Central banks

This article will discuss if investors in coming years really have more than the Hobson’s choice of one. Gold has been one of the top performing asset classes in this century and still nobody owns it with only 0.5% of world financial assets invested in gold.

Gold is logically regaining its stable monetary value in an increasingly tense geopolitical context, at a time when the energy future of the European continent poses many questions and when the risks of stagflation have never been so great since the Second World War.

Gold remains a strong competitor. The yellow metal is particularly popular with countries that want to de-dollarize. Central banks that bypass the dollar system of financing are the ones that have bought the most gold over the last twenty years. The acceleration of de-dollarization will therefore in...

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). B...

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.