Gold $3,000, Oil $100... Guess Why?

It started with a whisper… ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ February 21, 2024  |  [Sign Up]( Gold Is a Central Banker's Pucker Away from $3,000 “It started with a whisper And that was when I kissed her And then she made my lips hurt…” – Neon Trees, Everybody Talks Dear Reader, [Special Announcement: In case you missed our late-day announcement yesterday, [Donald Trump said… what?!?!]( Essential Investor has merged with legacy contributors to Agora Financial. The new, larger, more inclusive project is called The Grey Swan Investing Fraternity.  If you’re interested in the scope and benefits of our new endeavor, please see what prompted us to merge [here](. If you’ve been a member of The Essential Investor, please keep an eye out for your new benefits.] February 21, 2024 - Sometimes, it’s not what’s said, but who said it. Last year, we were on record forecasting gold would hit $3,000 after its next breakout from the $2,000 range. Yesterday, Akash Doshi, an analyst with Citi, came to the same conclusion in an interview with CNBC. It's not that his reasoning behind the forecast is similar to our own; it's that the idea of $3,000 gold is gaining mainstream attention. More details about this topic in a moment… First, a word about our new project [The Grey Swan Investing Fraternity](. We generally take a wide-angle, historical view of the markets. “Investment insights from 30,000 feet,” was the tagline of Apogee Research, a newsletter we launched and wrote a decade ago – before merging with Jim Rickards. Our work in the Wiggin Sessions for the past 300 interviews has been no different. Neither will the effort we put into our new consortium, [The Grey Swan Investing Fraternity](  To put a label on it, we are the alternative press.  We’ve been at it for a long time. We tell you the stories that the politicians and the mainstream press cannot and will not. The mainstream – legacy media and politicians – cannot admit that there are problems – which they caused! So they cannot warn readers. We can. And we do. “We have,” Bill Bonner likes to say in speeches, “in fact, been at it since 1937. That was the year The Fleet Street letter (published by Agora) was founded in London. With that legacy we’ve moved forward with a coherent theory. A reliable point of view. And an unrelenting focus on helping readers discover new opportunities, but even more important — avoid the Big Loss.” Sometimes right. Sometimes wrong. But always on the case. If you know Bill at all, from speeches or videos we’ve released, you can actually hear him say those words in his peculiar, gravelly Southern Maryland drawl. CONTINUED BELOW... This year’s real OCTOBER SURPRISE should concern you In 2016, the October Election Surprise was Hillary Clinton’s email scandal… In 2020, the October Election Surprise was the suppression of all the dirty material on Hunter Biden’s forgotten laptop… Now, in 2024, we’re predicting an October Election Surprise that almost no one sees coming — and this time, it’ll be way more devastating than anything you’ve seen before… [Click here to learn about the real October Surprise…]( CONTINUED... While we’ve been at it for a long time, and our focus is usually macro in nature, occasionally, details from the mainstream bubble up to the surface. As they did yesterday with Citi’s forecast for gold. “The most likely wildcard path to $3,000/oz gold is a rapid acceleration of an existing but slow-moving trend: de-dollarization across Emerging Markets central banks that in turn leads to a crisis of confidence in the U.S. dollar,” Citi analysts including Doshi wrote in a recent note to investors. “De-dollarization” is institutional-speak for the dollar losing its dominance in global trade. One of the safety trades, even for central banks, is accumulation of gold. “Central bank purchases,” CNBC reports, “could double central bank’s gold holdings, challenging jewelry consumption as the largest driver of gold demand.” Across all central banks, gold purchases have “accelerated to record levels” in recent years, “as they seek to diversify reserves and reduce credit risk,” Citi said. Notably, the central banks of the BRICS nations, China, and Russia are leading gold purchases. India and Brazil are not far behind in their own bullion buying. “The world’s central banks have sustained two successive years of more than 1,000 tons of net gold purchases,” the World Gold Council reported in January. If that purchasing were to “double very quickly to 2,000 tons,” Doshi told CNBC, “we think that would be actually very bullish for gold.” Call it a trial balloon for the mainstream media. Perhaps Citi is simply wondering if investors will buy into the idea. But if gold leaps across the existing resistance point at around $2,000…  a 50% jump to $3,000 is not only possible, but likely. The trend is in place. Still, one might wonder, “Why are BRICS central banks stepping up their gold purchasing?” [Hmm…]( So it goes, Addison Wiggin, The Wiggin Sessions P.S. Side note: In the same report, Citi analysts forecast on CNBC that “higher geopolitical risks, deeper OPEC+ cuts and continued supply disruptions” could drive oil from its current level at $77 to over $100 this year. P.P.S. A half century ago, Bill Bonner led a group called the National Taxpayers Union (NTU). We pick up the story with an excerpt from Empire of Debt (I can’t help it… I’ve got the darn book on my brain!). Here’s the story: We've been sounding the alarm about deficits ever since – first, in our public interest group… later, in our investment research company. For nearly 30 years, Addison Wiggin ran a sizable portion of the research company also dedicated to the same aims. From its inauspicious beginnings, NTU grew to become one of the most powerful citizens’ organizations in the United States. The group helped the overhaul of the federal tax code under President Reagan in 1986 and championed the cause for a “Taxpayer Bill of Rights” in the late 80s and 90s. But we became aware as early as the 1980s – with Reagan’s strategy to spend the Soviet Union out of existence during the Cold War – that the NTU had no hope of stopping the federal government’s reckless spending. It was like arguing with a drug addict. Members of Congress would tell you what you wanted to hear. But they really just wanted more…more money to hand out to their favorite lobbyists. In the mid-‘80s, we moved on. Instead of trying to save the country, we’d at least try to save ourselves…and our readers. Our investment publishing firm grew to have subsidiaries in 10 foreign countries, with more than a billion dollars in annual sales worldwide. Most important…we gained contacts, leads…and insights. Bill’s early business partner, James Davidson, went to Oxford. He met a fellow student, Bill Clinton, who later provided valuable context. Between us, we learned the benefit of getting in touch with the people who really knew what was coming down the pike – the deciders themselves – such as Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman, and Alan Greenspan. And we teamed up with others to learn more. Lord William Rees-Mogg, for example, was a former editor-in-chief of The Times of London, Vice Chairman of the BBC, and confidant of powerful British figures like Margaret Thatcher and Lord Rothschild. He was also a director of London's Private Bank and financial advisor to some of the world's wealthiest families. Lord Rees-Mogg joined us as Chairman of our London-based research arm, Fleet Street Publishing. He also co-authored a number of important books with Davidson, including The Great Reckoning, Blood in the Streets, and the Sovereign Individual. More important still, Davidson and Rees-Mogg pioneered a new way of understanding powerful financial trends….which I’ll tell you about in a minute. We wrote books. Several found commercial success beyond our initial goals. In addition to writing books, most of all, we read them. We study history. True, we're economists and investment advisors, and we have very useful connections in politics, finance, and the intelligence community. But our hobby, what we love best, is studying the past and using it to forecast the future. We'd do this even if it didn't pay a cent. Sometimes the cycles of history are quite precise and mathematical. Other times we have to read hundreds of books and apply seasoned judgment just to get a glimpse of where the trends are headed. History may not repeat itself, exactly. But there are templates…patterns and cycles that help us to understand what comes next.  From Addison: The “templates, patterns and cycles” of history is what we’ll pursue with [The Grey Swan Investing Fraternity](. The contacts and community we’ve worked with for years will make up of the network we use to source new ideas and investment strategies to help us all as big shifts in the global economy impact the financial markets, political landscape and new opportunities in technology. If you’re interested in becoming a member, please take a look at the biggest shift we see developing, [right in front of our eyes]( The very idea for the [The Grey Swan Investing Fraternity]( came about during a series of meetings in late 2023 and early 2024, because history doesn’t end and we realized we needed a catalyst to bring our network together for a renewed purpose. Join us. [Reminder, if you have been a member of the Essential Investor, please keep an eye out for your new benefits.] The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We do not rent or share your email address. By submitting your email address, you consent to The Wiggn Sessions delivering daily email issues and advertisements. To end your The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from The Daily Missive from The Wiggin Sessions, feel free to [click here.]( Please read our [Privacy Statement.]( For any further comments or concerns please email us at feedback@wigginsessions.com. If you are having trouble receiving your The Wiggin Sessions subscription, you can ensure its arrival in your mailbox by [whitelisting The Wiggin Sessions.]( © 2023 The Wiggin Sessions 808 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore MD 21202. 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