Back in 1998, America looked unstoppable. Record surpluses. A booming stock market. The strongest military on earth. The idea that the US dollar might one day lose its global dominance seemed laughable.
But fast forward 25 years—and the picture couldn’t be more different.
$37 trillion in debt. $1.2 trillion in annual interest payments. Endless wars, political chaos, weaponized finance, and central banks worldwide quietly hedging their bets.
And what are they buying instead of Treasuries? Gold.
This Monthly Letter starts by tracing the arc of America’s decline from the late-90s “unipolar moment” to today’s financial circus… and explains why central banks see gold as the only rational alternative.
For central banks, the demand for bullion is a long-term trend—measured in decades, not quarters.
But there was another opportunity we were screaming from the rooftops while no one was paying attention: gold companies.
Central banks don’t buy mining stocks. They buy bullion. That disconnect left mining shares dirt cheap, even as gold itself was making new highs.
Now the market is finally catching on. With Q3 results about to showcase massive margins thanks to record gold prices, we expect investors to pile in. And when that happens, this phase of the cycle could flip from undervalued to overbought.
We sounded the alarm when these companies were trading at laughable multiples. That window is closing fast, and we don’t want readers to miss the chance before it’s gone.
You can read the Monthly Letter here.
It’s Not the 90s Anymore… The year was 1998. Titanic was still in theaters. Michael Jordan had just played his final season with the Chicago Bulls. Google didn’t exist yet, and if you wanted to “surf” the web, you listened to a screeching dial-up modem as your Netscape browser loaded one pixel at a time.…
