Bumble

This chart shows the difference between what happens when the USA has a unified government, i.e. President, House and Senate all controlled by the same party, versus a divided government. When unified, the government is able to get its spending plans approved, debt increases more and interest rates rise. When the government is divided, spending is curtailed because it is more difficult to get spending approved.

HSBC has recently announced that they will sell gold backed tokens on a crypto ledger. At present, this is only available to customers in Hong Kong. The tokens do not carry the right to take delivery of physical gold.

This may be somewhat cynical on my part, but a possible interpretation is that banks are now saying we would rather you didn't buy gold, but if you must, buy it in a form that we control and where it can sit on our balance sheet.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/20/detectorist-strikes-gold-largest-nugget-found-england/

Not exactly on the scale of the ones Australians turn up, but still.

The recent run-up in gold has pushed it above the upper Bollinger band for three days running now, which is unusual. Also the RSI is technically showing overbought. I wouldn't be surprised to see a short term correction now, like we had in early December. I remain bullish on the year and expect to see further all-time highs.

Supercore inflation leaves out food, fuel and housing costs.

Asset performance. Numbers in parentheses are negative.

Uranium did well in 2023 and may well continue to do so. I own some Yellowcake (YCA.L) and some of the Sprott Uranium miners fund (URNP.L).

The gold price stays within the Bollinger bands nearly all the time. We have just bounced off the bottom. RSI is below 50 and the MACD is negative, so momentum is downward. These things have little predictive value though. The price could slide down the band or bounce back up to the top.

On a macro basis, things are more positive. The Fed will not let a recession happen in the run-up to a US election. If the economy turns down, they will reverse the monetary tightening, even if inflation is still above 2%. That will be negative for the USD and positive for gold and crypto.

For what it's worth, I'm pretty optimistic about gold in the coming year. Also bitcoin. I'm very bearish GBP. It's nice to be able to get 4% to 5% interest in a savings account, but right now I wouldn't want that savings account to be denominated in GBP.

I'd not come across Premier African Minerals before. It is a microcap company (about £60M) and its assets are in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. That alone would make me run for cover. Some African jurisdictions are fine. I would say Botswana, Namibia and Morocco are investable. I would avoid South Africa, at least for the present. West African countries like Mali and Burkina Faso used to be considered OK until the recent coup/uprising in Niger. The Democratic Republic of Congo is an important mining jurisdiction but carries a fair amount of risk. Centamin (CEY.L) in Egypt is a company I have owned in the past: it used to pay a nice dividend.

This is the time of year when Saxo publish their predictions for the coming year. Previous years' predictions have proved to be almost entirely wrong. Last year's were entirely wrong. But for what it's worth, here are their predictions for 2024.

1. The oil price rises to $150 per barrel and the Saudi government buys the UEFA Champions League and creates a World Champions League.

2. A health crisis arises when people taking anti-obesity drugs stop dieting and exercising because they trust the drugs to work.

3. The US government, desperate to create demand for Treasuries, makes income from government bonds tax-free.

4. Generative AI enables creation of a deepfake that is sufficiently serious that it triggers government crackdowns on the use of AI.

5. Countries with large trade deficits unite to negotiate more favourable terms for trade, resulting in painful adjustments for trade surplus countries.

6. Robert Kennedy Jr wins the US presidential election.

7. Japan introduces policies that boost domestic demand and cause 7% GDP growth. This forces the Bank of Japan to abandon yield curve control.

8. The EU implements a wealth tax of 2%, resulting in a fall in luxury goods stocks.