Tag Archives: Gold

It’s no secret that governments and central planners of all stripes have long detested the rise of private money and independent digital currencies. They have tried to stifle the burgeoning crypto industry from the moment it attracted mainstream attention. For years, they have continued to add regulatory hurdles and threaten crypto holders and investors, as well as companies in this space, with unreasonable tax burdens and unrealistic disclosure requirements that...

It’s no secret that governments and central planners of all stripes have long detested the rise of private money and independent digital currencies. They have tried to stifle the burgeoning crypto industry from the moment it attracted mainstream attention. For years, they have continued to add regulatory hurdles and threaten crypto holders and investors, as well as companies in this space, with unreasonable tax burdens and unrealistic disclosure requirements that come with hefty...

How planning ahead and preparing for what lies ahead is a lesson everyone needs to learn   Over the last couple of months, it has become clear from conversations with friends and partners from the gold industry that there is a marked increase in retail demand for physical gold from Swiss investors. The most interesting thing about this development is that the bulk of new orders is coming from smaller accounts, showing that it’s ordinary savers and citizens that are driving this...

In our post on August 11 titled End of an ERA: The Bretton Woods System and Gold Standard Exchange, we discussed the significance of then-President Nixon’s action of closing the gold window thereby ending the Bretton Woods Monetary system. Under the Bretton Woods monetary system, central banks could exchange their US dollar reserves for gold. This also ended the gold fixed price of US$35 per ounce. This week we explore the two questions that concluded last week’s...

Today is the 50th anniversary of the “Nixon shock”, the day President Richard Nixon closed the gold window and ended the post-WWII Bretton Woods currency agreement. That agreement, largely a product of John Maynard Keynes, pegged the dollar to gold and most other currencies to the dollar. It wasn’t a true gold standard as only other countries that were party to the agreement could demand gold in exchange for their dollars, but it was at least a standard of some...

Part II of II, by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland Why Switzerland? There are many good reasons that could easily explain the flock of so many wealthy families and investors to Switzerland and all of them have been reinforced by the pandemic. For one thing, the local measures that were adopted to contain the virus were far less restrictive than those that were enforced in Germany, France, Italy or the UK. Business activity, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, all...

Part I of II, by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland The covid crisis, and especially the destructive governmental responses to it, have wreaked havoc with the global economy and with our societies. However, the chaos and the widespread uncertainty that prevailed over the last year and a half also served as a useful reminder of the importance of stability, legal predictability and limited state powers.  A great number of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) seem to have...

In our July 29 post titled How Gold Stacks Up Against Stocks, Property, Commodities and Big Macs! we showed readers charts of gold as a ratio to other assets and products. We discussed that gold competes with crypto and stocks for the investment dollars. It was clear that gold as a ratio of the S&P 500 Index and of the broader MCSI World Equity Index show that gold is ‘relatively cheap’ compared to these measures. But then we showed that this wasn’t the...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Part II of II by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland Case in point: Silver “apes”  One of the most astounding elements of this shift in retail investing is the proof it offers for what many of us knew along: When people can freely and directly vote with their wallets and put their money where their mouth is, one gets a much clearer picture of what the public, the market or any other large group really thinks and...

Part II of II by Claudio Grass, Hünenberg See, Switzerland Case in point: Silver “apes”  One of the most astounding elements of this shift in retail investing is the proof it offers for what many of us knew along: When people can freely and directly vote with their wallets and put their money where their mouth is, one gets a much clearer picture of what the public, the market or any other large group really thinks and really wants. In this case, we first saw the wrath against...