Publications

The implementation of the Basel III standards on the Net Stable Funding Ratio (NSFR), in particular on allocated or unallocated gold and on its derivative products will cause an earthquake on the market, which should lead to a serious revaluation of the price of ounce of physical gold. As for the gold-paper game, it will no longer interest the banks and will only be addressed to a few professionals looking to hedge a future delivery.

The governments and central banks have crossed a point of no return, meaning that structural reforms to our monetary system are inevitably going to be required. Judging by the previous cycles, said reforms should become a necessity before the next 20 years are out. There is an urgent need to anticipate an overhaul, in the long term, of the international monetary system.

It will take several more months to fully eliminate the slack in the labor market. The implication is clear: precious metals investors shouldn’t bet on a change in the Fed’s stance anytime soon. And as the yellow metal is very sensitive to tapering fears, this is positive news for gold bulls.

The price of gold rose above $1900 at the start of the week and has since stabilized around this level. It is the first time this important threshold has been reached since last January. In terms of the monthly charts, gold is in a confirmed breakout of its consolidation “flag” which will have lasted 9 months.

Holding physical gold is like putting your money on black on a roulette table with only black numbers. You know that you will win every time as history proves with 100% certainty that governments will continue to destroy the currency and thus the economy.

With the Basel III accord, the most important change for precious metals is that banks would be required to hold reserves against their assets. Under the coming regulations, banks would count unallocated precious metals at 85 percent of their value on the bank’s books in making the determination of how much it needs to hold in reserves against these assets.

Asset price inflation is now spreading to everyday goods as the velocity of money in circulation increases, in some cases exacerbated by artificially created shortages. It looks as if we have to prepare for shrinking economies and inflation. In this mix, more and more institutional investors are recognizing the need to diversify their portfolios with gold as a stable currency and inflation hedge.

Biden proposes $6 trillion of government spending in the 2022 fiscal year. This continuation of ultra-loose fiscal policy could support gold in the long run.

Money printing causes prices to rise, that's how it is, and the central banks' printing presses have been active since the beginning of the 2000s (interest rates fell following the crash of Internet stocks in 2000 and then the attacks of September 11, 2001). It was reinforced with the subprime crisis of 2008, before reaching delirious levels since the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns.

As technological developments and markets go parabolic, we observe many market “experts”, even intelligent ones, forecasting that we are now in an exponential economic era. Thus many believe that this will go on forever. This is the typical attitude at market and economic tops and guarantees that this will not end well!

Faced with this brutal and disorderly rise in inflation, the Fed no longer really has a good solution open to it: either it stops monetizing the debt and provokes a financial crisis, or it carries on monetizing the debt, thereby risking a monetary crisis.

The US monetary policy is loose, and real interest rates are still in negative territory. The fiscal policy remains very easy, and the public debt is high. Inflation is huge and rising. And there is also an issue of depreciation of the greenback. The Fed’s easy stance, low interest rates and high inflation weaken the US dollar, supporting gold prices.

The National Wealth Fund (NWF) has received the green light to diversify assets by investing in gold as the country’s Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed the relevant order on Friday.

What’s important here is that the economic environment is more inflationary (we have easier monetary and fiscal policies ) while at the same time the Fed is highly tolerant of high inflation – this is a truly dangerous cocktail, but it could be quite tasty for gold.

Gold and silver have not at all reflected the massive creation of money in the last 50 years. That catchup phase is likely to start very soon based on both fundamentals and technicals. The upside potential for gold and silver is multiples of the current prices and that is at today’s price levels. Hyperinflation could take the metals to unfathomable heights.