For many years the mainstream’s principal argument against gold was that it paid nothing. This was repeated often enough that it acquired the status of received wisdom. Investors were invited to observe the metal, observe the income generated elsewhere, and conclude that gold was an interesting but essentially idle asset. That view belonged to a […]
The gold price has continued to hold comfortably above the $4,000 level, even as the latest United States employment figures finally emerged after the 43-day government shutdown, the longest in the country’s history. The delayed release has produced an unusual situation. Investors are being asked to interpret labour data that reflects conditions from September rather […]
Every era has its preferred prophets. In the 1920s it was journalists urging households to buy stocks on margin. More recently it was the cryptocurrency evangelists who promised a future where you could buy bitcoin or a banana with the same keystroke. Today we have traded tarot cards for algorithms and convinced ourselves that the […]