U.S. Global Investors

Over the past 12 months, global container shipping rates have steadily declined to their long-term averages as supply chain snarls have receded and backups at ports have disappeared. Now, another segment of the cargo shipping industry is seeing day rates explode to record highs.

Americans who work remotely, either full-time or part-time, can save between $2,000 and $7,000 in transportation and work-related costs. They can also gain back the equivalent of two to three weeks per year in commuting time.

Despite stubbornly high inflation and recessionary fears, spending by consumers may not slow down as we approach the busy holiday shopping season.

FTX, until recently the world’s second-largest crypto exchange, filed for bankruptcy as its embattled founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, stepped down as CEO following a liquidity crunch that exposed the firm’s improper use of customer assets.

As I see it, decentralized assets have never looked more attractive than they do now.

In 1990, a new tech start-up was spun out of Apple to invent the future.

In North America and the U.S. specifically, the hunt for lithium, a key component of batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs), has historically trailed a handful of other countries.

With this week’s announcement that the White House is deploying nearly $3 billion to boost domestic output of EV batteries and the minerals used to make them, it may be time for investors to take notice.

Readers of a certain age will remember Carnac the Magnificent, Johnny Carson’s recurring alter ego.

The worst may be behind gold mining stocks. Since hitting a 52-week low on September 26, they’ve risen about 18% and today notched their second straight week of positive gains.

Just 18.5% of homes in Florida counties that were told to evacuate have coverage through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which is administered by FEMA. Most regular homeowners’ insurance policies don’t cover flood damage, which is why Congress created the NFIP in 1968. But at an average cost of $995 a year, according to Forbes, the insurance may be out of reach to many households.

“Gold is no longer a safe haven.” “Gold isn’t an effective hedge against inflation.” “Gold is dead.”

After countless delays, the Ethereum “Merge” finally took place this week, switching the blockchain protocol from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS).

Today, about 1% of our vehicles are electric. What will happen in 2035 when many more EVs need to be charged, potentially during another heatwave?

September has historically been one of the worst months for stocks. The Fed’s aggressive moves and upcoming midterm elections could make this September particularly interesting.

A growing number of prominent financial groups believes the era of low inflation is behind us, and that one investment strategy is to boost exposure to commodities and natural resources.

Winter is coming for Europe, and energy prices are soaring as international sanctions on Russia curb the supply of natural gas, on which many European Union (EU) countries have increasingly become dependent.

The bipartisan Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act, or CHIPS Act, was signed into law this week, setting aside $52 billion to boost domestic semiconductor research and production.

As of last month, the U.S. jobs market fully recouped the number of jobs that were lost due to the pandemic, in less than half the time it took following the previous downturn.

So did the U.S. just enter a recession? It depends on who you ask.

During Tesla’s quarterly results webcast this week, Musk admitted to dumping some $936 million of Bitcoin to raise cash out of concern of an economic pullback due to pandemic lockdowns in China.

This incredible milestone underscores the need to solve a number of ongoing challenges related to population growth, but it also presents what I believe are some very attractive investment opportunities.

If you were considering taking the family on a European vacation, now may be a good time, as the U.S. dollar and euro achieved parity this week for the first time in 20 years.

Gasoline consumers around the world, from families to businesses, have had to deal with record prices at the pump for months...

No doubt about it, this has been a very challenging market environment to navigate, and we look to be in for more of the same. The Fed will continue to tighten monetary policy, and the longer the conflict in Ukraine persists, the longer we’ll likely feel the pressure from elevated gas prices.

Container shipping companies have not been immune to the disruptive factors roiling markets at the moment, namely rising interest rates, soaring inflation and a potential recession, not to mention war in Eastern Europe.

Latin America tilted further left this week as Colombian voters elected Gustavo Petro as president. Come August, the former Bogotá mayor and member of the M-19 guerrilla organization will join the region’s growing list of leftist leaders in a political shift some are likening to the “pink tide” of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The yellow metal has managed to stay positive since the start of the year, skirting pressure from surging yields and a strong U.S. dollar. Meanwhile, nearly every other asset class has fallen into either correction or bear market territory.

Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina opens with one of the most famous lines in world literature: “All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

There’s no way of knowing for certain whether a recession is imminent, but for many Americans, it’s sure starting to feel that way. According to Google, more people in the U.S. searched for the term “recession” than at any other time in the past two years.

Shanghai, the Chinese commercial hub with 26 million residents, ended its two-month citywide pandemic lockdown last week, a sign that the world’s second largest economy may be ready to return to business-as-usual.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Due to stratospheric oil and gas prices, energy stocks have been the one bright spot in an otherwise dour market this year. Through the end of May, the S&P Oil & Gas Exploration & Production Index gained an incredible 60%, compared to the S&P 500, which fell about 13%.

Summer is right around the corner, and traditionally that’s when families pack their bags and get away for a well-deserved vacation. Since this is the first summer travel season in three years that feels like the before times, airlines and airports are bracing for what is expected to be a particularly busy three months.

Texas now leads the nation in the number of Fortune 500 companies that are headquartered in the state.

The U.S. was experiencing some of the highest inflation in its history.

Some big-name investors forecast that Bitcoin will eventually hit $100,000, $1 million or more. It could very well do that, but for now, its price is closer to $0. That’s both a risk and an opportunity.

The major market indices finished mixed this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.63%. The S&P 500 Stock Index rose 0.40%, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.02%. The Russell 2000 small capitalization index lost 0.28% this week.

The U.S. economy contracted 1.4% in the first quarter, leading some investors and analysts to raise the specter of the dreaded “R” word: recession.

The push-and-pull between centralization and decentralization is the great contest of our times. And decentralization is winning out.

On May 29, Colombia could elect its very first leftist president should Gustavo Petro receive a majority of the vote. The former congressman and mayor of the capital city of Bogotá, Petro is an unabashed admirer of and Hugo Chávez.

The war in Ukraine has contributed to inflation in the short term, but there’s much more to the story, which began way before Russia invaded its neighbor.

An estimated 30,000 people attended this week’s Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, which is rapidly becoming a major global crypto-finance hub.

Globalization in all its forms, from social to economic to political, has been on the rise since about the 1970s, and I genuinely believe it’s had more benefits than drawbacks on average.

Many of the highest earners in the U.S., including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and others, have created millions of new jobs, minted hundreds of thousands of new millionaires and literally improved life on earth.

Some countries have climates and athletes that are better suited for the Winter Olympic Games, and others for the Summer Olympic Games. Every country on earth had to deal with Covid, though, whether they’re hot or cold, rich or poor.

Elon Musk recommends that investors own “physical things” instead of cash in the face of historically high inflation. So why is he holding on to his Bitcoin and Ethereum?

A provocative report by Credit Suisse’s Zoltan Pozsar that was making the rounds in certain corners of Twitter this week suggests that the Russia-Ukraine conflict could be a strong tailwind for shipping freight rates.

I don’t believe the world has ever witnessed such a highly synchronized effort to ostracize a nation and isolate it from global markets. The steps have so far been deep and profound.

Brent crude oil came close to $114 per barrel on Wednesday, its highest level since June 2014, as the conflict in Ukraine intensified and sweeping economic sanctions were imposed on Russia, the world’s third largest oil producer.

Our withdrawal was well timed, as Russian stocks had their worst one-day selloff on record. The dollar-denominated RTS Index fell around 40% on Thursday.

Unlike fiat currency, Bitcoin is decentralized and cannot be controlled by any central bank or politician, making it a powerful peer-to-peer payment network. Why else are some lawmakers and bureaucrats so eager to regulate or outright ban it?

Will he, or won’t he? That’s the question many people have been asking of Russian president Vladimir Putin with regard to a possible invasion of Ukraine.

If everything goes according to plan, travel and tourism could contribute $2 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2022, compared to $1.87 trillion in the year before the start of the pandemic.

Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve seen consumers around the globe shift much of their spending from services and experiences to goods, and consumers in China were no exception, according to a recent report by consultancy firm Bain & Company.

IMO 2020 has contributed to higher shipping rates.

Investors have already started positioning for a new Fed tightening cycle as well as sticky inflation. Many are rotating into real assets, including gold and real estate, which have inherent value outside of the traditional financial system.

A “boatload” of news this week suggests that the shipping industry continues to look very attractive from an investing point of view. Global cargo carriers are estimated to have recorded $150 billion in profits in 2021, the first time they’ve collectively reached that figure in a single year.

Few inventions have touched so many lives as the container.

Every year around this time, we update our always-popular Periodic Table of Commodities Returns.

India reported spending a record $55.7 billion on gold imports last year.

In 2021, readers of the Investor Alert and Frank Talk were most interested in stories on gold mining, precious metals, natural resources and emerging markets (no surprise). But there was also interest in macroeconomic topics (inflation, mostly) as well as Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

We can phase out fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, but we can’t phase out the metals and minerals necessary to build additional renewable energy projects.

The metaverse is part of the next iteration of the internet some are calling Web 3.0—and it promises to upend everything as we know it.

There are a number of key investment themes for 2022 I feel most people would agree on. Below are just a handful.

Like many others, I believe Bitcoin could fix Turkey’s lira problem. And to understand why, it might be helpful to dust off a book written 45 years ago by Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek.

Online sales during 2021’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping holidays ended up being slightly less than those of the previous year, representing the first time such a decrease has been recorded.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of family, love and laughter! Even if that wasn’t your experience, there’s still much to be grateful for.

The average cost of a typical holiday feast has increased 14% compared to Thanksgiving last. The price of the turkey alone is up 24%, which is nearly four times the official inflation rate.

Luxury goods sales just went from dip to rip.

Gold performed as expected this week following a monster CPI report that showed inflation skyrocketing 6.2% in October. The yellow metal broke out of its downward trend going back to August 2020, when it hit its all-time high of $2,073.

After much anticipation, the U.S. House approved a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending package last week, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk to sign. Although no single lawmaker got everything they wanted, I believe this bill is generally constructive news for the metals and mining industry...

Inflation is looking less and less “transitory,” and make no mistake: Transitioning to a zero-carbon energy mix as quickly as climate scientists are urging will be highly inflationary.

These “perfect storm” disruptions have created numerous headaches for shipping and logistics companies. But as is often the case, bad news is good news, especially for investors who have seen shares of container lines surge in the 18 months since the pandemic began.

Now nearly anyone will be able to convert their loose change into Bitcoin at their neighborhood Walmart. This week, it was being reported that Walmart quietly began installing special Coinstar machines at select locations that give customers the option to buy Bitcoin.

We’re all familiar with inflation. But did you know there’s another form of inflation that’s just as corrosive on our purchasing power and yet is nearly impossible to measure? Read on to learn more.

Bitcoin topped $56,000 on Friday for the first time since May as a number of positive crypto developments galvanized investors in the month of “Uptober.”

There are a few important lessons that every aspiring entrepreneur should know.

Contrary to popular belief, what’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander.

Gold’s average daily trading volume for the one-year period was $183 billion, compared to the S&P 500 with nearly $235 billion. That dollar amount is enough to beat currency swaps as well as all government and corporate debt.

The Berlin Wall came down 32 years ago this November, ushering in a new era of freedom and opportunity. But judging from the results of a recent local election, it looks as if socialism is trying to stage something of a comeback in Germany’s capital city.

Evergrande Group, the “too big to fail” Chinese property developer, rattled markets last Monday when it missed interest payments to at least two of its lenders. This gave more than a few investors flashbacks to Lehman Brothers’ demise in 2008, which helped trigger the global financial crisis.

Against the backdrop of a potential Evergrande failure, gold and Bitcoin look very attractive as stores of value, and both happen to be on sale right now.

After a challenging 2020 due to the pandemic, foreign direct investment (FDI) has been flowing into Russia this year for a number of reasons. Among them is it offers positive real rates compared to other Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to be in the fossil fuel business. On both sides of the Atlantic, lawmakers and unelected bureaucrats are turning up the heat, so to speak, on companies over the issue of climate change.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to be in the fossil fuel business. On both sides of the Atlantic, lawmakers and unelected bureaucrats are turning up the heat, so to speak, on companies over the issue of climate change.

With real rates trading below zero right now, many yield-starved investors are being forced into riskier and riskier assets, including high-yield junk bonds. But even these are no longer offering a positive real return, what with inflation at multiyear highs.

So much of life is managing risk. That’s true on a micro, personal-level scale as well as a macro, country-level scale. Crises often can’t be prevented. It’s how you deal with them that makes all the difference.

Social Security is in worse shape than we thought. The program’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund is now expected to be insolvent by 2033, a year earlier than anticipated.

Social Security is in worse shape than we thought. The program’s trust fund is now expected to be insolvent by 2033, a year earlier than anticipated. According to the annual report, its finances have been “significantly affected” by the pandemic and 2020 recession, not to mention “rapid population aging.”

Mark Mobius, the legendary emerging markets investor, says that 10% of investors’ portfolios should be in gold in anticipation of currency devaluation as a result of unprecedented stimulus measures.

The country sits atop what could be one of the world’s largest reserves of various metals and minerals, including not just gold but also platinum, silver, copper, iron, aluminum and uranium. It’s believed to have so much lithium, an increasingly important metal that’s widely used in battery technology, that Afghanistan could one day be known as the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” according to a 2010 memo by the U.S. Department of Defense.

It’s no secret. The highly transmissible delta variant of Covid-19 has stalled the recovery of commercial air travel and weakened bookings in July and August, which have traditionally been among airlines’ busiest months of the year.

After 20 years, the longest war in U.S. history is finally coming to a (clumsily handled) close.

So many headlines right now are instilling FUD in investors’ minds, which stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt—from the Afghanistan news to fears on cryptocurrency and the delta variant disrupting travel plans. But don’t fall for it.

Many of you tuned in this week to watch the conversation between me and Michael Saylor, founder and CEO of business intelligence company MicroStrategy.

As I discussed in a Frank Talk this week, the Senate just approved a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that’s now the business of the House.

It may be time for investors to take a serious look at commodities and raw materials.

In 1905, the first gas pump appeared in St. Louis, Missouri, to meet the fueling demands of a rapidly growing number of motorists.

This month, Louis Vuitton turns 200 years old.

You may not be familiar with the term metaverse, but if you’ve been a consumer of popular books, movies and video games over the past 30 years or so, you probably are aware of the concept.

Recent protests offer hope that change may be right around the corner. But for now, gold and Bitcoin have helped fill the gap created by disastrously mismanaged currencies.

Two months. That’s how long the pandemic-triggered recession lasted, from February to April 2020, making it the shortest economic downturn in U.S. history, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research’s (NBER) Business Cycle Dating Committee.

Commodities rallied 21% in the first half of 2021, making them the top performing asset group ahead of U.S., European, emerging market and non-Japan Asian stocks. The broad-based index of energy, agriculture, industrial metals and precious metals rose the same amount as high-flying Bitcoin, which pulled back after hitting its all-time high of more than $63,000 on April 13.

Gold notched its third straight week of higher prices as the yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped below 1.3% for the first time since February.

Gold notched its third straight week of higher prices as the yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped below 1.3% for the first time since February. The highly transmissible Delta variant was also ruled the most dominant strain of coronavirus in the U.S., threatening economic growth and raising uncertainty about the next interest rate hike.

There may be many reasons why people spread misinformation about Bitcoin. Much of the misinformation may originate from Ripple, which is currently under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fintech firm is believed to employ a great number of bots on Twitter and other social media platforms with the intent of tearing Bitcoin down in favor of its own XRP coin.

Legendary global investor John Templeton once said that the best time to buy was when there was “maximum pessimism,” and the best time to sell was when there was “maximum optimism.”

Bitcoin erased its 2021 gains last week as China ramped up its crackdown on mining of the cryptocurrency, a move that’s expected to help shift the industry’s center of gravity from Asia to North America.

Bitcoin erased its 2021 gains this week as China ramped up its crackdown on mining of the cryptocurrency, a move that’s expected to help shift the industry’s center of gravity from Asia to North America.

Gold is one of the rarest elements in the world, making up between 0.001 and 0.006 parts per million of the earth’s crust.

Domestic business travel is well on its way to recovery. Forty percent of poll respondents said that business travel within the country where their firm is based has already resumed, while a third said that their company has either decided on a start date or is working toward a date.

Paul Tudor Jones is super bullish on Bitcoin right now and may give the crypto the same 5% weighting as gold, commodities and cash.

I’ve been writing about the possibility of higher inflation for months, and now it looks to have finally made landfall. The headline consumer price index (CPI) came in at 5% year-over-year, the highest in over a decade.

El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America, smaller than the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and yet it just did something very big.

As some of you know already, I was in Miami this past weekend attending Bitcoin 2021.

According to data provided by The Block, mining revenue on the Ethereum blockchain topped $2.35 billion in May—a new all-time high—compared to $1.45 billion for Bitcoin. Transaction fees alone contributed over $1 billion.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) was founded in 1974 in response to oil embargos the previous year that caused the global price of oil to surge 300% from $3 per barrel to $12 per barrel. From the start, the IEA’s mission has been to help member nations deal with major oil supply disruptions.

A new report published in May says that global sales of luxury goods have a shot at fully recovering to 2019 levels this year.

One of the biggest reasons why people invest in assets like gold, Bitcoin and altcoins is because they act as hedges against bad government policy.

The week’s selloff was dramatic. By Wednesday, Bitcoin was down more than 40% from its all-time high of $64,000, set in mid-April. The token’s market dominance fell to a three-year low of 40%.

I don’t question Elon Musk’s good intentions, but I respectfully disagree with the underlying insinuation that crypto miners in particular are a threat to the climate. It’s just not true, for reasons I explain below.

And just like that, Elon Musk has turned on Bitcoin.

One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from Winston Churchill, who was just as witty as he was a great leader: “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”

If you were hoping to visit the Eiffel Tower or Colosseum this summer, you may be in luck.

With everything up, where are the value buying opportunities?

Central banks have been net buyers of gold for 11 consecutive years.

Some major changes could be coming soon to a central bank near you, with an estimated 90% of them at some stage of developing a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.

More than 60 central banks right now are believed to be exploring the idea of digital currencies, including retail tokens that would be used by citizens as well as wholesale applications for financial institutions.

For this Frank Talk, I decided to take a deep dive in the airline industry to see how it fared in the first quarter of 2021, one year after the start of the pandemic.

Digital currencies stormed Wall Street in a big way this week. Crypto exchange Coinbase went public in a direct listing, opening the floodgates for a number of other crypto-related companies.

There are a few different ways to measure the size of a shipping fleet.

Millions of Americans, it seems, felt that the time was right to trade in their clunkers for a new set of wheels.

We’re more than ready to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror. For the first time since this all started a year ago, more than one million people per day have been flying commercial in the U.S. for 30 straight days.

Last month I forecasted we’d see a travel boom this summer as newly vaccinated Americans book their first big trips and vacations since the pandemic began.

The acceptance of digital currencies as a form of payment expanded greatly this week, foreshadowing the increasingly important role cryptos such as Bitcoin and Ether will play in our lives going forward.

Gold producers had their most profitable year ever in 2020, based on one metric.

My question, as always, is whether we’re measuring inflation accurately. What if we’re doing it all wrong? As investors, we want to make decisions based on the best available data, so what should we do if the data is incomplete or flawed?

For the past 20 years, the Port of Los Angeles has been the busiest seaport in the Western Hemisphere, responsible for exporting commodities such as soybeans and raw cotton and importing everything from furniture to electronics.

Wall Street thought 2020 was the Year of the SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

Wall Street thought 2020 was the Year of the SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Turns out, this title was premature.

One year ago this month, our world changed in some pretty dramatic ways.

A little over a hundred years ago, the United States emerged from the double whammy of a world war and deadly pandemic. Eager to get back to “normal” life, Americans went on a decade-long spending splurge, buying cars and radios and stocks.

In November 2020, an Hermès handbag sold at Christie’s for a cool HK$3.4 million, or US$437,330. It set a new sales record for a handbag of any kind according to the auction house, which described the item as being made from the hide of a rare white Nile crocodile.

There may be some incredible opportunities for investors in companies that produce the metals, minerals and other raw materials that will be needed with an increase in spending.

Gold hasn’t been getting much love from investors lately due to rising bond yields, and bullion-backed gold mutual funds and ETFs have seen significant outflows so far this year through the end of February.

Yields have jumped so much, in fact, that they’re giving stocks a serious run for their money. The 10-year yield is now higher than the S&P 500 dividend yield, which may have added to the selling pressure that cost stocks close to 2.5% yesterday.

Inflation is back on investors' minds lately, and some may be wondering how to position their portfolios to confront this potential new scourge.

Millions of Texans were without power this week when the state was hit with a record setting winter storm. An overhaul of its aging infrastructure would require massive amounts of metals and other materials, which would be positive for miners and producers.

Happy Year of the Ox! Today China and a number of other Asian countries celebrate the Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival.

Tesla announced in a public filing Monday that it bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin as part of a corporate policy that allows the electric vehicle (EV) maker to invest in “alternative reserve assets,” including not just cryptocurrencies but also gold bullion and gold ETFs.

It’s hoped that an extra $1,400 in the pockets of everyday Americans may help support lagging U.S. consumption. We believe the stimulus, along with improved vaccine roll out, may also help support commercial air travel.

Commercial aviation still has some challenging times ahead of it, but I believe the worst is behind us, meaning now may be an opportune time to get exposure.

Those of you with kids and grandkids may at some point have stepped inside a GameStop. If so, you might be familiar with the video game retailer’s tagline: “Power to the players.”

Precious metals in general did very well in 2020, and I expect them to keep pace in 2021, supported by heightened efforts in the U.S. and elsewhere to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

In the years since the end of the gold standard, there’s been a significant lack of discipline in government spending. Today, the federal debt is closing in on an astronomical $28 trillion, which is more than 130% of the size of the U.S. economy.

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin said it best: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” In this light, what are we to make of Trump’s social media suspension?

This should be positive for gold, given the potential for greater government spending and, therefore, inflation.

Gold and Bitcoin had a very good 2020. Investors, worried about currency debasement from all the money-printing, sought stores of value. Gold surged over 25%, its best year in a decade, while Bitcoin was up more than 300%.

Now that 2020 has drawn to a close, I’m revisiting my most popular investment posts of the year, based on views. It was a truly historic 12 months, to say the least, but I won’t be covering everything that happened.

And then there’s Bitcoin. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency has surged nearly 220% this year, touching an all-time high of $23,717 in intraday trading on Thursday.

Airline stocks are on track to record their third straight month of gains on hopes that the coronavirus vaccine will help normalize commercial air travel sooner rather than later. Investors are also betting that U.S. carriers may be in line to receive additional relief in the stimulus package currently being negotiated in Congress.

“This garage is the birthplace of the world’s first high-technology region, Silicon Valley,” the marker reads. It names two Stanford students, William Hewlett and David Packard, who “in 1938 began developing their first product, an audio oscillator, in this garage.”

Industrial metals are well on their way to being among the top performers of 2020, supported by red hot demand from China and global supply concerns.

“Dr. Copper,” so named for the metal’s ubiquitous use in many different applications, has been ripping higher since its 52-week low in March, thanks to a number of factors including promising economic data.

Chinese factories signaled their strongest improvement in over a decade.

So far this year, shares of HIVE Blockchain Technologies have soared an incredible 715%, well past Ethereum’s gain of 273%. 2020 has been marked by healthy expansion in mining capacity, the most recent example being HIVE’s acquisition of additional access to low-cost green energy.

Gold “is a hedge on policymakers screwing up, and there has been a lot of screwing up in the last 20 years.”

By now you may have heard that President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning Americans from investing in a select number of Chinese firms that have ties to China’s military.

America, and the world, received a huge shot of hope this week. The $210 billion drugmaker Pfizer announced on Monday that its coronavirus vaccine is 90% effective at preventing COVID-19.

On Saturday, Joe Biden was named president-elect. In hindsight, the market clearly predicted this outcome.

Businesses love Congressional gridlock. Tech stocks had been trending down for days before the election as they faced antitrust scrutiny, but now that it appears certain Congress will remain divided, they’ve recovered most of their losses. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 jumped close to 10% for the week.

Want to hear something really scary? Inflation, the scourge of the modern economy, may be running much faster than we’re led to believe.

Want to hear something really scary? Inflation, the scourge of the modern economy, may be running much faster than we’re led to believe.

Here at U.S. Global Investors, we’re very bullish on commodities, particularly industrial and precious metals.

We could also see a so-called “blue wave,” whereby the Democrats pick up control of not just the White House but also both chambers of Congress.

“Resilience” was this week’s theme as better-than-expected market data came to light. Earnings season has begun, and so far reports have proven the doomsayers wrong. Even industries that have been hardest hit by the economic downturn, including air travel, are expressing optimism that we’re at the “end of the beginning” in terms of recovering from the worst health crisis in 100 years.

To some critics, Trump’s behavior and decision-making process may seem erratic, but I believe they make a sort of sense when viewed through the lens of game theory.

President Trump has declared rare earth metals a national emergency and asks that the U.S develop a “commercially viable” mineral supply chain that does not depend on imports from China or elsewhere.

Investors should try to avoid getting distracted by the feuding political parties within the U.S. A lot of the infighting is being fueled by outside actors, who thrive on the chaos and the division. Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are delighted that we’re so divided right now.

You may have seen headlines questioning whether this is the end of the gold rally. Hardly. Corrections are normal and healthy. During the rally of the 2000s that culminated in gold hitting its previous record high of $1,900, there were several significant pullbacks, some of them exceeding 20 percent.

Gold is one of the rarest elements in the world, making up roughly 0.003 parts per million of the earth’s crust. But how much gold is the world digging up each year and what countries produce the most?

This “exodus,” as some are already calling it, may end up being among the biggest in U.S. history, or at least the biggest since the 1950s and 60s. A record 27.4 percent of homebuyers sought to move out of their metro areas in the second quarter, according to Redfin data.

At least through 2023: That’s how long the Federal Reserve expects near-zero interest rates to last as it seeks to support an economy that’s seen more than 60 million jobless claims since mid-March. Gold has thrived in this low-rate environment, hitting an all-time high of $2,070 an ounce in early August...

One of our favorite natural resource companies, Ivanhoe has returned more than 146 percent in the past six months alone as investors anticipate the start of production at the Kakula Mine, which has the potential to become the world’s second-largest copper mining complex, with annual output projected to be 800,000 metric tonnes a year.

Supply is getting tight. Helium is notoriously difficult and expensive to store, for the very good reason that it escapes every known container over time.

Travel stocks—including airlines, cruise lines and hotels—were among the best performing equities during the month as new daily COVID-19 cases have declined in the U.S. from their mid-July highs.

The Federal Reserve just tweaked how it thinks about inflation, and this could have a huge impact on gold and gold mining stocks. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech raises the question yet again if we’re even measuring inflation accurately in the U.S.

The number of Americans filing for initial jobless claims this week spiked above 1 million, while the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 remains above 1,000 a day. But there was much else to celebrate.

Berkshire unexpectedly announced that, as of the end of the second quarter, it held a $565 million position in Barrick Gold, the world’s second largest producer of the metal.

The price of gold had its first down week since early June, ending a spectacular nine-week rally. The yellow metal briefly fell below $1,900 an ounce on Wednesday as stocks neared their all-time closing high and the 10-year Treasury yield jumped on record supply.

By now you’ve all heard the news. Joe Biden, the Democrats’ presumptive nominee for president, has selected as his running mate Kamala Harris, junior senator from California and the state’s former attorney general.

For the week, airlines stocks increased 9 percent, its best weekly performance since early June. Wheels up!

Russian stocks, as measured by the MOEX Russia Index, turned positive for the year on Tuesday of this week after plunging 30 percent due to the pandemic. This puts them slightly behind the S&P 500...

Two companies in the metals and mining space I’m looking forward to hearing from are Ivanhoe Mines and Franco-Nevada. Both are scheduled to report next week.

As you’re probably aware by now, spot gold is trading at an all-time high in nominal terms, having recently hit $1,977 an ounce. Futures touched $2,000 for the first time ever.

We all know that past performance is no guarantee of future results, but you can see in the chart below that the white metal could possibly be setting up for another epic run-up. At this stage of the bull market, silver’s current price appreciation is ahead of any previous rally.

Both gold and silver have been on a tear this week, with the yellow metal touching a nine-year high of $1,897 in intraday trading on Thursday. Silver was trading above $22.70, up 94 percent from its 52-week low on March 18.

Weeks before the S&P 500 bottomed, many millennial Robinhood investors began picking up coronavirus-impacted airline stocks. The buying spree continued even after Warren Buffett announced that he’d dumped his holdings.

Many reports now say that the uber-wealthy have pulled back their spending on non-essential goods and services due to the coronavirus. But that doesn’t mean they’ve cut spending entirely.

Precious metals were the big winners for the first six months of 2020. Spot gold took the first place position, rising over 17 percent, followed in second place by silver, up nearly 2 percent. Palladium rounded out the top three, essentially flat at negative 10 basis points.

American ingenuity is something to take pride in this weekend as we (safely) celebrate the Fourth of July.

As you may have already heard, the European Union (EU) just released its list of 15 countries that are permitted to visit the 27-country bloc starting today, and the U.S. was not among them.

A “perfect storm” of surging government debt levels, plunging real bond yields, rising coronavirus cases and deteriorating economic forecasts pushed the price of gold to an eight-year high this week, and some analysts now project the metal to top its all-time high within the next 12 months.

We like to go a bit further with our definition and add that luxury goods are those for which demand has tended to grow faster than potential buyers’ disposable incomes. This contrasts with “necessities,” for which demand growth has been more in line with income growth over time.

Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations are spiking again in several countries, including the U.S. California had its biggest one-day jump in infections. Arizona, Florida and Texas are also turning into new hotspots.

Back in March, I predicted that the total U.S. economic response to the COVID-19 crisis would be at least $10 trillion.

The selloff this week was “perfectly normal,” according to the math. Find out why it makes sense to have a long-term investment horizon.

It may not feel like it, but West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil just posted its best month on record. The American benchmark for crude soared more than 88 percent in May, from $18.84 per barrel to $35.50, as businesses cautiously began to reopen and people returned to work following the coronavirus lockdown.

Warren Buffett “should have kept airline stocks because the airline stocks went through the roof today,” President Trump said this week. It’s a good thing that investors chose not to follow Buffett’s lead, as airline stocks are up 50% since his exit.

The price of silver soared in May, jumping more than 19 percent on safe haven demand as well as increased expectations of a swift economic recovery, given its many applications.

As troubling as these developments are, it’s important not to lose sight of the good that appears to be taking place right now. Investors that focus only on the negative tend to miss out on the opportunities.

Investors are betting on growth stocks over value stocks by a wider spread right now than at any other time since at least 1990, including during the tech bubble.

Against this backdrop of anything-goes spending, the idea of having a national currency backed by a real asset like gold seems less and less crazy to some. Doing so, it’s believed, would force lawmakers to practice fiscal discipline, reign in inflation and normalize international trade.

The airline sector may be experiencing some turbulence now with COVID-19, but the industry has flown through storms before. After all, airlines stocks managed recoveries after the 9/11 attacks, the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the global financial crisis in 2008.

The bitcoin halving that occurred this past Monday is only the third such event in the cryptocurrency’s 11-year history. In the months following the first and second halvings, bitcoin prices surged as it became abundantly clear that at some point in the near future, new bitcoin issuances will come to a halt.

Elon Musk isn’t known for playing by the rules. The 48-year-old tech billionaire got himself into hot water with regulators a couple of years ago by tweeting that he was “considering taking Tesla private at $420.

A month is all it took to wipe out a decade of jobs growth. With so many people out of work as we head into the second quarter, the next earnings season for S&P 500 companies is undoubtedly going to be one for the history books.

For more than a couple of months now, I’ve said that gold mining companies will have a strong first (and second) quarter thanks to higher metal prices. Stock prices, as you know, are largely driven by revenues and free cash flow (FCF).

Warren Buffett is arguably the most respected and accomplished investor in U.S. history. He turned Berkshire Hathaway, a struggling textile company, into a multibillion-dollar holding company.

Today is “reopening” day for Texas, home state of U.S. Global Investors. Restaurants, retail stores and malls can now open their doors to customers again, so long as occupancy is kept at 25 percent of what it normally would be.

By some estimates, states could be facing their deepest budget shortfall on record due to the COVID-19 crisis. States could collectively see a budget deficit of $290 billion in 2021, which would be greater than during the 2001 recession and 2007-2008 global financial crisis.

Physical gold continued to catch a bid this week, trading above $1,760 an ounce, on a host of head-spinning economic news, from millions more Americans filing jobless claims to record money-printing to negative oil prices.

President Donald Trump unveiled guidelines for “Opening Up America Again,” a three-phase approach to be executed by state and local officials. Some governors have already expressed interest in easing restrictions sooner rather than later.

Gold and gold stocks are among the highest performing assets of 2020 so far as investors seek a haven amid the coronavirus-fueled rout, and as central banks and governments around the world roll out unprecedented monetary and fiscal measures in an effort to mitigate the economic impact of the “Great Lockdown.”

Some 6.6 million additional workers filed for jobless claims this week, but it’s always darkest before the dawn. There’s ample reason to keep hope alive that conditions will be improving sooner than expected.

The $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package that President Donald Trump signed into law on March 27 is just the beginning. The Treasury Department is now seeking some $250 billion more to replenish small business loans, and there’s hope that the president and House Democrats can agree on a “Phase Four” spending deal, one that may target infrastructure.

A head-spinning 6.6 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits this week bringing the two-week total to 10 million. That’s more than the combined populations of Los Angeles and Chicago.

U.S. companies have never had so much debt on their books as they do now.

On Friday, Congress approved and President Trump signed into law a $2.2 trillion emergency stimulus package, the largest in U.S. history. Most American adults will be receiving a one-time payment of $1,200 in cash.

This week, residents of San Antonio, Texas, home to U.S. Global Investors, were ordered to work from home, with some exceptions. Like countless people in other parts of the country and world, our team has had to quickly and nimbly adapt to a new normal, and to be innovative in the face of new challenges.

These extreme measures appear to be having great success, particularly in Asian countries. Whereas the number of cases continues to rise in Italy, Spain, Iran and elsewhere, the number has begun to stabilize, if not plateau, in Asian countries.

That was President Donald Trump on Monday, responding to a question on whether the U.S. economy could be sliding into a recession.

Compared to past viral outbreaks, COVID-19 appears to be less fatal, yet it has received far more media coverage. Paradoxically, that may be part of the reason why it’s had a much bigger impact on public health and the economy relative to those other diseases.

Warren Buffett boosted his stake in Delta Air Lines by 976,000 shares last week, raising his total holdings to 17.9 million shares. This was enough to bring Buffett’s ownership of Delta up to more than 11 percent.

Chinese manufacturing activity slumped to a record low in February as the coronavirus outbreak temporarily shuttered plants and factories and travel restrictions impacted the supply of labor.

Commodities look oversold right now, meaning there could be some potentially attractive buying opportunities. Brent crude oil, the global benchmark, traded below $50 per barrel on Friday for the first time since July 2017, while copper remained mostly range-bound.

I don’t know about you, but I never thought I’d see the day when the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond dipped below 2 percent, let alone 1.8 percent.

Gold mining stocks have broken out, with several hitting new 52-week highs this week. Gold royalty and streaming companies, including Franco-Nevada and Wheaton Precious Metals, also hit fresh 52-week highs.

Bernard Looney, BP’s new chief executive, wants to cut his company’s greenhouse gas emissions down to zero by 2050. To do that, the world’s sixth-largest energy company is committing itself to massive investment in renewable energy, including wind, solar and biofuels.

So far in 2020, the yield on the 10-year Treasury has averaged 0.01 percent when adjusted for inflation. Since the end of January, it’s actually dipped below 0 percent, trading as low as negative 0.14 percent on January 31.

CLSA predicts that the price of gold will beat the S&P 500 in 2020. The Hong Kong investment firm has an impressive track record when it comes to making market predictions—last year it had a 70 percent hit rate—so it may be prudent to take this one seriously.

The number of confirmed infections of the coronavirus in mainland China crossed above 24,000 on February 5, having already surpassed the total number of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) cases from 2003.

Two topics seemed to dominate at this year’s Inside ETFs conference: the rise of ESG investing, and the emergence of so-called “nontransparent” ETFs. Both promise some big changes to financial markets.

Although air travel isn’t off to a great start this year, largely due to airlines canceling flights on fears of the coronavirus spreading further outside China, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicts 2020 to be strong in terms of travel demand.

Because it’s the first of the 12 zodiacs, the Year of the Rat is seen as a time of beginnings and renewals. That brings us hope, especially paired with the recent positive development in the U.S.-China trade war.

Among the biggest contributors to the bitcoin rally is the hope that 2020 could finally see institutional investors move into the digital field en masse, prompted by growing client demand and more attractive ways to get exposure.

One of the biggest concerns some investors might have right now is that the U.S. business cycle is maturing and possibly reaching its “natural end.”

On Tuesday of this week, the U.S. dollar experienced a “death cross,” a bearish signal that takes places when an asset’s 50-day moving average crosses below its 200-day moving average. We haven’t seen this from the greenback since May 2017.

The U.S. manufacturing sector contracted for the fifth straight month in December, with the monthly reading from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) hitting its weakest point in more than 10 years.

I’m optimistic that the U.S. will stand as a beacon of freedom and opportunity in the 2020s and beyond, but with more and more younger Americans supporting socialism over capitalism, I believe it prudent to proceed with caution. That means making sure you’re holding some gold in your portfolio.

What were the top financial news stories of 2019? To answer that question, Frank looks back at his five most visited articles from the year that was.

Imagine you wake up tomorrow from a three and a half-year coma. Everything that’s happened in the meantime—the election of Donald Trump, impeachment, Brexit and more—is a complete mystery to you.

Boris Johnson’s victory bodes well for Trump in 2020. The British PM’s Conservative party toppled the so-called “red wall,” winning seats across rural, working-class North and Midlands counties that had for decades been considered safe Labour territory.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times—for American trucking companies. This year alone, nearly 800 U.S.-based trucking companies have gone bankrupt. That’s almost three times the rate as in 2018, when things were looking remarkably positive.

Predicting a major economic or financial event—whether that’s a recession, market downturn or even your own retirement—requires that you also take action. Otherwise your prediction was meaningless.

“This is not QE. In no sense is this QE.” That was Jerome Powell in early October, answering a reporter’s question on whether the Federal Reserve’s intervention in the overnight U.S. repo market constituted another round of quantitative easing (QE).

One of the best ways to “supercharge” your gold position is with precious metal royalty and streaming companies. Think Franco-Nevada, Wheaton Precious Metals, Royal Gold and others.

It’s the top of a new month, meaning we get to see the latest manufacturing purchasing manager’s index (PMI) readings. And if you follow both the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) and IHS Markit’s reports on U.S. factory activity, you may be getting some mixed signals.

As Thanksgiving comes to an end, and the busy holiday shopping season begins, here are some need-to-know numbers you may have missed from this past week.

Flying in the face of negative economic news, U.S. factories picked up steam for the third straight month in November.

Although the PMI report is encouraging, there’s still reason to remain somewhat cautious long-term. The latest accounting of global debt levels was just released, and the news might be so bad that it’s good—for gold prices, at least.

Quick! What do Hong Kong, Chile, Ecuador and Lebanon all have in common with one another?

The media’s inequality narrative completely ignores the fact that the global demonstrations are, at the end of the day, in response to government incompetence and failed socialist policies.

It’s hard to believe now, but the very first Singles Day in 2009 generated only about $7 million for Chinese mega-retailer Alibaba. No one could have guessed then that, 10 years later, the 24-hour shopping event would see that sales figure surge to an all-time record of $38.4 billion, an unbelievable multiple of 5,471.

This is an absolute monarchy we’re talking about, after all, and so global investors should not expect to have any shareholder rights. Aramco’s board of directors will have a fiduciary duty to MBS and any future monarch, not to investors. This has some serious implications.

When Colorado-based Molycorp Inc. filed for bankruptcy in 2015, the U.S. lost its sole remaining miner and producer of rare earth elements (REEs)—those inconspicuous metals with unpronounceable names like praseodymium, yttrium and gadolinium.

Investors may assume they have adequate exposure to gold because they’re invested in a commodities fund. But many of these funds have a relatively small weighting in gold, and so their gold exposure is much smaller than they realized.

The U.S. stock market has been hitting new all-time highs thanks to lower rates, positive earnings surprises and optimism that a resolution to the U.S.-China trade war comes sooner rather than later. But don’t let that distract you from exciting things that are happening in overseas markets, specifically in Eastern and Emerging European countries.

What was once the world’s largest commodities hedge fund is officially closing, creating new opportunities for some investors to get exposure to raw materials and mining using other funds. According to Bloomberg, Blenheim Capital Management’s CEO and chief investment officer, Willem Kooyker, is calling it quits after a 50-year money management career that made him a legend in oil, metals and agricultural markets.

We focus on fundamentals such as moving averages and standard deviation. We follow leading indicators such as the purchasing manager’s index (PMI) and consumer confidence index. These factors are many times more effective than the headline news at shining a light on the right path.

What was once the world’s largest commodities hedge fund is officially closing, creating new opportunities for some investors to get exposure to raw materials and mining using other funds.

I remain bullish going forward despite signs that the world could be facing its worst economic slowdown since the financial crisis. The reason for my bullishness is simple: Bad news is good news.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and for that we can largely blame policies of envy that increasingly restrict investors’ access to wealth-building instruments.

Tourism has traditionally helped peace and understanding spread across borders, and we’re hopeful that it will do the same today. It’s also good for commerce, especially for airlines and the travel industry in general.

For reasons unknown, October has historically been the most volatile month for the stock market—by a goodly margin. Between 1950 and the end of 2017, the S&P 500 Index saw as many as 362 trading days during the month of October in which the market moved up or down more than 1 percent.

In the past three years, oil and gas discoveries made by conventional means have fallen to an incredible seven-decade low. What’s more, a “significant rebound is not expected,” says IHS Markit. Find out what’s driving discoveries lower!

As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrates its 70th anniversary, manufacturing data shows that factories in the world’s second largest economy improved marginally in September, despite the impact of the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.

History shows that presidential impeachments have had minimal impact on markets. We believe there are bigger risks to consider, including a potential German recession and record global debt. Against this background, gold can help improve a portfolio’s risk-adjusted returns.

“I think gold is in a good place,” Pierre Lassonde, co-founder of Franco-Nevada, said this week at the Denver Gold Forum. Looking ahead 30 years, Pierre believes the yellow metal could average $12,500 an ounce—and may even hit $25,000!

Gold may be off its 52-week highs, but the precious metal is still up more than 15 percent for the year through September 17. This appears to put gold on a path for its best year since 2010, when it gained just under 30 percent.

The price of gold has beaten the S&P 500 Index over a number of different time periods, even the century (so far!). The yellow metal, however, has also outperformed arguably the greatest living investor, Warren Buffett.

Beginning in 2010, central banks around the world turned from being net sellers of gold to net buyers of gold. In 2018, official sector activity rose 46 percent to 536 tonnes – the second highest level of demand this century.

The trade war between the world’s two largest economies entered its 18th month in September with the U.S. imposing fresh 15 percent tariffs on $125 billion worth of goods imported from China. China retaliated in kind, but a breakthrough could happen sooner rather than later.

For fiscal year 2020, the federal budget deficit is expected to hit a massive $1 trillion—the first time in U.S. history that it will have expanded so rapidly in a time of peace and economic stability.

There are a number of lessons investors can learn from the sensation that is the Popeyes chicken sandwich. One of those lessons is that people often put a premium on scarcity.

Gold has continued to hit new six-year highs and was trading at $1,544 per ounce as of August 29. The yellow metal has surged so far in 2019 in part due to global economic concerns like the U.S.-China trade war, record levels of negative-yielding debt globally and signs of manufacturing slowdowns in major economies – to name a few.

As the topic of recession remains top of mind for many investors, now is the opportune time to consider preparing your portfolio in the event of a pullback.

Carriers have added more capacity. With the exception of JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines, capacity as measured by seats on all domestic carriers is up from 2018. The big four airlines – United, Delta, American and Southwest – as seen in the chart below, account for more than 81 percent of domestic airline capacity.

More than a year after the start of the U.S.-China trade war, we’re finally starting to see consumer prices increase. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose to a six-month high of 2.2 percent year-over-year in July.

Gold headed for its best week in nearly two months as the value of negative-yielding debt touched a new record of $15 trillion. The 10-year Treasury yield fell below 2 percent, pushing gold above $1,500 an ounce for the first time since September 2013.

Be that as it may, China’s central bank on Monday allowed its currency, the renminbi, also known as the yuan, to weaken past 7.0 versus the dollar, a level unseen since 2008. A weaker currency gives China certain advantages over the U.S., including making its goods more competitively priced for foreign buyers.

Say what you will about this past week, it certainly wasn’t dull. The Federal Reserve, seemingly capitulating to President Donald Trump and Wall Street, became just the latest central bank to cut interest rates.

I’m a firm believer that your thoughts manifest your future. It’s very hard to make money and be successful when you’re always expecting the worst to happen.

There may come a time, sooner than you think, when the world economy simply cannot operate to its full potential without bitcoin, Facebook’s proposed Libra or some other large-scale digital currency.

Now that gold has broken through the $1,450 an ounce level, a six-high year high, the next big test is $1,500. And as I’ve said before, it can do this in the blink of an eye under the right conditions.

Commodities were on mostly sound footing in the first half of 2019. The S&P GSCI returned more than 13 percent as of June 30, one of the best first six months in recent memory. It was not without its challenges, though.

When the Fed began a new easing cycle while the economy was expanding, stocks went up 3 months, 6 months, 9 months and 12 months later

As many of you know, I serve as interim CEO and chairman of HIVE Blockchain Technologies, the first publicly traded company involved in the mining of cryptocurrencies.

I’m very pleased to say that a satisfactory agreement was reached between HIVE and its strategic partner, Genesis Mining, so that the company can once again return to creating value for its shareholders.

Advocates of MMT insist that governments can and should print as much money as needed to fund massive public works, guarantee government jobs for the unemployed and much more. This is a recipe for runaway hyperinflation.

Gold is one of the rarest elements in the world, making up roughly 0.003 parts per million of the earth’s crust. But how much gold is the world digging up each year and what countries produce the most?

With the price of gold trading above $1,430 an ounce as of June 25, now might be a good time for generalist investors to consider getting exposure to the yellow metal.

After breaking out of a five-year trading range this week, gold surged above $1,400 for the first time since 2013 on expectations of a U.S. rate cut. Meanwhile, the global pool of negative-yielding bonds hit a fresh record high $13 trillion.

Facebook, you’ve come a long way. From its humble beginnings as a platform to stalk your high school girlfriend, the social media giant has evolved to become one of the world’s largest and most influential advertisers, news aggregators and data gatherers.

Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, founder of and hedge fund manager at Tudor Investment Corp., said this week that geopolitical disruptions have made gold his favorite trade for the next 12 to 24 months.

Stocks surged last Friday following a U.S. jobs report that, to put it mildly, fell far below expectations. At first, this might seem counterintuitive. Shouldn’t signs of a slowing economy act as a wet blanket on Wall Street?

As an investor, I continue to have great faith in gold as a store of value during times of economic and geopolitical uncertainty. It’s behaved precisely as I expect it to.

Americans’ trust in institutions, from the federal government to the news media, has been deteriorating for decades. But I continue to have great faith in gold as a store of value during times of economic and geopolitical uncertainty.

Perhaps surprising no one, global manufacturers are now in contraction mode for the first time since 2012. That’s according to the most recent reading of the sector’s health, the purchasing manager’s index (PMI), which headed lower for a record 13th straight month in May.

Tariffs are paid by U.S.-based importing companies, which pass the extra expenses on to the end consumer. As such, tariffs are inflationary, and historically, that’s been good for gold

The 17 so-called “rare earth metals,” of which the three mentioned above are members, may not have household names like gold or copper, but they play strong supporting roles in many of the consumer electronics we enjoy on a daily basis, from our TVs to smartphones.

May’s “flash” index of U.S. manufacturers registered a sharp decline to 50.6. This is only a preliminary reading, but if it turns out to be accurate, it would mark the slowest growth in the domestic manufacturing industry since September 2009

In an earlier post, I gave you a sneak preview of my interview with Chris Powell, secretary/treasurer at Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA). For 20 years now, Chris and others at GATA have made it their mission to expose collusion by international financial institutions to control the price and supply of gold.

Another day, another banking scandal. Last week the European Commission announced that it’s fining five big banks for rigging the international foreign exchange (forex) market.

The suppression of the gold price is not just a conspiracy theory. It’s a well-documented phenomenon, with real actors and real ramifications. The best people to speak to about this subject are the folks at the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee.

Stocks sold off this week on news of fresh U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, and are now officially in oversold territory. Our proprietary sentiment indicator fell to 20 percent, showing that the market is at its most oversold since July 2018.

The U.S. economy is growing at one of the fastest rates in the developed world right now, and unemployment hit a nearly 50-year low of 3.6 percent in April. Under normal circumstances, this should boost demand for domestic equities.

Global copper capacity could be short some 41,000 tons by as early as 2021, says one commodities research firm. Meaning: We could be looking at another commodities super-cycle, with the red metal leading the way.

I’ve known Bob for many years, and if there’s one thing he’s proven about himself time and again is that he doesn’t mince words. Nor should he.

The big energy news this week is that President Donald Trump moved to end all sanction waivers for nations that import Iranian oil. In response, Brent crude oil hit $75 per barrel for the first time in six months this past week.

If you’re as much a consumer of financial news as I am, chances are very good you’ve seen Keith Fitz-Gerald as a regular contributor on Fox Business, CNBC and elsewhere. That, or read his invaluable market commentary online.

Tax-free muni bonds saw $8.8 billion in inflows in the first quarter, beating U.S. equity funds and international equity funds. Investors were seeking stability as well as a strategy to counteract the changes to the tax code.

For the 20-year period, gold as an asset class had the second best annualized returns at 7.7 percent, according to JPMorgan. The S&P 500, by comparison, returned only 5.6 percent on an annualized basis, with bonds coming in at 4.5 percent.

On Wednesday of next week, the world’s largest presidential election will be held. Voters in Indonesia will go to the polls to decide whether to give incumbent president Joko Widodo another five years, or elect former general Prabowo Subianto.

Research group Metals Focus released its Gold Focus report this week forecasting that global gold demand will climb to its highest level in four years. Plus, economist David Rosenberg shares what he thinks ballooning nonfinancial corporate debt means for investors.

A resolution to the China-U.S. trade dispute is still in the works, but China’s manufacturing sector just returned to growth for the first time in four months, a sign that its government’s economic stimulus appears to be working.

Worried about retirement but don’t know how to start building wealth? Dollar cost averaging allows you to put a long-term plan in place and let compound interest work its magic.

Bond yields are crashing in major markets all around the world as fears of a global economic slowdown have prompted investors to seek shelter in low-risk government debt. Both Germany and Japan’s 10-year bond yields are back below zero, marking the first time we’ve seen German yields turn negative since October 2016.

Today stocks erased their weekly gains and bond yields fell. Chief among the contributors were a Treasury yield curve inversion, the first since before the financial crisis, and continued slowdown in the pace of U.S. manufacturing expansion.

Are you sitting down for this? According to a recent survey, one in five American adults have nothing saved for retirement or emergencies. A further 20 percent have squirreled away only 5 percent or less of their annual income to meet certain financial goals. Less than a third of all Americans have saved at least 11 percent or more.

The value of negative-yielding bonds around the world has ticked up to more than $9.32 trillion. Although still below the 2016 high, this indicates that investors fear global economic growth is slowing. Is this gold’s time to shine?

Last week I was pleased to attend the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference in Toronto. PDAC is one of the largest mining conferences in the world. More than 25,000 people turned out this year, many of them selling equipment services, exhibiting securities and investments, making presentations and much more.

Extremism at either end of the political spectrum can raise huge obstacles for business and investors. The difference, though, is that hard-left legislation seeks to punish wealth and prosperity through politics of envy.

The current stock bull market, already the longest in U.S. history, turns 10 years old this month. It’s been a phenomenally profitable time to participate, especially if you’ve stuck to an investment strategy that favors dividend-paying stocks.

The metals and mining industry could be undergoing some dramatic changes in the near future, and it’s important for investors to get in on the ground floor. I’m proud of our track record of getting in early with a number of successful companies.

A couple of weeks ago, I introduced you to an exciting new company called GoldSpot Discoveries,conceived and headed by mining visionary Denis Laviolette. GoldSpot is the world’s first exploration company to use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in the discovery process for precious metals and other natural resources.

Hungary has a problem. Like many Eastern European and former Soviet countries, its population is shrinking thanks to a plunging birthrate and outmigration as young workers seek better opportunities and fatter salaries elsewhere in the European Union (EU).

This week Morgan Stanley projected a 14 percent upside for copper in 2019, based on a widening supply deficit and the surge in global demand for renewable energy and electric vehicles, both of which require tons of the red metal.

Consumers are set to spend more than $20 billion on Valentine’s gifts for the first time ever, thanks in part to a surge in gold jewelry demand—specifically, yellow gold.

“Some people call it ‘peak gold,’ but I tend to think of it more as ‘peak discovery.’” Meet the brains behind Goldspot Discoveries, a first-of-its-kind quant shop that aims to use AI to revolutionize the mineral exploration business.

Happy Year of the Pig! This week marks the start of China’s Spring Festival, during which an estimated 3 billion trips will be made using the country’s massive transportation network of roads and rail.

Last year was admittedly a tough one for emerging markets. A number of currencies were under considerable pressure, with some of them falling to record or near-record lows against the strong U.S. dollar.

Last year was a watershed in the size of official gold purchases, as central banks added 651.5 tonnes to their holdings. Not only is this a remarkable 74 percent change from 2017, but it’s also the most on record going back to 1971.

Domestic airlines weren’t exempt from the rout that hit stocks in December, the market’s worst month since the Great Recession. Shares of all four major U.S. carriers—American, Delta, United Continental and Southwest—saw double-digit losses. Delta ended December down 17.8 percent, its worst month since October 2009, when it gave back 20.3 percent.

Global airlines are expected to log their 10th straight year of profitability—an industry first. And with incomes expanding worldwide, air travel demand is projected to outpace economic growth for the next couple of decades.

Billionaire Sam Zell just announced that he bought gold for the very first time in his life because, as he puts it, “it is a good hedge.” In a recent Bloomberg interview, the Equity International founder and creator of the real estate investment trust (REIT) admitted to seeing an opportunity in gold’s increasing supply shortage.

Diesel engines have found themselves in the crosshairs lately, with a number of European cities banning them outright. One of the beneficiaries of this policy has been palladium, used mostly in the production of pollution-scrubbing catalytic converters.

Consolidation season has finally arrived in the goldfields, just as many experts and analysts have been predicting for some time now. With exploration budgets having been slashed since their 2012 peak...

Goldman Sachs is bullish on commodities and gold, recommending an overweight position for both. The investment bank also raised its 12-month price forecast for gold up to $1,425 an ounce, a level last seen in August 2013.

One of the possible implications of a less aggressive Fed in 2019 is a weaker dollar. And once the dollar starts to lose ground relative to other world currencies, the price of gold could rocket up to as much as $1,500 in the blink of an eye.

Looking back over the past 12 months, I’m not surprised to see that my five most popular and widely shared posts of 2018 involve gold (with one exception). With many stocks falling into correction territory or worse, the yellow metal emerged as a standout asset in the fourth quarter on safe haven demand.

With only one trading day left in 2018, the price of gold has so far beaten the S&P 500 Index for the month of December, the fourth quarter and the year. What might surprise some readers is that it’s also outperformed the market for the century.

Gold is back! So far this quarter, the yellow metal has crushed the market, returning around 6 percent versus negative 15 percent for the S&P 500 Index. Gold miners, though, have been the top performer, climbing a phenomenal 12.3 percent.

Commodity traders appear excited about gold again as stocks are on pace for their worst year since 2008, and their worst December since 1931.

Wheaton Precious Metals announced that it reached a settlement with the Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA), the equivalent of the IRS. “We expect the stock to react positively to the news given the tax dispute was an overhang,” Credit Suisse analysts shared in a note to investors today.

If you followed some of my posts from two years ago, you might recall that I was in favor of Brexit. I still am. One of British voters’ main grievances was the heavy burden of European Union (EU) regulations, many of which are decided by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.

Stocks plunged this week on concerns that trade negotiations between the U.S. and China are not running as smoothly as initially thought. Adding to the uncertainty was news of the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Chinese tech giant Huawei, the world’s second-largest smartphone manufacturer.

One of the most reliable indicators of an economic slowdown just flashed a warning sign this week. On Monday, the yield curve between the five-year Treasury yield and three-year Treasury yield inverted, or turned negative, for the first time since 2007.

Just in time for Hanukkah and Christmas, silver is on sale, trading at a little more than $14 an ounce. That’s the most affordable the white metal’s been in three years. Gifting your kids and grandkids coins made of precious metals such as gold or silver could end up becoming a fun new tradition in your family.

Like cranberry growers, many bitcoin miners are choosing to limit supply as current prices are lower than operating costs. Bitcoin fell below $5,000 on Monday and was trading around $4,250 on Friday. The average of mining a single bitcoin, meanwhile, is estimated to be between $6,000 and $7,000, meaning miners are operating at a loss.

Natural gas storage in the lower 48 states was below the five-year average as of October 31, according to the EIA. This, combined with a stronger-than-expected start to winter, prompted traders to push prices to a four-year high of $4.84 per MBtu. Meanwhile, natural gas futures trading hit an all-time daily volume record of 1.2 million contracts.

Celebrated value investor Benjamin Graham, who mentored a young Warren Buffett, liked to say that the market is a voting machine in the short term, a weighing machine in the long term. This week the market voted to reward stocks in the aftermath of the midterm elections, which gave Democrats control of the House and left the Senate in the hands of Republicans. This all but guarantees that gridlock will be the status quo in Washington, at least for the next two years.

Starting today, the five-day festival known as Diwali—literally, “a row of lights”—will be observed by millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains worldwide. A celebration of good triumphing over evil, the festival typically coincides with the Hindu new year.

Speaking with Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker this week, Taleb said the reason why he has reservations about today’s economy is that it suffers from the “same disease” as before. The meltdown in 2007 was a “crisis of debt,” and if anything, the problem has only worsened.

As the stock market bull potentially nears the end of its run and we head into the last two months of 2018, many investors are making adjustments to their portfolios.

Gold performed precisely as we would expect it to. The price of the yellow metal jumped above its 100-day moving average, a bullish sign that could mean further moves to the upside if market volatility persists. Today gold was trading at a three-month high of $1,246 an ounce.

As many of you reading this know, I’m what you would call a Tex-Can. I was born and raised in Canada, but I’ve called Texas home for nearly 30 years. I can’t picture U.S. Global Investors headquartered anywhere else, even after traveling to all parts of the country and, indeed, the world. Texas just “gets it,” ...

Hungary isn’t known today as one of the world’s top gold producing countries. There was a time, though, when it accounted for around three quarters of Europe’s entire output of the yellow metal, if you can believe it. According to historian Peter Sugar’s A History of Hungary, the central European country was a “veritable El Dorado” in the 14th century, and its gold pieces circulated widely across the entire continent, competing with those minted in Italy and England.

You’ve likely seen the reports: A whopping 44 percent of Americans wouldn’t be able to afford a $400 emergency expense without borrowing it or selling something. That’s according to the Federal Reserve’s findings in 2017. And earlier this year, financial services firm Bankrate reported that only 39 percent of Americans would be able to pay off an unexpected expense of $1,000 from their savings alone.

According to the 2018 edition of the Stock Trader’s Almanac, October has been a “great” time to buy. Once ranked last in terms of stock performance, the 10th month has delivered relatively average returns since 1950. What makes it so attractive is that it’s followed by November and December, historically among the very best months for stocks. We’re also entering the three most bullish quarters of the four-year presidential cycle, based on 120 years of stock market data.

The annual “In Gold We Trust” report by Liechtenstein-based investment firm Incrementum is a must-read account of the gold market, and its just-released chartbook for the 2018 edition is no exception.

According to a recent Cornerstone Macro report, the three most influential macro trends this year have been 1) the strengthening U.S. dollar, 2) the flattening yield curve and 3) slowing global manufacturing expansion.

The price of gold fell back below $1,200 an ounce again this week as the U.S. dollar advanced following another federal funds rate hike. It’s now set to log its sixth straight month of declines, its longest losing streak since 1989.

Emerging markets continue to decouple from the U.S. market, making them look attractive as a value play—particularly distressed Chinese equities. Below I’ll share with you two big reasons why I think China is well-positioned to outperform over the long term.

In case you couldn’t tell from the ubiquitous political ads and yard signs, midterm elections are right around the corner—46 days from now, to be exact. Historically, volatility has increased and markets have dipped leading up to midterms on uncertainty, but afterward they’ve outperformed.

Without Googling, try to guess who said the following quote: “If everybody indexed, the only word you could use is chaos, catastrophe. The markets would fail.” Give up?

Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina today, bringing with it destruction and calamity, the cost of which could top $170 billion, according to analytics firm CoreLogic. If so, that would make it the costliest storm ever to hit the U.S.

This week, I had the privilege to attend the Cornerstone Macro Conference in New York. Langone’s presentation, moderated by Omega Advisers CEO Lee Cooperman, stood out as one of the highlights.

This year, commodity prices have been under pressure from a strong U.S. dollar and trade war fears. This has made a huge dent in the balance sheet of many net exporters of resources, in turn weakening their currencies. However, commodities could be on the rebound and are flashing a massive buy signal.

For years, Adam Sharp has helped accredited and retail investors get in on the ground floor of some of the most promising early stage investment opportunities. These include not just venture capital but also equity crowdfunding and cryptocurrencies, which he added last year to his two research offerings, First Stage Investor and Crypto Asset Strategies.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. A tale of two world leaders, U.S. president Donald Trump and China president Xi Jinping—both of whose countries have among the world’s best economies right now. But whereas Xi is playing Santa Claus to the rest of the world, doling out loans to finance-starved countries, Trump is playing Scrooge, waging an economic war with Canada, the European Union, China and others.

Gold prices moved up close to 2 percent today, and gold stocks climbed even higher following comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. During his speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium, Powell reiterated the central bank’s commitment to raise interest rates gradually while the U.S. economy continues its strong performance.

My good friend Marc Lichtenfeld from the Oxford Club has always been savvy in following such strategies. I invite you to learn from his investment journey in this special Q&A.

Gold can’t seem to catch a break. The yellow metal normally acts as a safe haven in times of political and economic strife, but in the face of Turkey’s lira meltdown, investors have taken cover instead in the U.S. dollar. On Monday, the stronger greenback pushed gold to end below $1,200 an ounce for the first time since January 2017.

The number of publicly listed companies in the U.S. has fallen steadily since 1997. More companies have delisted, in fact, than gone public in every year of the past 20 years except one, 2013. Put another way, the pool is getting smaller even while the population and economy are expanding.

Last month in Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas, a cup of coffee would have set you back 2 million bolivars. That’s up from only 2,300 bolivars 12 months ago, meaning the price of a cup of joe has jumped nearly 87,000 percent, according to Bloomberg’s Café Con Leche Index. And you thought Starbucks was expensive.

When you think of the top 1 percent of all income earners in American households, how much do you think this group rakes in? Millions? Tens of millions? What about the top 10 percent?

The price of bitcoin surged above $8,000 on Tuesday for the first time since May after the Group of 20 (G20) meeting in Argentina concluded last weekend with little urgency to take regulatory action on cryptocurrencies. In a communiqué, finance ministers and central bank governors expressed confidence that the technology underlying alt-coins “can deliver significant benefits to the financial system and the broader economy.”

Meet Juan León – a key member of the U.S. Global Investors’ investment team. Juan is responsible for researching companies, sectors and industries, in addition to constructing new investment strategies for several of the firm’s mutual funds and ETFs.

Anticipate before you participate in the market. This is a classic piece of advice I like to give investors and have written about extensively in my CEO blog, Frank Talk. Financial markets are influenced by relatively predictable cycles and trading patterns, and by better understanding these we are able to react thoughtfully to headline noise or unexpected market developments.

Meet Ralph Aldis – one of the longest standing members of the investment team at U.S. Global Investors. Ralph is responsible for analyzing gold and precious metals stocks in his role as co-portfolio manager for the World Precious Minerals Fund (UNWPX) and the Gold and Precious Metals Fund (USERX).

Of the 14 major commodities we track at U.S. Global Investors, oil was the standout performer, gaining roughly 23 percent, followed by nickel (up 16.76 percent) and wheat (16.51 percent).

This week I had the privilege of meeting a young tech superstar in Palo Alto, California—Gabe Leydon, cofounder and now-former CEO of mobile game producer MZ. Previously known as Machine Zone, the Sunnyvale-based company is responsible for developing some of the highest-grossing mobile games of all time, including Game of War: Fire Age and Mobile Strike, both of which profited from high-dollar marketing campaigns worthy of some Hollywood films. You might have seen Game of War’s Super Bowl commercial featuring swimsuit model Kate Upton, or Mobile Strike’s, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Beginning in 2010, central banks around the world turned from being net sellers of gold to net buyers of gold. Last year official sector activity rose 36 percent to 366 tonnes – a substantial increase from 2016.

Stop buying Iranian oil or face the music. That’s the message the U.S. government shared with the world this week, giving importers until November 4 to cut their consumption of Iran’s crude to zero—or expect sanctions. The threat comes a month after President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Obama-era nuclear deal.

We’re about nine years into the economic recovery following the Great Recession. It’s been an extraordinarily profitable period for the stock market—one of the best in U.S. history—and I hope you’ve participated.

We’re a little more than a week into the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and so far Russia has surprised experts and fans alike. Expectations were low at best. Because of recent setbacks, including a disastrous performance at the 2016 UEFA European Championship and injuries sustained by key players, the federation ranked a dismal 66th place among Fédération Internationale de Football Association teams—its lowest position ever. The only reason it didn’t have to qualify to compete was because Russia is the host nation. (This is the first time in its 88-year history, by the way, that the World Cup has been held in Eastern Europe.)

Thirty-year mortgage rates might have ticked up in the past 12 months, but for now that doesn’t seem to be weighing on new home demand. According to the Commerce Department, housing starts climbed to an 11-year high of 1.35 million units in May, a clear sign that the market has continued to improve following the subprime mortgage crisis a decade ago.

The U.S. inflation story made further inroads this month, with year-over-year price growth for consumers and producers alike hitting multiyear highs. U.S. consumer prices expanded at their strongest pace in more than six years, climbing to an annual change of 2.8 percent in May. Prices for final demand goods, meanwhile, grew 3.1 percent, their strongest annual surge since December 2011.

Gold is one of the rarest elements in the world, making up roughly 0.003 parts per million of the earth’s crust. But how much gold is the world digging up each year and what countries produce the most?

If you live in Texas and have any extra gold bars, coins and/or jewelry lying around that need safekeeping, you’re in luck. The Texas Bullion Depository, the first of its kind in the U.S., officially opened to the public in Austin this week, putting a cap on three years of planning and construction. The private firm managing the facility, Lone Star Tangible Assets, calls it the “world’s most advanced depository.”

I recently had the opportunity to see the excellent 2017 film Darkest Hour, about British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s struggle to keep the United Kingdom in the fight against the Nazis, even as members of his own government pressured him to capitulate. Gary Oldman’s portrayal of the tough-as-nails leader is at turns tender and rousing—and very well deserving of the Best Actor Oscar.

Prices will rise—for producers and consumers alike—which is good for gold but a headwind for continued economic growth.

Serious gold investors know that May has historically been a weak month for the price of the yellow metal. For the 10-year and 30-year periods, the month delivered negative returns.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, but public trust in the federal government is eroding. Sixty years ago, 75 percent of Americans expressed faith in the government to do the right thing “most of the time” or “just about always.” Seventy-five percent! You can’t get 75 percent of people to agree on anything now, as the recent “Laurel or Yanny” video proved.

The 10-year Treasury yield has been the topic of conversation lately among fixed-income investors. Earlier this month, the T-note closed above 3 percent for the first time since July 2011, prompting some market watchers to call time on the three-decade Treasury bull market. (Bond prices fall as yields rise, and vice versa.) For other investors, these concerns might extend into the $3.8 trillion municipal bond market.

This week I had the pleasure to attend Consensus 2018 in New York, the premiere gathering for the who’s who in blockchain, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Attendance doubled from last year to an estimated 8,500 people, all of them packed in a Hilton built for only 3,000. Ticket sales alone pulled in a whopping $17 million, while event booths—the largest of which belonged to Microsoft and IBM—generated untold millions more.

For more than a week now, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil has been trading north of $70 per barrel, a level we haven’t seen since November 2014. Gas prices are likewise trending up, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

This week I had the opportunity to sit down with Marco Streng, the wunderkind bitcoin visionary behind Genesis Mining. Genesis, as many of you reading this might know, is the world’s largest cloud bitcoin mining company, with over 2 million customers worldwide. It calls Iceland home, whose cool climate and affordable green energy are ideal for mining newly minted virgin cryptocurrencies. Last year, Genesis helped connect the blockchain sector and traditional capital markets by partnering with HIVE Blockchain Technologies, the first publicly traded digital currency mining firm.

Gold was up half a percent year-to-date through last Friday. This doesn’t sound very exciting, but over the same period, the S&P 500 Index was in the red—the first time in nearly a decade that stocks have been negative for the year through the beginning of May.

Call it the news of the year, perhaps even of the decade. For the first time since the Korean Peninsula was divided in 1948, leaders of the two warring nations met late last week in what had the look and feel of a jovial reconciliation between two estranged family members. Kim Jong-un of North Korea and President Moon Kae-in of South Korea made a number of important, though tentative, breakthroughs, including an agreement to denuclearize the peninsula and a pledge to revisit several infrastructure projects that would help bring some economic unity to the two Koreas.

The price of gold has been feeling the pressure lately from a stronger U.S. dollar, which is at a four-month high, and rising Treasury yields. Nevertheless, the yellow metal eked out a positive March quarter, returning close to 1.3 percent, while the S&P 500 Index posted its first negative quarter since 2015.

I’m bullish, but I don’t expect bitcoin to test $20,000 again in the short term, especially before July. That’s when G20 finance ministers are scheduled to present their recommendations on how cryptocurrencies should be regulated.

The investment case for commodities, gold and energy is more compelling than at any other time in recent memory.

You’ve no doubt heard that everything’s bigger in Texas. That’s more than just a trite expression, and I’m not just saying that because Texas is home to U.S. Global Investors.

After being mostly absent in 2017, volatility has made a comeback. The S&P 500 Index closed down for the first three months of 2018—the first time it’s done so in 10 quarters. It also had its worst start to April since 1929. Gold performed as expected during the quarter, serving as a safe haven and delivering positive returns, while the price of oil surged more than 5 percent on U.S. dollar weakness and news that OPEC and Russia could be cooperating to limit output for a long period.

With volatility returning to domestic equities, it might be time for investors to consider increasing their exposure to foreign markets, specifically emerging Europe.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates the U.S. will become a net exporter of energy by as early as 2022, and the agency recently shared fresh data that supports the narrative that America is on the cusp of taking the throne as the world’s leading energy powerhouse.

In last week’s Investor Alert, our investment team shared with you a report from Morgan Stanley that says bitcoin’s price decline since December mimics the Nasdaq tech bubble in the late 1990s. This isn’t earth-shattering news in and of itself. The main difference is that the bitcoin rout happened at 15 times the rate as the tech bubble.

As I told Kitco News’ Daniela Cambone this week, I stand by the $1,500 forecast. Before this week, investors might have been slightly disappointed by gold's mostly sideways performance so far this year. But now, in response to a number of factors, it's up close to 3 percent in 2018, compared to the S&P 500 Index, down 2.4 percent.

With interest rates continuing to creep up, there’s a changing of the guard at the Federal Reserve. In my travels and during conferences, I’ve spoken with many fixed-income investors who wonder how they can best prepare for the uncertainty these changes might bring.

You can be forgiven, for missing what I believe is the most significant development of the past few days. On Wednesday, the Senate, in a bipartisan vote, quietly approved plans to roll back key banking rules in 2010’s Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank).

As our loyal readers know, at U.S. Global Investors we carefully monitor the price of gold. We pay close attention to the macro drivers moving the yellow metal, like government policy and cultural affinity spurring demand globally. We also monitor the micro drivers, like company management and quant factors that make one gold stock superior to the next.

The White House has announced a new set of broad tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The measure is surprising in its scope, its targets and its break from the long-prevailing trends of international trade.

No doubt you’ve heard before that bull markets don’t die of old age. I can’t say for sure what will end this particular business cycle—no one can—but we’re seeing huge shifts in monetary and fiscal policy right now that investors can’t afford to ignore. As I often say, government policy is a precursor to change.

Municipal bonds might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a sexy investment. They don’t typically command news headlines like the stock market or bitcoin. That doesn’t mean investors should disregard short-term munis. In fact, munis play a very important role in any serious portfolio. Below are four big reasons why you should get excited about muni bonds.

President Donald Trump’s proposed tariff on imported steel and aluminum, at 25 percent and 10 percent, is much more than a shot across the bow. Indeed, this could be the official kickoff of the trade war we all anticipated. The protectionist trade policy, announced this week as the president met with metals executives, raised fresh inflation worries and had an immediate impact on capital markets.

Let’s focus on cobalt for a moment. Global demand for the brittle, bluish-white metal has skyrocketed in recent months, exceeding 100,000 metric tons for the first time last year, according to mining consultant CRU Group. Over the next 10 years, it’s projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.6 percent.

Looking long-term, there are mounting risks involving debt that make gold appear very attractive right now as a safe haven and portfolio diversifier.

Today marks the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, China’s most important holiday. The fire rooster struts off-stage, clearing the way for the loyal earth dog. According to CLSA’s tongue-in-cheek Feng Shui Index, health care, consumer and paper products are favored to outperform early this year, followed by internet, utilities and tech leading into the summer.

The U.S. has been a net importer of energy since 1953, but that’s set to change early next decade, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). In its highly anticipated Annual Energy Outlook 2018, the agency forecasts that the U.S.

Today I’d like to share a few words about the Olympics, but first, two words: Don’t panic.

Monday’s monster stock selloff is exhibit A for why I frequently recommend a 10 percent weighting in gold, with 5 percent in bullion and jewelry, the other 5 percent in high-quality gold stocks, mutual funds and ETFs.

On the campaign trail, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump pledged to invest as much as $1 trillion in U.S. infrastructure if he were elected. This week during his first State of the Union address, now-President Trump added half a trillion dollars more to that figure.

Disruption was definitely top of mind during many of the presentations and interviews at Inside ETFs, including that of producer and composer Quincy Jones, who was at the conference to promote a new stock index that tracks music and entertainment companies

In a year when the S&P 500 hit all-time highs, gold also held strong, finishing 2017 up 13.5 percent, according to the World Gold Council. Gold’s annual gain was the largest since 2010, outperforming all major asset classes other than stocks.

This week the U.S. Global Investors office was visited by a living legend in the junior mining industry, billionaire founder and executive chairman of Ivanhoe Mines, Robert Friedland. In case you don’t know, back in the mid-1970s, Robert was caretaker of an apple orchard south of Portland that one of his buddies from Reed College would often visit. That buddy’s name was Steve Jobs, who later went on to found a little company he named—what else?—Apple.

At the beginning of every year, we update what’s typically one of our most popular pages, the Periodic Table of Commodity Returns. I encourage you to explore 10 years’ worth of data on basic materials such as aluminum, zinc and everything in between. A word of warning, though—the interactive feature makes the table highly addictive.

Domestic stocks were a great place to invest in 2017, but hopefully you didn’t overlook opportunities overseas. Emerging markets had a gangbusters year, surging more than 37.5 percent with dividends reinvested, as measured by the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.

I believe these forces behind the fear trade will only intensify in 2018. With inflation finally showing green shoots and President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax reform law expected to increase deficit spending, this year could provide the right conditions to spur gold prices higher.

As we head into the New Year, I want to share with you the five most popular Frank Talk posts of 2017. One common theme you’ll see in these posts is they all center on the topic of gold. Although we specialize in educating investors about gold and managing gold funds, it’s worth noting that our gold posts garnered more interest than our bitcoin and blockchain posts in this year of cryptocurrency craze.

With the year quickly coming to a close, it might be time to start thinking about rebalancing the gold holdings in your portfolio. That includes bullion, jewelry, gold stocks and well-managed gold funds—all of which I recommend giving a collective 10 percent weighting. Because it’s been such a strong year for stocks—they’ve advanced more than 20 percent as of today—it’s likely that most investors will need to add to their gold exposure to meet that 10 percent weighting as we head into 2018.

In its November report, mortgage security firm Freddie Mac called 2017 the “best year in a decade” for the housing market by a variety of measures. These include low inflation, strong job growth and historically-low mortgage rates. This assessment is very encouraging, not just for homebuyers and builders and the U.S. economy in general, but also for commodities, resources and raw materials as we head into 2018.

Below are five questions to help guide your thinking when making investment decisions in the new year.

The revolution might not be televised, but it will most certainly be digitized. That’s the message, at least, of my friend Jonathan Roth’s short film on blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, titled “Cryptocurrency Revolution: On the Frontlines of the World’s Hottest Tech Opportunity.”

Writing about blockchain and bitcoin right now is a little like buying a new computer in the 1990s. The tech was advancing so fast in those days that as soon as you brought the thing home, it was sorely outdated. Similarly, the cryptocurrency world is changing so rapidly at the moment that even before “the ink dries” on one of my posts, some important new development has already surfaced.

“Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is,” Warren Buffett famously said. “The time to get interested is when no one else is.” The same logic applies to Christmas decorations, gold and mining stocks.

Earlier this month, I shared with you a quote from Arnoud Balhuizen, chief commercial officer of BHP Billiton, the largest mining company in the world. In a September interview with Reuters, Balhuizen called 2017 the “revolution year [for electric vehicles], and copper is the metal of the future.”

A helpful way to look at inflation is the changing cost of a typical Thanksgiving dinner for 10 people. For the second straight year, the cost actually declined from the previous year’s holiday, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). This year’s feast, including staples such as turkey, rolls, sweet potatoes and more, fell $0.75 to a five-year low of $49.12. On an inflation-adjusted basis, that’s down more than $10 from 30 years ago. The turkey alone cost about 1.6 percent less than last year.

Nearly 10 years after the financial crisis brought the global economy to its knees, conditions have finally improved enough to crystallize my conviction that synchronized global growth is currently underway. Revenue and earnings growth are up year-over-year, not just in the U.S. but worldwide. Despite President Donald Trump threatening to raise tariffs and tear up trade deals, global trade is accelerating. World manufacturing activity expanded to a 78-month high of 53.5 in October, with faster rates recorded in new orders, exports, employment and input prices.

By 2040, the world will need to add the equivalent of India and China’s current energy system to meet the demands of a surging global population and rising incomes.

It should be clear by now that something is changing in financial markets, and this is what inspired me to allocate part of our capital in a company with first-mover advantage in the cryptocurrency space, just as we did with Silver Wheaton years ago. As the “Parable of the Talents” teaches us, no reward can come to you without some risk-taking. Doing nothing is not an option.

Recently I identified five agents of change that I believe investors should know about right now. I’d like to add one more to the list: Mohammad bin Salman. The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, 32, was little known outside the region before this past weekend when he jailed members of the royal family, presumably in an attempt to consolidate power ahead of taking the throne.

The world is changing fast right now in ways that many investors might not easily recognize or want to admit. This could end up being a costly mistake. If you’re not paying attention, you could be letting opportunities pass you by without even realizing it. With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of five agents of change that I think investors need to be aware of and possibly factor into their decision-making process.

American consumers were more willing to open their wallets in September, an encouraging sign of what Santa might bring for investors this year. According to the latest Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data, consumer spending in the U.S. rose a robust 1 percent between August and September, the largest month-to-month gain since 2009.

So few new large mines are being discovered today, mostly because companies have had to slash exploration budgets in response to lower gold prices. Earlier this year, S&P reported that total exploration budgets for companies involved in mining nonferrous metals fell for the fourth straight year in 2016. Budgets dropped to $6.9 billion, the lowest point in 11 years. Although we’ve seen an increase in spending so far this year, it still dramatically trails the 2012 heyday.

My keynote address on Tuesday focused on quant investing in gold mining and the booming initial coin offering (ICO) market. I’m thrilled to share with you that the presentation was voted the best, for which I was awarded an ounce of gold. I want to thank the London Bullion Market Association, its members and conference attendees for this honor.

As many of you know, copper is often seen as an indicator of economic health, historically falling when overall manufacturing and construction is in contraction mode, rising in times of expansion. That appears to be the case today. Currently trading above $3 a pound, “Doctor Copper” is up close to 24 percent year-to-date and far outperforming its five-year average from 2012 to 2016.

When I talk about Indians’ well-known affinity for gold, I tend to focus on Diwali and the wedding season late in the year. Giving gifts of beautiful gold jewelry during these festivals is considered auspicious in India, and historically we’ve been able to count on prices being supported by increased demand.

I don’t think for a second that cryptocurrencies will ever replace gold, for a number of reasons. For one, cryptos are strictly forms of currency, whereas gold has many other time-tested applications, from jewelry to dentistry to electronics.

American manufacturers grew at their fastest pace since May 2004 in September, according to the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). Manufacturing activity, as measured by the ISM Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), expanded for the 100th straight month, climbing to a 13-year high of 60.8. The higher above 50, the more rapid the acceleration.

Last week I was pleased to be the keynote speaker at the Denver Gold Show in beautiful Colorado Springs, Colorado. Attendance was strong, sentiment was up and my presentation on quant gold investing was very well received.

Between escalating tensions with North Korea and a U.S. Congress in gridlock, it can sometimes be challenging to stay positive. That’s why I’m pleased to share with you this good news.

Oil prices continue to remain low, however, thanks in large part to the ingenuity of Texas fracking companies. As I told Liz, this has served as a multibillion-dollar “peace dividend” that has mostly helped net importing markets, including “Chindia”—China and India combined, where 40 percent of the world’s population lives—Japan and the European Union.

With its ability to validate all transactions in an immutable electronic ledger, the blockchain has the potential to be as disruptive as Amazon was in the late 1990s. When the company went public in 1997, there were serious doubts whether people would willingly give up their credit card information just to buy a book. Since then, Amazon stock is up 8,000 percent, and founder Jeff Bezos briefly overtook Bill Gates in July to become the world’s wealthiest person.

For the first time since we’ve been keeping track, two separate Category 4 hurricanes struck the mainland U.S. in the same year. It should come as no surprise, then, that the combined recovery cost of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma is expected to set a new all-time high for natural disasters.

China put a halt to new ICOs and crypto transactions. In response, ethereum tumbled as much as 15.8 percent on Monday, or $55 a unit. Bitcoin lost $394 a unit.

The best call financial writer Geoffrey Caveney ever made was in December 2015. Gold hit a multiyear low of $1,050 an ounce, and he was convinced that the metal had found a bottom. It was time to make a trade, he thought, not just in bullion but precious metal miners, specifically the juniors and some micro-cap names.

Below are some key data points and estimates that help contextualize the severity of Harvey and its aftermath.

Here’s a news flash for you: Donald Trump is controversial and caustic. He says exactly what’s on his mind, no matter how incendiary, and he’s not afraid to make enemies, even with members of his party. ‘Bully’ is a word many people use to describe the 45th U.S. president.

I hope investors have taken steps to prepare for some potentially disruptive economic storms, including this weekend’s central bank symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and the possibility of a contentious battle in Congress next month over the budget and debt ceiling.

The second and final part of my exclusive interview with distinguished financial writer Alex Green of the Oxford Club and Investment U.

For more than a decade and a half, my friend Alexander Green has been educating and entertaining investors as editor of numerous popular newsletters, many of which I’ve cited in my own writing.

I think most of you reading this right now are aware that gold is unlike any other metal, certainly any other element. It doesn’t play by the same rules as iron or tin or aluminum, and its value has nothing to do with its utility—or lack thereof.

Dalio’s not the only one recommending gold right now. Speaking to CNBC this week, commodities expert Dennis Gartman, editor and publisher of the widely-read Gartman Letter, said that he believed “gold is about to break out on the upside strongly” in response to geopolitical risks and inflationary pressures. Gartman thinks investors should have between 10 and 15 percent of their portfolio in gold.

There have been recent fears among economists and investors alike that China’s debt-fueled economy would contract as it transitions from old-school manufacturing to services, but the Asian giant has been far more resilient than most anticipated.

In July, the Institute for Supply Management’s (ISM) Non-Manufacturing Index fell to an 11-month low of 53.9, 3.5 points below its June reading of 57.4. The index measures the non-manufacturing, services industries such as food services, education, real estate, health care and more.

Spot gold finished July up more than 2 percent, its best month since February, when it returned 3.7 percent. The yellow metal responded to a struggling U.S. dollar, which has lost more than 10 percent so far this year relative to other currencies and is currently at a 15-month low.

Venezuela is sliding closer and closer toward the brink, and things look as if they’ll get worse, unfortunately, before they improve.

Today I want to discuss reports that global debt levels are at all-time highs, and what this means for your investment decisions going forward.

American equities have been a good place to invest during the current bull market, now in its eighth year. Since the November election, the S&P 500 Index has surged close to 16 percent. 

Markets seem not to care what the media or polls have to say. The Dow Jones Industrial Average continues to hit new all-time highs. Even though it’s stalled a few times, the “Trump rally” appears to be in full-speed-ahead mode, more than eight months after the election.

Of the 14 commodities we track closely at U.S. Global Investors, wheat rose to take the top spot for the first half of 2017, returning more than 25 percent. The grain was followed closely by palladium—used primarily in the production of catalytic converters—which gained 24 percent.

I think that now is a good time to take another look at royalty companies. Here are the top six things I believe investors should know about this specialized sector.

When people think of San Francisco, they might think of the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, Chinatown, the 49ers or Giants. I’m a fan of all of those things, but what usually comes to mind when I think of San Francisco is Silicon Valley, the world’s premiere hub for innovation and entrepreneurialism.

Although the British economy is showing signs of slowing down, the country has not contracted or imploded as many Brexit opponents had predicted. In fact, certain British sectors such as exports and manufacturing continue to expand.

You might have heard the news that the first new coal mine in a decade opened this month in a small Pennsylvania town called Friedens. The Acosta Mine—the output from which will be used in the production of steel—is expected to employ between 70 and 100 people over 15 years, with salaries ranging between $50,000 and $100,000.

The 19th century belonged to the United Kingdom, the 20th century to the United States. Many market experts and analysts now speculate that the 21st century will be remembered as the “Asian Century,” dominated by rising superpowers such as Indonesia, India and China.

You could say I’m hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. I advise investors to do the same. No one can say what the future holds, and it’s prudent to have a portion of your portfolio in gold, gold stocks and short-term, tax-free municipal bonds, all of which have a history of performing well in volatile times.

Surprising no one, President Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement this week, highlighting the depth of his commitment to keep “America First.” Also surprising no one, the media is making much of the fact that the U.S. now joins only Nicaragua and Syria in refusing to participate in the accord.

It’s been a whirlwind week. After attending two big conferences, I landed in Vancouver today where I’ll be presenting at the International Metal Writers Conference. Markets continue to close at record highs, even as political uncertainty remains and the threat of terrorism looms large over Western nations. On Monday, gold flashed a bullish signal we haven’t seen in over a year. There’s much to talk about! Below are five things you need to know from the week now behind us.

Global markets have steadily been adding renewables such as wind and solar to their energy mix for several years now, but according to a handful of new reports, 2016 might have been the tipping point.

Europe is back on the map. That was one of the main takeaways this week from the SkyBridge Alternatives (SALT) hedge fund conference in Las Vegas, where $3 trillion in assets was represented. Speaker after speaker touted European equities for their attractive valuations and as a means to diversify away from the volatile American market in light of rising U.S. geopolitical risk. France’s election of centrist Emmanuel Macron over far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen this month has especially eased investors’ fears that antiestablishment forces would challenge the integrity of the European Union (EU).

Last year, the Federal Register—the U.S. government’s depository of rules and regulations—hit an all-time high of 81,640 pages. Among the industries that bear the greatest regulatory oversight is financials, which has seen a disproportionate amount of scrutiny in recent years, especially following the 9/11 attacks and subprime mortgage crisis.

For the last five years, crude oil has been behaving a little differently than it has in the past. At least that’s the takeaway from the chart below, based on the Moore Research Center’s analysis of oil’s seasonal trading patterns.

As you can see in the chart below, based on data provided by Moore Research Center, the five-year pattern, represented by the orange line, is diverging from the longer-term trends. Note that the index on the left measures the greatest tendency for the asset to make a seasonal high (100) or low (0) at a given time.

In the last 20 years, the U.S. stock market has undergone an alarming change that too few people are aware of or talking about. Between 1996 and 2016, the number of listed companies fell by half, from 7,300 to 3,600, according to a recent report by Credit Suisse. This occurred despite the U.S. economy growing nearly 60 percent over the same period.

When billions of dollars flow into an ETF, it’s safe to assume this is because of its popularity among investors. The VanEck Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ), which invests heavily in junior gold miners around the world, can attest to this kind of popularity, with some $1.5 billion flowing into it this year alone. Total assets jumped 60 percent in 2017 to over $5 billion.

If Trump gets his way—and let’s be clear, it’s going to be an uphill fight—U.S. corporate taxes will decline from being the highest among fellow Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies to just a few degrees north of Ireland’s highly favorable 12.5 percent.

Trump’s 100th day arrives next Sunday, April 29, and it would be disingenuous to describe his tenure so far as smooth sailing. He’s faced a number of significant setbacks and distractions, including federal judges’ smackdown of his two travel bans, a failure to repeal and replace Obamacare and an ongoing investigation into his administration’s possible collusion with the Russian government in the months leading up to the November election.

Forty years ago, Shenzhen, China, was a sleepy fishing village of 30,000. But in 1980, then-Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping designated the southern town as one of four special economic zones (SEZs), thereby giving it special tax benefits and preferential treatment to foreign investment.

As if you need more proof that inflation is finally starting to pick up, lumber prices rose to a 12-year high this week, supported mainly by expectations that steep duties will soon be levied on cheap softwood imports from Canada. Lumber futures rose to nearly $415 per thousand board feet on Monday, a level unseen since March 2005, soon after homeownership peaked here in the U.S.

Crisis averted—for now. Last week President Donald Trump met for the first time with Chinese President Xi Jinping at his luxury Palm Beach estate Mar-a-Lago, where the two leaders discussed North Korea and trade, among other topics.

Fresh purchasing manager’s index (PMI) readings for the month of March were also released, showing continued manufacturing sector expansion in the world’s largest economies, including the U.S., China and the eurozone. All of Zurich was under construction, it seemed, with cranes filling the skyline in every direction. And when I flew back into San Antonio, sections of the international airport were also under heavy construction. This all reflects strong local and national economic growth in Switzerland and the U.S.

In case you haven’t already noticed, inflation has been steadily creeping up since July. In February, the most recent month of available data, consumer prices advanced at their fastest pace in five years, hitting 2.7 percent year-over-year.

Flanked by coal workers, President Donald Trump signed the American Energy Independence Executive Order this week, directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s signature environmental policy. Unveiled in August 2015, the plan is intended to reduce carbon dioxide emitted from U.S. power plants 32 percent by 2030.

For the month of March, the preliminary purchasing manager’s index (PMI) for the eurozone reached 56.7, its highest reading since April 2011. Significant gains were made in new work and backlogs of work, employment and service sector job creation.

Regardless of its failure to be repealed, tax reform is on its way. Just today, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reassured Americans that we could still expect “comprehensive” tax reform by August. It’s also worth recalling that, even though he failed to reform health care during his eight years in office, President Bill Clinton still managed to tackle tax reform with the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.

Near the extinct volcano known as Monte Pissis, high in the Andes on the Chile-Argentina border, the air is thin and animal life scarce. It’s also a prime location for lithium, the silvery-white metal used in the production of lithium-ion batteries.

For the third time in two years, the Federal Reserve lifted interest rates 0.25 percent last week following the previous week’s phenomenal jobs report. The move was seen as more dovish than many market analysts had anticipated. BCA Research went so far as to call it an “unhike,” citing a number of factors, including forecasts of only three rate hikes in 2017 instead of four.

Investor exuberance is being supported by proposed fiscal policy such as lower corporate taxes, deregulation and historically large budget cuts to help finance the rebuilding of the nation’s infrastructure and military.

Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) releases its report card on the condition of America’s infrastructure, and for the second time since 2013, our nation’s roads, bridges, waterways, airports and more scored a barely-passing D+.

Eight years ago this week, President Barack Obama gave investors a surprisingly hot trading tip. In office less than two months, he commented that we were at “the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective.” Obama couldn’t have known then how accurate his call was. The market found a bottom that very week, and investors who took the president’s advice managed to get in on the absolute ground floor.

After finishing 2016 up 25 percent, commodities are getting another boost from bullish investors. Investment bank Citigroup forecasts commodity prices will increase this year on strengthening demand in China and mounting inflation inspired by President Donald Trump’s “America First” policies.

40 percent of companies now in operation around the world will not exist “in a meaningful way” sometime within the next two decades. To survive, companies will need to reinvent themselves by integrating digitization into the fabric of their business strategy.

Gold posted its second straight monthly gain in February, the first such time it has done so since the summer, when Brexit-fueled uncertainty shook world markets.

This week I was in beautiful Argentina with a diverse team of investors and mining executives. Together we toured various natural gas and crude oil mining projects in Tierra del Fuego, Mendoza and Santa Cruz, where we had the opportunity to speak with Governor Alicia Kirchner, elder sister to former Argentinian president Néstor Kirchner.

Thursday morning, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC that we could expect “significant” tax reform by August, including tax cuts for middle-income Americans and corporations. Like clockwork, the major stock indices rallied to all-time highs in intraday trading.

Inflation just got another jolt, rising as much as 2.5 percent year-over-year in January, the highest such rate since March 2012. Led by higher gasoline, rent and health care costs, consumer prices have now advanced for the sixth straight month. In addition, January is the second straight month for rates to be above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent.

On Monday I had the opportunity to attend a conference at Goldman Sachs’ Dallas office. Among the dozens of money managers and investors who attended, a combined $1 trillion in assets was represented.

Back in November, I wrote that domestic carriers are likely to see the new president—himself the former owner of the now-defunct Trump Airlines—as a strong partner in several key areas. Although a couple of airline CEOs have recently expressed strong opposition to some of Trump’s protectionist immigration policies, yesterday’s meeting appeared to be constructive, with the president telling the group he would soon be announcing something “phenomenal in terms of tax and developing our aviation infrastructure.”

Top earners have traditionally been attracted to municipal bonds for their tax-exempt status at the federal and often state and local levels. In the wake of President Donald Trump’s stunning upset victory, however, muni investors were forced to readjust their expectations of fiscal policy going forward.

After little more than two weeks, President Donald Trump’s honeymoon with Wall Street appears to have been put on hold—for the moment, at least—with major indices making only tepid moves since his January 20 inauguration. That includes the small-cap Russell 2000 Index, which surged in the days following Election Day on hopes that Trump’s pledge to roll back regulations and lower corporate taxes would benefit domestic small businesses the most.

President Donald J. Trump was elected on promises to “Make America Great Again,” and since January 20 he’s already signed a number of executive orders to tighten border security and ease regulations.

Tomorrow marks the Lunar New Year, the most important date in the Chinese calendar. It’s also the start of the longest holiday at two weeks, during which the largest mass migration of humans occurs every year as families reunite and go on vacations, both domestic and overseas.

Commodity investors have had to endure a dry spell for a while now, but those days are starting to look as if they might be behind us. We see encouraging signs that a bottom has been reached and a new commodities super-cycle has begun...

Take Warren Buffett. He backed Hillary Clinton throughout the primaries and general election. And yet just yesterday, on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, he said he supported the new president and his cabinet “overwhelmingly,” adding that he’s confident America “will work fine under Donald Trump.”

Look at what President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to lower taxes and slash regulations is doing to business optimism here in the U.S. Last month, the Index of Small Business Optimism soared a phenomenal 7.4 points to 105.8, its highest reading since 2004. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), which conducts the survey, reported that attitudes toward capital spending and job creation in particular surprised to the upside. Research firm Evercore ISI called it a “blowout report,” and I have to agree.

I find it curious that many in the financial media continue to have a bias against gold, even though it generated better returns in 2016 than 10-year Treasuries and the U.S. dollar, which performed half as well. And when it was up as much as 28 percent in the summer, they still didn’t have anything positive to say, arguing it had gone up too much.

Consider the DOL’s new Fiduciary Rule. When it goes into effect in April 2017, it will inevitably limit the number of investment products available to retail investors. The ruling states that all retirement planners, advisors and broker-dealers must now “act in the best interests of clients” and charge only “reasonable” fees. This all sounds fine, but what’s naturally going to happen is financial professionals—in an effort to remain compliant with the rule—will recommend only the least expensive products, regardless of whether they’re a good fit. Many mutual funds—which might be better performing but have higher expenses than other investment vehicles—will fall off of brokerage firms’ platforms.

In more ways than one, 2016 was a roller coaster year. One need only look at gold’s performance to confirm this.

As we head into the New Year, I want to share with you the six most popular Frank Talk posts of 2016. Before I do that, however, I think it’s important to note one recurring theme I write about that continues to help our investment team and shareholders better understand the movement in commodities and energy: the purchasing managers’ index (PMI).

In the fight for American jobs, we could be “risking” a trade war with China right on our southern doorstep. Though the stakes might not be as high as total global domination, they come pretty close. With rates moving up and the world resetting to less quantitative easing, inflation might accelerate. To avoid a global recession, Trump will need to make streamlining regulations a top priority.

Last month we learned that Warren Buffett bought shares of American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines, according to Berkshire Hathaway’s third-quarter regulatory filings. He also confirmed that he purchased Southwest Airlines stock as well. If we look at the Dow Jones U.S. Airlines Index year-to-date, these allocations appear to have been well-timed.

Inflation can be understood as the destruction of a currency’s purchasing power. To combat this, investors, central banks and families have historically stored a portion of their wealth in gold. I call this the Fear Trade.

Earlier I shared with you that when it comes to President-elect Donald Trump, the media takes him literally but not seriously. His supporters, on the other hand, take him seriously but not always literally.

It finally happened. For the first time since 2008, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed to a crude oil production cut this week, renewing hope among producers and investors that prices can begin to recover in earnest after a protracted two-year slump, one of the worst in living memory.

Next Tuesday will mark four weeks since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his surprise demonetization announcement that has sent shockwaves throughout the South Asian country’s economy.

On Friday, November 25, Fidel Castro died at age 90. The former revolutionary and hardline dictator of Cuba was among the 20th century’s longest-serving leaders, third only to Elizabeth II and Bhumibol Adulyadej, the King of Thailand, who passed away in October.

The question now is whether Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will put the brakes on the so-called Trump rally. She asserts that Fed policy is not politically motivated, but I wonder how many people actually believe that. She’s already criticized Trump’s plans to tear up or at least significantly weaken Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform.

I’ve been in the financial industry a long time, and I’m continually amazed at the market’s astuteness in making reliable, actionable forecasts.

After years of deriding the airline industry, Warren Buffett confirmed this week that his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, has invested nearly $1.3 billion in four big-name domestic carriers: American, Delta, United and Southwest.

Ever since he made his presidential bid in June 2015, Donald Trump has vowed to “make America great again.” Part of that promise includes rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, a monumental task that will require the financial backing of tax-free municipal bonds.

Like their British counterparts, who voted in June to cut ties with the European Union (EU), American voters resoundingly rejected globalism this week, calling into question the United States’ involvement in military alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—which is 72 percent funded by U.S. tax dollars--and international trade deals, from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

A wave of positive economic data suggests the Chinese economy is stabilizing and that business confidence is improving. The country’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI), which measures the health of its manufacturing industry, rose to 51.2 in October, handily beating economists’ estimates of 50.3.

Last year saw a record number of mergers and acquisitions (M&As), altogether valued at a monumental $4.78 trillion worldwide.

As of October 27, stocks are up more than 6 percent year-to-date. Although slightly below the average, this is much higher than returns in the last two election cycles when a new president had to be selected: In 2008, the market plunged nearly 40 percent; in 2000, it ended down 9 percent.

Manufacturing activity in the eurozone strengthened sharply in October, beating expectations, according to “flash,” or preliminary, purchasing manager’s index (PMI) data.

Although bad for your pocketbook and savings, the possibility of higher taxes is expected to increase interest in tax-free municipal bonds, especially among top earners. For over a year now, muni bond funds have seen positive weekly inflows, with $147 million going in during the week ended October 17. I expect this trend to continue as we head closer to the election, and beyond.

Just as April showers bring May flowers, plentiful monsoon rains in India tend to drive up demand for gold jewelry among rural, income-flush farmers, who make up a third of the country’s consumption of the yellow metal. It’s a relief to hear, then, that India just had its best monsoon season in three years, with heavy rains washing away people’s fears of yet another drought.

The ability to filter through hundreds of gold stocks, choosing those with the best relative value, among other things, is a skill that our portfolio management team at U.S. Global Investors has over 30 years of experience in.

There’s no other way to say it: Gold had a bad week. On Tuesday alone, the yellow metal fell more than 3 percent, shuffling off $43, in its biggest one-day loss in three years. It broke below the psychologically important $1,300 mark and touched the 200-day moving average before rising again today.

It appears there’s no shortage of investor love for municipal bond funds.