On February 13, it was revealed that the inflation rate in the US for January was 3.1%, slightly higher than the expected 2.9%. Since March 2021, inflation in the United States has not dropped below 3%, despite the Federal Reserve's target of maintaining 2% inflation. This recent development suggests that a swift reduction in interest rates by the US central bank becomes less likely. With the total US debt at $34.2 trillion, this results in an interest burden of about $750 billion(!). This is certainly not ideal for the US. Faced with a budget deficit of $1.9 trillion, the country faces the challenge of covering this shortfall. The two main strategies to address this are 1. lowering interest rates and 2. applying quantitative easing (printing more currency), as tax increases are not a viable option in an election year… The increase in money supply and debt makes investing in physical gold increasingly attractive. This increase in money supply will lead to a revival of inflation, further decreasing the value of the dollar. Gold, considered a stable value for decades, continues to outperform currency. Moreover, the issue surrounding commercial real estate in bank portfolios still appears unresolved. More on this in our next newsletter edition!

Buy gold

In case you missed it, here's the news again. Bitcoin has just touched $52,000 and now has a total market cap of 1 trillion dollars! This puts Bitcoin back in the top 10 of assets sorted by market capitalization. As you can see; gold remains at number 1 with $13.49 trillion and silver at number 8 with $1.27 trillion.

largest economies in the world

1. US: $27.8 trillion
2.China: $17.9 trillion
3.Germany: $4.5 trillion ↑
4.Japan: $4.2 trillion ↓
5.India: $3.4 trillion
...
18. Netherlands: $1.2 trillion

Germany has overtaken Japan as the third largest economy in the world, after the United States and China, thereby removing Japan from the top three after decades. According to recent figures on gross domestic product (GDP), the German economy is now worth $4.5 trillion, compared to $4.2 trillion for Japan. This shift is largely due to the depreciation of the Japanese yen against the dollar. Notably, Germany experienced a contraction of 0.3%, while the Japanese economy grew by 1.9%, despite a recent recession. The IMF predicts that India, currently the fifth largest economy and the country with the most inhabitants, will climb to the third spot by 2027. The Netherlands is currently in eighteenth place with a GDP of almost $1.2 trillion.