THE VON GREYERZ PERSPECTIVE - vongreyerz.substack.com

Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, has argued that 3% economic growth could bring the country’s debt under control. But the gross interest costs for fiscal 2026 reached $1.36 trillion, with an average interest rate of 3.53%. So, we have two important questions here: * How can the US grow its way out of debt when the cost of servicing that debt is already huge? * What happens if that growth...

Norway’s $2.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund reported a record $184.3 billion profit in the first half of 2026. This is supported by technology stocks during the AI boom. But its CEO, Nicolai Tangen, warned that the fund could lose nearly all its value in a catastrophic stock market crash, nuclear war, or biological weapons attack. Recognizing the danger isn’t enough. We need to know what steps ar...

Silver has risen far less than gold since 1971. While we saw gold go up by 131x, silver went up more modestly at 55x. But even with that difference, silver has held its value far better than paper money. “Paper money has already lost 99% of its value against gold since 1971.” We can see how fickle paper currencies can be when measured against gold. Their value depends on monetary policy and the am...

The Dutch Central Bank recently transferred 76 tons of gold from New York to London. At the same time, European politicians are putting pressure on governments and central banks to take gold assets out of New York and bring them back to their respective countries. The Netherlands has already made the move, while politicians in Italy and Germany are putting pressure on their governments to bring go...

Gold won’t be useful when these conditions are met: * Currencies are stable * Inflation is low * Governments are running budget surpluses * Borrowing is around 25% to 30% of GDP * Countries have little debt Fiat money will be the better choice in that case… but we all know that’s not the world today. Most countries now have debt above 100% of GDP. Stock markets, bond markets and property have also...

Crude oil is around $100 a barrel today. If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to most shipping and the routes into and out of the Red Sea remain restricted, crude could be closer to $200 by the end of next year. But the real impact will be on product prices. Gasoline could rise above $7 a gallon and diesel above $9. That would have serious consequences for the U.S. economy, particularly with mor...

More than a century ago, J.P. Morgan said: “Gold is money and all else is credit.” The dollar was once defined by the amount of gold behind it. In 1879, $1 represented 23.22 grains of gold. After the gold price was fixed at $35 an ounce in 1934, that fell to 13.714 grains. And today? The equivalent is around 0.11 of a grain. The pressure on currencies is now showing up elsewhere, too. Japan is a g...

Political and military conflicts often appear to be local events. A ceasefire is announced → Negotiations resume → Markets react → Attention moves elsewhere. But some conflicts have consequences that reach well beyond the battlefield. Iran War is one of them. Rather than viewing it as an isolated dispute, it is placed within a much larger change taking place in international politics. China, Russi...

Silver has fallen almost 50% from its historic high of $121.62 an ounce, reached in January 2026. For many investors, that looks like the end of the rally. But corrections like this have always been part of silver’s story. Truth is: Silver has never moved a straight line. Its biggest advances have almost always been interrupted by sharp corrections. But what makes this correction different? One me...

“Every single money or currency has gone to zero in history.” The current monetary system is heading toward the same fate. Since the U.S. ended the dollar’s link to gold in 1971, currencies have already lost about 99% of their value against gold. The remaining decline could happen much faster than the first 99%. Governments usually describe inflation as rising prices. But that’s the wrong way to e...

Gold has risen strongly over the past few years while technology stocks have captured most of investors’ attention. At a glance, it appears that stocks have created the real wealth, while gold has simply kept pace with inflation. Matthew Piepenburg argues that this conclusion depends on how wealth is measured. Since the fourth quarter of 2021, the S&P 500 has gained roughly 60% when measured in U....

For most investors, a 25% correction in the gold price is unsettling. It’s well beyond what many would consider a normal pullback, and enough to make some wonder whether the bull market has already run its course. But gold has never moved in a straight line. Every major bull market has included periods where prices fell sharply before recovering. Gold rose 65% during 2025, one of its strongest ann...

The silver market has continued to function for years despite persistent supply deficits. Industrial demand kept growing. More silver was being consumed than mined. Yet physical shortages never became severe enough to force a major repricing. China may have been central to that flow of silver. Large amounts of silver doré were shipped to China for refining before finding their way back into global...

Economic and political developments often dominate discussions about the future. An election result. A central bank decision. A conflict in the Middle East. A shift in trade policy. These developments attract attention because they are visible. They dominate headlines, move markets, and shape investor sentiment. Yet some of the forces that shape history unfold over much longer periods. Simon Hunt...

Investors rarely welcome corrections. When prices rise, confidence grows. But as prices fall (even within a long-term uptrend), doubt quickly returns. Von Greyerz argues that is what’s happening in silver today. Silver has gone up from $4 at the beginning of this century to as high as $120. Viewed against that move, the recent correction appears far less significant than many investors believe. Th...

For decades, investors have been conditioned to focus on asset prices. They watch stock indexes, property values, bond yields and commodity prices. They celebrate gains and fear losses, assuming wealth can be measured by the number of dollars, euros, pounds or yen attached to an asset. But what if the measuring stick itself is broken? What if the real story of the last century has not been the ris...

For most of recorded human history, the world’s population barely moved. Empires rose and collapsed. Entire civilizations disappeared. Wars, plagues, famine, and monetary destruction repeatedly reset societies back toward survival rather than expansion . And yet through thousands of years of human history, the global population remained below one billion people. Then, in the span of barely two cen...

For decades, investors have been conditioned to believe that rising asset prices represent growing wealth. Higher stock markets, more expensive homes, and larger numbers in retirement accounts are all interpreted as signs of prosperity. Yet history repeatedly shows the same uncomfortable truth at the end of every monetary cycle: Assets are not always becoming more valuable. Very often, money itsel...

Clarity has become increasingly rare in today’s financial landscape. Headlines shift constantly, narratives evolve without resolution, and yet the deeper forces shaping outcomes remain largely unchanged. Geopolitical tensions, oil markets, and central bank actions dominate attention, but they do not determine the direction ahead. Because the direction has already been set. When Julius Caesar cross...

Road To $75,000 Gold April 18 (King World News) – Jonathan Haycock, partner at VON GREYERZ: “A lot of people say to me, Eric, how do I value gold? I can see that it’s outperformed the S&P for the past 25 years, and I don’t own any, but how do I value it? I look at it three ways: One, just look at gold market cap as a percentage of global stock markets. The long-term average is 40%. Today it’s just...

After a powerful rise in gold, many investors naturally ask the same question: has the move already gone too far? Short-term corrections always create doubt. But focusing only on the price of gold risks missing the far bigger story. Gold is not driven primarily by sentiment, headlines, or market momentum. Gold reflects the condition of the monetary system itself. And that condition is deterioratin...

Investors in gold and silver are increasingly asking the same question: is this bull market coming to an end? After a strong rise over the past few years, a correction has naturally raised doubts. But focusing on short-term movements risks missing the broader reality. Because precious metals are not driven by sentiment or market timing. They are driven by the underlying condition of the financial...

In this video, Simon Hunt explains why the current geopolitical escalation in the Middle East could ultimately trigger the next major move in commodities — particularly copper. While headlines focus on the military confrontation between Israel and Iran, Hunt argues that the real market story lies in how governments and central banks respond when geopolitical stress begins to threaten financial sta...

We are approaching the end of a monetary era. Throughout history, every currency system has eventually gone to zero. No paper currency has survived indefinitely. Without exception, they have all been destroyed by the same forces: excessive debt, uncontrolled money creation, and the inevitable loss of confidence. The current system began in earnest with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913....

As the global debt bubble approaches its inevitable breaking point, the world is slowly awakening to a fundamental truth: Real wealth does not exist in paper promises or digital entries on a bank’s balance sheet. True wealth resides in tangible assets that carry no counterparty risk. For centuries, that has meant one thing above all: physical gold. But does this mean gold will rise in a straight l...