Show Notes
Today’s post is short and simple. Investing is often best done that way. The short of it is this: a new commodities supercycle has begun. It’s going to last several years. You want to be long natural resources and natural resource companies. The declining purchasing power of national currencies muddies the waters, but I should say that the eventual price of commodities, metals, grains, meats, fossil fuels, softs such as coffee and cotton, is lower. This is especially the case if you measure them using a constant unit of account such as gold. Unless you subscribe to peak oil theories and the like - that there is a finite amount of something and the resource is running out (and I have some sympathy with these arguments) - the simple fact is that we are getting better at producing these things. As we get more productive, their price heads lower. Once we used manpower, picks and shovels to mine metals. Now we use huge great machines and robots. Grade may be declining, we may have to go to far-flung and inhospitable places to mine rock, just as demand is increasing, but human beings are also getting much better at mining. The same goes for farming. We are getting better at it. However, if prices fall too low, mines and farms close down. Investment dries up. This leads to shortages. Prices then go up to compensate, which leads to increased production, which leads to surfeits. Then prices fall again. Thus commodities are highly cyclical, even if the broader direction of travel is lower. Cycles tend to last many years. It takes a long time to get a mine producing. The last great commodity supercycle was the noughties. The one before that, in broad brush terms, was the 70s. We are in another one now. And the charts are confirming it. Exhibit A This first chart shows the SPDR S&P Global Natural Resources ETF, which owns natural-resource equities rather than the commodities themselves: It’s a basket of resource companies, mining, energy and agricultural. There is a huge, 15-year saucer base from roughly 2011 to 2026. There was a breakout from the major resistance zone, followed by a fall back to the zone for a retest, to kiss it goodbye, as they say. It has now broken out to new highs. $65 is your line in the sand. A sustained move below that and the breakout has failed. That’s where to manage your risk to. Silver has done something similar, by the way, though over a much longer timeframe. This chart is so bullish I couldn’t not mention it. I’m always a bit hesitant with silver, as you know, but you absolutely must have some exposure in your portfolio, either to a miner or to some of the metal itself. You can start quoting silly numbers for silver, if you like - $200/oz and more. I wouldn’t blame you. If you live in a third world country such as the UK, I urge you to own gold or silver. The pound will be further devalued, as will the euro and dollar. The bullion dealer I use and recommend is The Pure Gold Company. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe. More here.
Exhibit B Next we have the ratio between the CRB, the Commodities Research Bureau Index, generally seen as a benchmark for commodities, and the S&P 500 over the last 3 0 years. When that chart is rising, commodities beat the S&P 500. When it is falling, the S&P 500 is the outperformer. Over the very long term there is a powerful downward bias for reasons described above - improved productivity. But there are periods when that trend reverses, most obviously during the noughties commodity bull market. But on a relative basis, it’s insane how historically depressed commodities have become. (Over a 50 year period the chart is even more remarkable).But the ratio has tested essentially the same low three times since 2020 and refused to break down. It is now making higher lows. Is that a W I see before me? Let’s zoom in and look at the last ten years. Again, you can see the clear line in the sand at around 0.0425. It went briefly below that during the insanity of Covid,
More from The Flying Frisby - money, markets and more
Something a little different this week. On Monday I gave a talk for UK Finance called Making Sense of It All, about the multiple contradictions at work int he economy: rising bond yields yet equity markets grinding higher, huge investment in AI despite limited profit, and the growing squeeze on the materials needed to build AI infrastructure. (Many thanks to Duncan and Rhiannon for inviting me to speak). I’ve taken the deck and put together an online version - the first time I’ve ever attempted such a thing - I hope you will find it useful. The transcript is available above. Until next time, Dominic If you live in a third world country such as the UK, I urge you to own gold or silver. The pound will be further devalued, as will the euro and dollar. The bullion dealer I use and recommend is The Pure Gold Company. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe. More here.
After an extraordinary run which started in 2022 below US$20/oz and ended in January this year at US$122, silver has been working its way downwards. We have had a correction of almost 50%. Today we’re at $58/oz having been as low as $55 in July. We are almost certainly going to go back and retest that low, I would say, and silver is very much in a downtrend. $50 has been a huge line in the sand that goes all the way back to 1980 and for decades silver could not get above that number. Then, late last year, it cut through it like butter. What was resistance becomes support is one of the technical analysts’ guiding mantras, and there is every chance $50 will do just that. However, if there is one thing I have learnt about silver over the years it is that has an unrivalled propensity to let you down, which is I suppose my way of saying it could quite easily go a lot lower. It’s silver after all. However, the fundamentals favour silver. The market remains in deficit. The Silver Institute’s latest World Silver Survey forecasts a 46.3 million ounce deficit in 2026, which would be the sixth consecutive annual deficit. Never mind jewellery and investment demand, silver finds an enormous amount of industrial demand (~60% of annual demand), especially in electronics, because it is such a good conductor of electricity. The sudden increase from solar panel demand a few years back is thought to have triggered the recent run, although manufacturers are reducing the amount of silver used in each panel. Bear markets are a time to build. As an investor, you research the companies you might want to buy - there is no need necessarily to rush out and buy them - start building positions when nobody else wants them, make the purchases on your own terms. There is no need to rush. With that in mind, I am going to tell you about my largest silver position today. I even have an interview with the boss. It was a big winner for readers in the last cycle going from below 30c north of C$3, rising more than 1,000%. With the falls in the silver price it has now come back more than 50%, and I think it is worth taking a look. Its CEO is both young and competent and he is growing the company in an admirable way so that in 3 to 5 years time you are going to see something much bigger.
It’s my pleasure to sit down with with the man who “gold pilled” me back in the day with his book, The Collapse of the Dollar. James Turk, founder of GoldMoney, has spent five decades working in banking, finance and investments, making the case that gold is not an investment or another commodity, but money in its purest form. We discuss why he believes the US can no longer repeat the Volcker rescue of the 1980s, the relationship between sound money and liberty, and why he expects gold eventually to return to the centre of global commerce as technology changes the way money moves. James’ latest book is Money and Liberty and you can find his IEA paper here. This interview was brought to you by The Pure Gold Company If you live in a third world country such as the UK, I urge you to own gold or silver. The pound will be further devalued, as will the euro and dollar. The bullion dealer I use and recommend is The Pure Gold Company. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe. More here.
Good Sunday to you, We have a fantastic interview for you today. I sit down with legendary Canadian investor Frank Giustra to discuss gold, government debt and why he believes the world is entering the most dangerous geopolitical period of our lifetime. You can either watch the video or listen as a podcast via Spotify et al.Frank made his fortune in mining and natural resources, before founding Lionsgate Films, the world’s biggest independent film studio. His track record as a businessman and investor is superlative. We discuss why he believes this is no ordinary metals bull market, the accelerating shift by central banks from government debt into physical gold, the risk that another round of quantitative easing could trigger a dollar crisis, and whether gold may ultimately need to be revalued higher, dramaticically higher. We also touch on China, financial repression, critical minerals and why, of everything Frank owns today, gold remains the asset he is most excited about. Money Markets & More is the interview series from Dominic Frisby, exploring money, markets, gold, economics and the ideas shaping the world.🥇 The programme is brought to you by The Pure Gold Company If you live in a third world country such as the UK, I urge you to own gold or silver. The pound will be further devalued, as will the euro and dollar. The bullion dealer I use and recommend is The Pure Gold Company. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe. More here.
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