Central banks

The risk is there: "the most fragile countries are not Italy or Spain, but France, Greece and perhaps Portugal." What the Greeks experienced in the 2010s - and they are still paying the bill - could soon happen to the French.

Rising wages, falling productivity: inflation is not transitory and is becoming uncontrollable for the Fed, because it is linked to a problem in the supply of raw materials.

Gold is as cheap today relative to US money supply as in 1971 when the price was $35 and in 2000 when gold was $290.

Monetary policies are often analyzed in terms of their impacts or correlations with macroeconomic indicators, such as GDP, unemployment or the balance of payments. They are more rarely analyzed according to the consequences they generate at the individual level.

Christine Lagarde's denial, its refusal to raise the key rate, and its apathy towards inflation, will prolong the weakening of the euro against the dollar, thus creating an additional cause of inflation (raw materials being paid in dollars, the fall of the euro mechanically increases their price)...

Inflation figures will probably still be very high in Europe and the United States, especially because of record high fuel prices. But it is the Japanese inflation numbers that now need to be scrutinized.

Looking ahead, gold might attract further interest as a diversifier as central banks seek to reduce exposure to risk amid heightened uncertainty. Our expectation stands for central banks to remain net purchasers for 2022.

Investors who buy physical gold at this price level are buying insurance against the risk of a monetary policy error by the Fed.

Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina dismissed the idea of pegging the ruble to gold after the Kremlin said it was a proposal under consideration.

This important loss of purchasing power, imperfectly compensated by government subsidies, will lead us into a recession. The savers who put their trust in physical gold will preserve their savings, but this is only individual behavior; the governments that benefit from the money printing press wi...