Excellent summary Dominic, I particularly like 'if you live in a third world country such as the UK...' One other area MASSIVELY missed by commentators is UK property; London prices in particular are dreadful for a combination of grim reasons. Most investors are making a terrible mistake thinking their house will somehow 'pay out', rude awakenings are coming. And the TIME it takes to sell in a falling market is a nightmare. Imagine owning shares, bonds, gold or bitcoin and the broker saying 'You want to sell? OK, it might take 6 months if you're lucky, maybe a year or more. And the final price...we have no idea'.
On my financial journey of learning how to invest.. I was mentored in the art of diversification and the folly of believing property was some sort of ultimate investment.. Historically nothing has changed; It kind of compensates for inflation but it is a bit illiquid and is a cost and a tax milchcow but we have been lulled the last forty years into believing it is better than good stocks ( it categorically is not) and gold ( gold is liquid and not taxed and only has perhaps a small storage cost)
Hey Dominic. The download link isn't working for those of us with lifetime subscriptions. The browser-based Substack UI the download link takes us to isn't recognising that we're on a paid subscription. I'm being informed that I need to upgrade from the free tier.
Hey Paul. Can you DM (Direct Message) Dominik via Substack? I would recommend you delete or edit your last comment to remove your email address. It is a scammers gift to post it into a public comments section.
Take your pick...tornado, hurricane or tsunami. One works fast, one works slow and one takes out everything. The buckaroo will survive until the deep state is ready to usher in a world wide digital currency powered by A/i and data centers.
Interesting article, thank you. Your point about the UK - when you look at the private sector it's de-geared substantially and one could argue that the UK's lack of growth/productivity has been due to this as much as anything else. Isn't this cause for optimism? Equally, the government is projected to shrink the deficit, according to the OBR (for what that's worth), by 2.7% 25/25 to 28/29, of which 4/5 is fiscal tightening / tax raising vs. spending cuts. I assume this is where the risk is. But if Burnham is able to be more growth friendly and is forced to tackle spending, wouldn't we see a twin surprise of more growth and falling deficits? Seems that the aggregate debt figures for the UK aren't as alarming elsewhere, we just need a government that gets out of the way (or is less obstructive).
The pattern I see with Indian clients is treating gold as a panic button, not an allocation. When liquidity crunches hit, they discover it drops with everything else.
Gold belongs as a 5-10% goal-based sleeve, rebalanced annually. Not as a collapse bet.
Great article, Dominic you sum up the gathering storm very well. The fact that - to all intents and purposes - no one is talking about rising bond yields and their impact is staggering, but I get that most people hear 'bonds' or 'yields' and fall asleep. The Spectator reported that one of Starmer's advisors had asked 'so what are bond yields exactly?' Most people will of course fall asleep at bond market headlines, that is until their mortgage rate starts going up. My favourite quote was Andy B and 'the bond markets need to fall into line'. He seems to have missed the note from the Clinton advisor who said words to the effect that he always thought he wanted to be reincarnated as pope or president but now realised her wanted to come back as the bond markets as they were the only ones who could intimidate everyone. Meanwhile Labour tinker with £2 bus fares, think the 1970s were a golden age and are still going on about Mrs T, Brexit etc.
It is sad that young people are bereft of a decent financial education that they believe the guff of socialists, communists and fabians that dominate our educational institutions and that the majority will probably fall victim to what is a dreadful looking economic future in the west generally !
I am in my early sixties now and I remember the turmoil of the 1970’s Uk .. I didn’t understand what caused it for years but I have a much better idea now…
As my dad used to say “ Every generation has to learn what it is like to live under a Labour Government “
I’m a huge fan of BOLD ETP and the genius of pairing gold and bitcoin and it is still available in a tax wrapper in the UK. Stratiphy offer it tax free in an IFISA - the new wrapper.
I seem to recall that it is available in the ISA on ii but I am happy to stand corrected if others know better. I think this came up as a discussion point on here some months ago.
“From 6 April 2026, HMRC rules reclassified cryptoasset Exchange Traded Notes (cETNs) so they are no longer qualifying investments for new purchases in Stocks and Shares ISAs”
Dominic, are you sure of those figures? I just checked 1998, as an example: closing values for S&P 500: 31st Aug 957, and 30th November 1,163. That's an increase of over 21%.
(Excuse my directness, we're all friends here, but the 'Mid-Terms pattern' which you describe, if correct, appears SO predictive, especially when coupled with Jim Rickards' recent pronouncements regarding how the markets will behave between now and the Mid Terms)
Excellent summary Dominic, I particularly like 'if you live in a third world country such as the UK...' One other area MASSIVELY missed by commentators is UK property; London prices in particular are dreadful for a combination of grim reasons. Most investors are making a terrible mistake thinking their house will somehow 'pay out', rude awakenings are coming. And the TIME it takes to sell in a falling market is a nightmare. Imagine owning shares, bonds, gold or bitcoin and the broker saying 'You want to sell? OK, it might take 6 months if you're lucky, maybe a year or more. And the final price...we have no idea'.
On my financial journey of learning how to invest.. I was mentored in the art of diversification and the folly of believing property was some sort of ultimate investment.. Historically nothing has changed; It kind of compensates for inflation but it is a bit illiquid and is a cost and a tax milchcow but we have been lulled the last forty years into believing it is better than good stocks ( it categorically is not) and gold ( gold is liquid and not taxed and only has perhaps a small storage cost)
That excellent interview with Alasdair Macleod has lead to a lot more messages for you to respond to!
I just read "The Big Reset" by Middlekoop. When "When Money Dies" is next.
Hey Dominic. The download link isn't working for those of us with lifetime subscriptions. The browser-based Substack UI the download link takes us to isn't recognising that we're on a paid subscription. I'm being informed that I need to upgrade from the free tier.
Can you DM me your email and I'll send it that way. Sorry about this
Hey Paul. Can you DM (Direct Message) Dominik via Substack? I would recommend you delete or edit your last comment to remove your email address. It is a scammers gift to post it into a public comments section.
not sure how to delete the message. Please advise.
Hi Dominic, the download link doesn't work for me either – I'm a lifetime subscriber and got the same error message as Jimbo.
Can you DM me your email and I'll send ti that way
Ahh me too ;)
can you email or DM me and I will send it over
I've received an email now inviting me to subscribe, I already have so hoping it's all the same one.. 🫡
Take your pick...tornado, hurricane or tsunami. One works fast, one works slow and one takes out everything. The buckaroo will survive until the deep state is ready to usher in a world wide digital currency powered by A/i and data centers.
Interesting article, thank you. Your point about the UK - when you look at the private sector it's de-geared substantially and one could argue that the UK's lack of growth/productivity has been due to this as much as anything else. Isn't this cause for optimism? Equally, the government is projected to shrink the deficit, according to the OBR (for what that's worth), by 2.7% 25/25 to 28/29, of which 4/5 is fiscal tightening / tax raising vs. spending cuts. I assume this is where the risk is. But if Burnham is able to be more growth friendly and is forced to tackle spending, wouldn't we see a twin surprise of more growth and falling deficits? Seems that the aggregate debt figures for the UK aren't as alarming elsewhere, we just need a government that gets out of the way (or is less obstructive).
We are just getting bought
The pattern I see with Indian clients is treating gold as a panic button, not an allocation. When liquidity crunches hit, they discover it drops with everything else.
Gold belongs as a 5-10% goal-based sleeve, rebalanced annually. Not as a collapse bet.
Great article, Dominic you sum up the gathering storm very well. The fact that - to all intents and purposes - no one is talking about rising bond yields and their impact is staggering, but I get that most people hear 'bonds' or 'yields' and fall asleep. The Spectator reported that one of Starmer's advisors had asked 'so what are bond yields exactly?' Most people will of course fall asleep at bond market headlines, that is until their mortgage rate starts going up. My favourite quote was Andy B and 'the bond markets need to fall into line'. He seems to have missed the note from the Clinton advisor who said words to the effect that he always thought he wanted to be reincarnated as pope or president but now realised her wanted to come back as the bond markets as they were the only ones who could intimidate everyone. Meanwhile Labour tinker with £2 bus fares, think the 1970s were a golden age and are still going on about Mrs T, Brexit etc.
Thank you
It is sad that young people are bereft of a decent financial education that they believe the guff of socialists, communists and fabians that dominate our educational institutions and that the majority will probably fall victim to what is a dreadful looking economic future in the west generally !
I am in my early sixties now and I remember the turmoil of the 1970’s Uk .. I didn’t understand what caused it for years but I have a much better idea now…
As my dad used to say “ Every generation has to learn what it is like to live under a Labour Government “
Schooling is now underway!
A really helpful article. Thankyou. And I thoroughly recommend The Secret History of Gold.
If there is a sell off , what does your crystal ball suggest gold might drop to ?
Ten years, 5%, trouble.
Just a point of note - BOLD can’t be bought within an ISA unfortunately, it seems. As far as I can tell within the Trading212 ecosystem
I’m a huge fan of BOLD ETP and the genius of pairing gold and bitcoin and it is still available in a tax wrapper in the UK. Stratiphy offer it tax free in an IFISA - the new wrapper.
I seem to recall that it is available in the ISA on ii but I am happy to stand corrected if others know better. I think this came up as a discussion point on here some months ago.
Seems like changes to HMRC tax rules within ISAs…
“From 6 April 2026, HMRC rules reclassified cryptoasset Exchange Traded Notes (cETNs) so they are no longer qualifying investments for new purchases in Stocks and Shares ISAs”
Dominic, are you sure of those figures? I just checked 1998, as an example: closing values for S&P 500: 31st Aug 957, and 30th November 1,163. That's an increase of over 21%.
(Excuse my directness, we're all friends here, but the 'Mid-Terms pattern' which you describe, if correct, appears SO predictive, especially when coupled with Jim Rickards' recent pronouncements regarding how the markets will behave between now and the Mid Terms)
It's from August. Those numbers were doing the rounds on X and elsewhere. I need to go back and re-check this , though I checked it twice already.
I am going to go back and re-write this. Thanks for pointing it out.
The cycle repeats, compounds and continues until the system breaks!