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28/09/2026

Did You Know?

This morning Northern Star rejected a cash-and-scrip takeover proposal from South Africa’s Gold Fields worth about A$36 billion, calling it highly opportunistic. Northern Star is Australia’s largest gold miner; Newcrest, its only rival for that title, was absorbed by America’s Newmont in 2023.



Bids like this, and the billions raised in new equity by Australian gold companies over the past 12 months, make the same point: in gold, growth is easier to buy than to build. The gold price has more than tripled since 2018, yet quarterly mine supply has moved sideways at roughly 850–1,000 tonnes (chart). Mines deplete, costs have risen with the price, and new discoveries typically take more than a decade to reach production.



A high price rewards producers with ounces already in the ground, which is the exposure our GDX holding gives us. It does not quickly create more of them.

Source: World Gold Council, ICE Benchmark Administration, Metals Focus, Refinitiv GFMS.

Note that the gold price per ounce is on the right hand side and tonnes of gold produced are on the left hand side (it shows that as even though the price of gold has increased production is still about the same).

07/09/2026

Did You Know? The United States will spend around US$1 trillion servicing its debt this financial year. The chart below puts that in context: net interest payments have reached roughly 3.3% of GDP, eclipsing the previous record set in 1991.



The mechanism is unforgiving, because a large slice of the debt rolls over every year and today’s higher yields steadily replace yesterday’s cheap coupons. The Congressional Budget Office projects interest reaching 4.6% of GDP by 2036.



Larger deficits mean more issuance, more issuance means higher yields, and higher yields mean a larger interest bill the following year. It is a loop that closes only with lower rates or a smaller deficit.



In the short run, this could be a supportive backdrop for gold investors. Further ahead, should yields show signs of peaking, there will be an opportunity for investors to lock those yields in via fixed-rate bonds.


Graph Source: Bloomberg and US government data. Series is US federal net interest payments as a share of GDP, 1985 to 2026.

13/04/2026

Did you know:

Over the past 12 months property price in Perth, Darwin and Brisbane are up over 19%. Whereas in Sydney and Melbourne, prices are only up 4.8% and 3.4% respectively.

There are a number of factors at play here, including a shift to more affordable cities, diverging stamp duty policies by state (Vic the most onerous) and net interstate migration towards Qld/WA and away from NSW.

07/04/2026

Did you know that the Strait of Hormuz is also a critical choke point for globally traded fertilizer?

Approx 20% of key fertiliser inputs, including urea and phosphate, needs to pass through this shipping route. We are starting to see a spike in the price of urea (chart below). The longer it takes to resume normal shipping flows through the Strait, the more risk of seeing elevated food prices and food shortages in the months ahead.

02/03/2026

Did you know that 30% of global seaborne oil moves through the narrow strait of Hormuz?

This equates to 20.3m million barrels per day. For the oil price, this means significant opportunity for huge moves following the conflict in Iran.

01/03/2026

Did you know that the big tech companies in the USA are continuing to increase their spending budgets on 'Ai' infrastructure?

We are over halfway through quarterly reporting season in the US and the major tech companies continue to reveal eye-watering investment budgets as shown by the below chart. It is a market continuing to move at 'break-neck' pace with broad investor implications, including returns from our big tech stocks and employment.

Investor reactions were mixed towards these growing spending announcements, with Alphabet moving higher whilst Amazon was sold off.

25/02/2026

It might come as no surprise that China was the largest central bank buyer of gold between 2020-2025, as shown by the below table.

This is interesting context amidst a gold price that continues to march higher, which has been a massive tailwind to those countries with large gold reserves. China, it seems, has been on the right side of this trade, amassing a strategic monetary asset that enhances its leverage in a world gradually recalibrating away from US dollar dominance.

16/02/2026

Did you know that the average daily trade value in the USA continues to rise and rise?

This is shown by the below chart, which shows that daily equity turnover in the USA grew from US$300bn in the year 2020 to now over $1 Trillion, or a 3-fold increase. This reflects greater participation in day traders, both professional and non-professional, and the proliferation of exchange traded funds (ETFs). This results in larger daily price swings, which perhaps presents an opportunity for those who can take advantage of the daily volatility.

19/01/2026

Did you know that silver is also known as the devil's metal? This is due to it's history of large price swings. Silver prices have basically tripled since the same time last year on the back of growing demand from electrification applications, such as solar, along with growing investor appetite. Future price swings might come on the back of 1) the speed and ability for new sources of supply or 2) whether high prices encourage demand (e.g. investors chasing higher prices) or discourage demand (e.g. less demand for silver in jewellery and crockery).

16/12/2025

Did you know that China installed almost 300,000 industrial robots in 2024?

This is almost 10x more than any other country and underscores why they have a low cost, competitive advantage across many manufacturing industries. This is no longer just a 'low wage' point of difference. The rest of the world will have to invest heavily in this capability if they are going to ever catch up. This will take time, capital and potentially add to the inflationary narrative in the short term.

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