Interest rates

With pressures on stocks and bonds, the precious metals are falling in sympathy as often is the case at the beginning of falling markets. I have been stating for 20 years, that fundamentally gold and silver are in a very strong uptrend, supported totally by central bank’s destruction of paper money. Within major uptrends, there are always corrections and some are vicious.

Since March 2020, inflation expectations have been rising and so did the price of gold. But, from March until September the nominal 10-year Treasury rate barely moved (around 0.6%), after which it began to rise. Since October 2020 the 10-year Treasury rate is rising in a fashion that makes the TIPS rate go up, and thus gold down. At the time of writing the 10-year Treasury rate is roughly 1.6%.

This deluge of liquidity with no counterpart in the real economy produces bubbles (shares, real estate in particular), crashes, and eventually a bubble on all prices, i.e. inflation, then hyperinflation if things really get out of hand.

The macro stage is set. The genie is out of the bottle. The list of macro, fundamental and technical reasons to be long precious metals today is extensive. It is more than just a “short squeeze” in silver.

Looking forward five years out and more, this trend of negative real yields will likely increase, and to see gold double in price from its recent highs in the 2020’s would be far less of a surprise than the multiples we’ve already seen in far more hysterical price moves in names like Tesla or BTC.

Egon von Greyerz and Matthew Piepenburg discuss the critical relationship between rising gold prices and negative real (inflation-adjusted) yields. Throughout the 20th century, whenever the rate of CPI inflation grossly outpaced Treasury yields, gold’s price saw dramatic climbs.

The secular bull market in stocks is very likely to finish in 2021. This turn could be at any time. Just like in 2000, it will all happen very quickly and this time it will be the start of a very long and vicious secular bear market. Real assets like gold, silver and platinum will be investors’ life insurance. To hang on to stocks and bonds will totally destroy your wealth and your health.

Our antidote to the dying paper wealth of all global paper currencies, of course is physical gold. This is no secret, and to some, perhaps even an illogical, and even outdated bias.

When a world already in trouble was hit by a severe financial crisis in September 2019, the dose of debt was already excessive. But as the Fed and the ECB opened the money spigots fully, they filled the world with poisoned or fake money. The BY team (Biden & Yellen) will now be certain to finish this process with their profligate spending plans.

For the first time ever the total value of the U.S. equity market is worth twice as much as the real economy. A true financial bubble. Previous highs of the equity to GDP ratio were followed by significant gains in the price of gold. This time around I expect the gold price to rise as well.