial disclosures show.

But the gold prices are not responding to the law of supply and physical demand. They are dependent on transactions on the futures markets, where the fund managers have more influence over the prices thanks to their paper investments with a high leverage effect...even if they don’t have a single ounce of metal in their hands.

Even if one were to print money and give it away for free in order to prop up consumption, it would be impossible to avoid the consequences, which are now clearly visible, of the inflation created by this monetary madness. The difficulties at the level of the production chain brought about by this inflation are now squeezing companies’ margins, and that is what FedEx’s results show us.

The pressure on the level of salaries is not going to stop any time soon.The violence of this inflationary shock is going to be felt this fall on the consumer prices. Businesses will have no choice but to pass on the dizzying rise in costs that they are experiencing to the consumer.

Since the start of this century, gold has offered a far better return than bonds. It was this outperforming of the bonds by gold that took it into its bullish phase from 2002 to 2010. The central banks intervened in 2010 to break this cycle, but we have initiated a second cycle of gold outperforming the bonds market. Gold is continuing to bring in better returns than government bonds.

In this irrational environment, it is entirely natural to see more and more investors seeking to protect their savings by means of investments such as physical gold, which is regaining a certain appeal in this climate of a headlong forward dash by the central banks.

The inflation is spreading. Is it this new risk associated with inflation that has prompted the unusual demand for physical gold in recent weeks? Gold is being seen here as a refuge from an out-of-control event linked to the new risks engendered by this inflation.

Gold and silver are yet to benefit from the rise in the prices of the other assets; they are thought of as a currency, and not as commodities. These low prices are a bargain.

Acting straight away on the rates would have an even more devastating effect on the system as a whole. This is the impasse that the central banks have now got themselves into, in their interventionist policies. Acting straight away will break the engine. That’s what the math is telling us. Gold and silver directly owned in your name or held in an allocated account (and certainly not in an unallocated one) are the only insurance policies against the upcoming breaking or malfunctioning of the engine.

The true price of gold and silver will be the one that is displayed after the shift from paper to physical. The current price reflects precisely the preponderance of the financial market over the market for real assets. But for how long?

Time is now the monetary authorities’ enemy, in contrast to the other interventionist phases in which the inflation was under control. The longer these authorities delay acting, the further the rise in prices will spread. And the longer they wait, the more the risk of an urgent intervention to break this uncontrollable cycle increases. Gold remains the ultimate investment for covering this risk of a loss of control by the central banks in the very complicated task of managing the period to come.

The sales of futures on the COMEX market, now seen almost every day, are colliding with a background trend for the purchasing of gold by the other central banks, which are starting to lose patience and want to cover themselves in relation to the risks of devaluation of their assets in terms of state bonds and currencies, which are significantly impacted by the current levels of inflation.

Like many fixed-income securities, the gold prices are completely detached from supply and demand. The mechanism for determining prices is distorted by ‘tools’ that enable the monetary authorities to alter the perception of their inflationary monetary policies.