Financial crisis

Whoever doesn’t learn to dance in the rain will struggle to survive the virtually non-stop storms that the world will experience in the next few years. The abrupt downturn in the global economy, triggered but not caused by coronavirus, came as a lightning bolt out of the blue.

Faced with the coronavirus crisis, the central banks went into "open bar" mode: in the United States, the Federal Reserve announced on March 3 an injection of $1.5 trillion coupled with a cut in its key rate to zero, while the European Central Bank followed with the announcement on March 19 of a €750 billion emergency plan. And it is clear that they can go beyond that, from now on it is "no limit".

With very little physical available and demand substantial, there is soon likely to be pressure on the paper market. Investors who have bought gold and silver futures will be concerned of the contracts being honoured and ask for delivery. What we are seeing now is probably the beginning of the end of the gold and silver paper market.

The system is bankrupt… The system is broken and bankrupt. This did not start now with the Coronavirus. It didn’t start in August and September (of 2019) when central banks said we would do everything we can with the Fed QE, repos and the ECB (European Central Bank) QE…

We were looking for the weak point in the mountain of debt that was growing year by year, with global public and private debt at about three times the world's GDP. What would cause a crisis, such as the subprime crisis in 2008? As we can see, it was a Black Swan, external to the economy, that turned everything upside down: the coronavirus.

Before I talk about markets and gold further on in this article, I will mention some of the horrific effects that are now hitting the world due to Coronavirus. Just to summarise that my market views haven’t changed. Stocks will go down by at least 90% from here and gold will surge to levels that few can imagine.

High price volatility and very strong demand for physical gold and silver have led to delays and stock shortages at our various suppliers, mostly for the bars and coins we sell.

In 15 days, the price of an ounce of gold in euros has risen from €1555 (first fixing on February 24 in London) to €1443 at the time of writing. With a low of €1437 per ounce, this represents a drop of 7.59%. And, since March 6, the price seems to have started to fall again. Should we be worried about this?

This is it! The party is over. The world is now facing the gravest economic and social downturn in Modern Times (18th century). We are now entering a period of global crisis that will change the world for a very long time to come.

The economy is being hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, the risk of recession is looming, and now the central banks are rushing in like a white knight!