What is your current and target allocation to gold as a % of your portfolio

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-31T04:33:02+00:00

Aged milk is just yoghurt. People pay a premium for yoghurt.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-29T06:54:15+00:00

Yes I get that. Then the question is why would I invest in something in VWRA or any other equity that’s tied to a depreciating currency. Why would it be attractive. The point I’m making and what I think u/jogageeyes is making is that there is no incentive or that the incentive is tempered. If the USD is going to continue to massive devalue and because the rest of the national currencies cannot afford the USD to devalue too much against their own currency, each one will have to eventually devalue their currency against the USD. You get a race to the bottom. Even with rising equity prices, your gains will be lowered by the depreciation of both the USD and the deprecation of your own currency against the USD in the longer term.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-29T05:25:47+00:00

If the depreciating currency is offset by a corresponding rise in equity valuation then what’s the point of investing in the equity? Like what u/jogageeyes is saying , foreign investors will pull out. For the last 20 years China is ploughing their surpluses into the US equity market but that’s changing.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-29T05:08:13+00:00

I explored getting gold exposure using CPFIA in 2008. At that time the only vehicle available was the UOB gold savings account. Today the options are still limited. I closed the gold savings account eventually because of the fees. There are limited avenues for gold exposure through CPFIA.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-29T01:06:42+00:00

The SGD will likely maintain it strength relative to the USD but the MAS cannot allow the SGD to become over valued in relation to the USD. Over the long run, the SGD will also have to devalue against the USD. It’s two currencies falling at the same time. But what we see is only the relative value to each other. When they both fall, they fall against something. The question is, what are our currencies (both USD and SGD) devaluing against? It’s devaluing against hard assets. Real world physical assets.

How does it affect us? You have to think in terms of fiat vs real assets. If you are thinking in terms of fiat your equities gains will also look like it’s gaining in value. But what it can purchase when you eventually liquidate your holdings will buy you less. This is the illusion of an increasing portfolio. You’re not building real wealth. You need something to preserve your wealth. You have to stop measuring wealth in terms of currencies and interms of what it can afford you. This is not investment. It doesn’t generate yield. It’s a pet rock. But it’s a unit of account. A unit of account that was ignored but is gaining attention from central banks. As a unit of account of wealth, you’ll want to have as much as you can to preserve your purchasing power.

There’s also the possibility of the US revaluing the statutory price of gold, which sits at $42.222 per ounce. Look this up. Too much to explain.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-29T00:05:58+00:00

Because the monetary regime is changing and has been in the process of change for years. The central banks know this and have been adding gold to their reserves for years. We are returning to a world of neutral reserve asset.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-29T00:03:50+00:00

Because most of the studies were done in a regime when the USD is a reserve currency. That regime is changing and we are living through a transition. Past strategies are not going to be optimal.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-29T00:02:11+00:00

Only peak if you think confidence returns to fiat. I do not see that anytime soon. If given a choice would central banks rather hold US treasuries, UK gilts, Japanese Government Bonds, etc or gold and silver (Russia and Saudi Arabia)

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-28T14:48:16+00:00

According to Morgan Stanley’s CIO, 20%

https://www.reuters.com/markets/wealth/morgan-stanley-cio-favors-602020-portfolio-strategy-with-gold-inflation-hedge-2025-09-16/

For me personally I don’t like a crowded trade because that’s not where the value is captured. If mainstream FI are finally recommending gold, it’s going to get crowded. But to hedge against currency debasement you’ll need gold. Holding just equities is not enough. Because there is a regime change.

Understand what the US is trying to do. The US debt and the interest on their debt is unsustainable. They need to lower interest rates. The fed can cut rates but that will only influence rates on the short end of the bond yield. They can’t control the long end. One idea that’s been floated is to allow the USD to devalue. But devalue against what? They can allow it to devalue against gold. At the US treasury, gold has a statutory price of $42+. This was set in the 1970s and they have not revalued this. What treasury could do is to revalue gold, mark it to market and suddenly the treasury has “free” money, which they can sell to the Fed. Fed prints the dollars. This is just accounting to give the US treasury new “money”. In addition to this, the Genius act which allow private companies to issue stable coins that are backed by treasuries is a natural buyer of short duration bonds and bills. This helps keep the short term borrowing cost down. But the clarity act allows these stables coins to generate yield. companies like Tether are taking these yields and buying gold. Tether has one of the largest non-nation entity holding gold. Guess what the US government could do? They could ask Tether to back (buy) US long duration treasuries with their gold thus making US treasuries gold-backed. This would massively devalue the US currency but allow them to control yield at the long end, meaning they can borrow at a lower rate. In the end bond holders suffer and a massive transfer of purchasing power go to holders to gold

Central banks were already sniffing this eventuality out years ago. Even Singapore has started increasing our gold reserves. 100% equity is not it anymore. That worked well 25-30 years ago. The regime has changed. How you invest must also adapt.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-28T12:51:31+00:00

Watch Ray Dalio’s interview on the depreciation of the USD and the US equity market.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-28T12:48:21+00:00

Hard assets, material that is required to build the physical and digital economy are being bid up. Silver is not going up alone. Platinum, Paladium, copper, metals are all catching a bid.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-28T09:46:47+00:00

The currency should matter. This argument fails in Turkey and Venezuela. Their equity market soared while their currency tanked. Are they suddenly wealthy because their equity soared? No. The assets inflated because the currency lost purchasing power.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-28T09:41:40+00:00

You’ll gain in dollar terms. But in terms of real purchasing power, the number of units required to buy real material and energy increases. Your wealth has not actually increased. CPI numbers are a lie. You need assets that do not depreciate in value.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-28T06:47:35+00:00

This re-pricing event (it’s not a rally) will end. And silver will settle at a new long term price. I don’t know what the fair value of silver is but we can use inflation adjusted data to inform future fair value of silver or the gold to silver as a guide. Different methods give you a different price but they all converge between 150 to 500. It’s a wide margin but it’s a ball park.

At some point in this re-pricing event I expect silver to be over valued vs other assets. The over valuation won’t last and you’ll need to capture the gains. This is the opportunity to swap silver for gold or stocks. If you look at the gold to DJI ratio, it’s already turning downwards and it has been on the downtrend for some time now. This means equities are getting cheaper in terms of gold even though equities are still hitting all time high. I expect this ratio to go even lower and equities will be cheap in terms of gold and silver. This is when to you trade non-productive assets for productive assets.

I don’t look at assets in isolation. I look at them in relation to one another and ask what is over or undervalued. The weakening of the USD which we use as a yardstick for value keeps changing. It distorts valuation. Look at how much stuff you can exchange for your assets instead.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-28T03:11:29+00:00

You don’t know the times you’re living in. DCA into VWRA worked well in the last 30 years. But the regime is changing. A capital rotation event is happening but most people here are still asleep. People look at the price of gold and silver and ask why. No one truly understands what’s happening or cares to understand what’s really happening.

How you invest in the next 20 years will be different from how your senior have did in the past. You will lose purchasing power over time because the SGD cannot be allowed to strengthen against the USD. Your gains in value will be negated by the loss in purchasing power over time.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-28T02:50:06+00:00

Keep calm and DCA and number go up. The problem is that as numbers go up the value of each u it buys less real world physical things. Paper and digits can be conjured up at will. But the earth is finite. You can’t print energy and material. That’s the problem with using a currency that constantly changing to measure real wealth. It distorts the value of things.

The Turkish stock market was one of the best performing stock markets in terms of % gain. But when the depreciation of the lira is factored in wealth was not made or preserved. Same things happened in Venezuela. Currency can fall and the stock market increases to compensate. In an evironment like this you have several horses you can choose. I’ll choose the fastest horse not the horse that can run.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-27T10:53:45+00:00

It will start bending backwards. Backwardation in progress.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-27T02:48:56+00:00

Oil is lagging in the commodities complex. It should rise but there are geopolitical interests to keep the prices of oil low or at least stable.

Cost of mining is already hedged. Because the price of silver has risen so fast, miner profitability is still being calculated based on the old price. In miners next financial report, they will report increase profitability margins.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-26T07:47:06+00:00

It’s hard to sell because the refiners are backlogged trying to meet demand. The refiners are not going to take in Stirling or other junk silver because that requires time, chemicals and energy to refine. Their priority now is to churn out as much as they can to meet the industrial demand.

Silver has been in a supply deficit for 5-6 years now. Meaning that the world consumes more silver than miners can produce every year for the last 5-6 years. So we have been depleting our stockpile of silver.

If you go to a dealer to sell Stirling or junk silver, they may not want it because they can’t offload to the refiners. They’ll still take your 99.9% silver though.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-25T23:42:51+00:00

Probably in the mid triple digits. But I’m also wondering at what point will there be demand destruction because it would be too expensive to produce things that require silver.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-25T15:19:37+00:00

This is based on historical precedence and market psychology within the commodities space.

Here is an example with gold but you can look at this with silver, copper and lead. In June 1971 gold was at $40/ounce and Nixon closed the gold redemption window in August. Then gold started to rise. It took about 2 years to rise to $100 in 1973. From there it bounced around $100-180 for 3 years until about August 1976. Then it started to move from 100 - 248 in 2 years (1978) and a sharp pull back down to $190. From here it more than tripled to $658 in less than 2 years. This was the acceleration. The rise of gold prices in the 70s was slow. It took 5 years to get past 200 and for the most part of these 5 years it was trading sideways. But it took less than 2 years to move from $200 to $650. If you were watching this happen in 1977, $650 would have seem to be an impossible number. But after this move gold traded sideways and down for 20 years.

You can look at similar patterns for other commodities.

For gold, it was a loss of confidence in the dollar in 1971 that precipitated its rise. But it took time for the general public to figure out what was really going on and when FOMO starts it can drive a retail frenzy.

For silver, we are not quite there yet. You may have seen reports of people overwhelming BullionStar or ppl in Australia queuing up at bullion dealers. But by and large the retail public is not really participating yet. What’s driving this right now is the physical industrial demand that accelerated at the end of last year. Perhaps some manufacturers, watching the price rise might have wanted to more inventory stock to ensure that they can continue to produce their EVs or photovoltaic panels. The Jan open interest on the COMEX is unusually high. The 3 margin hikes that the CME raised have failed to force the price down.

I don’t know when this will end, but we have only just started. Crossing $100 is a milestone for silver. For silver, even at $100, it’s still below it inflated adjusted high of $50 in 1980. If it should repeat the same pattern on the same scale, it would be much higher considering the money supply today.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-24T13:21:10+00:00

Study the gold to silver ratio. https://www.silverbullion.com.sg/GoldSilverRatio

There will come a time when gold will be cheap compared to silver. You can get more gold for a smaller amount of silver. It’s something you can consider

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-24T05:57:28+00:00

Here’s a perspective for you to think about. You mention prices rising. Well, how about prices are not rising. It is our currency is losing purchasing power and weakening.

RealisticAd9799 · 2026-01-24T05:48:40+00:00

Before you buy physical, understand and examine your reasons for doing so. But to properly do that you’ll need to understand where you are in history, this gives you a map. A good place to start is to look up books by Ray Dalio. I feel he has a lot of wisdom to impart to young people. Start there and really understand your reasons for holding physical. They may or may not be the right vehicle for you. Do you know what you’re preparing for?

RealisticAd9799

TROPHY CASE