Supply & demand

Berkshire took a new position in Barrick Gold, buying 20.9 million shares, or 1.2 per cent of the company’s outstanding stock, with a current market value of US$565 million.

Two major asset classes are major beneficiaries of the unlimited money printing and credit creation that is now taking place globally. One of them will end in tears and the other one has just started a major secular bull market.

To the question that some will inevitably ask ("Isn't it too late to buy gold?"), the answer is clearly no. It is even becoming urgent in the face of the risk of mistrust towards currencies brought about by the crazy policies of central banks.

Silver is expected to break through $26 resistance in mid August, before bumping into resistance at $27.50 and hanging off a bit. The level of $30 could be reached at the end of September, a deadline each year very important for the silver market.

Gold’s unrelenting march higher shows no signs of slowing after a plunge in the dollar swept prices past the previous high set in 2011 and put the metal on track for even bigger gains.

Gold made a temporary peak in 2011 and resumed the uptrend in 2016. The massive amounts of money that have been printed since 2006, and accelerating now in 2020, have not yet been reflected properly in the gold price. But this is what is coming next.

As the world economy desperately tries to navigate to a safe harbour, is it going be pulled down by the six-headed monster Scylla or the Charybdis whirlpool (Homer’s Odyssey). It seems likely that Scylla is now starting to swallow parts the world before Charybdis will finish it off. A world severely weakened by debt and mismanagement is unlikely to have the strength of Odysseus to pass both obstacles without disastrous consequences.

Over the past decade, these top five countries were the leading silver investors in the world. From 2010 to 2019, citizens in these countries invested over two billion ounces of silver bars and coins. Which country was the largest investor of silver?

In the next few years, the world will learn that the printing of money can never create prosperity. That is the time when the masses will turn to gold and silver. At that point, there will be virtually no physical precious metals to buy at any price.

History repeats itself with staggering similarity. The Crises of the 3rd Century and today have much in common. All empires have the seeds of their own destruction within them. So if we look back almost 2000 years to the Roman Empire we will find exactly the same symptoms as today.