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You're listening to Strictly Business
Podcast with Lindsay Williams.

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At the beginning of 2024, the gold price
was hovering around US$2,000 per ounce.

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At the end of that year, it had risen to
around US$2,600.

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And then in 2025, just last year,

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it started to accelerate a bit and the
graph started to steepen.

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And then recently, in the month of January
2026, people got a little bit silly, I

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think.

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The gold price went as high intraday to
$5,625 an ounce, to be precise.

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And then within 48 hours, it had fallen
precipitously to below $4,500.

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Currently, as we pre-record this podcast,
it's around about $5,050.

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So it's all over the place.

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Here to make sense of it is George
Cheveley, portfolio manager at 91 in

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London.

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It got a bit silly, didn't it, George?

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Yeah, there was a lot of buying in the
beginning of...

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this year, as people and I think a bit of
FOMO came into play,

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we'd seen the price start to move and
everybody came in and decided they needed

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to own gold this year.

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And certainly things moved very, very
rapidly.

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And it was exacerbated by the fact that
everybody felt that, you know,

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Trump's pick for the Fed chair was various
names were flying around.

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It was hugely uncertain and everybody
thought, you know, this was very bad news

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for the dollar.

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because the Fed was going to lose its
independence.

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So that sort of played into the fears
around gold.

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And then you throw in the fact that Iran,
you know, the situation was getting more

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tense.

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We obviously had Venezuela at the
beginning of the year, so geopolitics was

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super uncertain.

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So it was a cocktail of events that really
drove that price very high.

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We've still got the Iran situation, and
there was a drone flying over one of the

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aircraft carriers, I think it was,

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and it was shot down, and that alerted.

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people and gold started to twitch a little
bit.

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So that's still there.

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The debasement of the dollar, though,
which was another reason for the gold

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rally, in my opinion,

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hasn't really materialized.

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And the Fed chair nominee doesn't seem to
be as radical as some of the other

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potential choices.

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No.

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And last Friday was a very good reminder.

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You know, if you talk to anybody who's
looked at gold for any time, they would

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say Fed.

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policy has always been a key driver of
gold.

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And for Fed policy, you know, Fed
generally.

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And clearly, the worries that the Fed was
losing its power and losing its control

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and Trump was

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taking control, was worrying people about
interest rates in the States, they thought

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they'd fall too fast.

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And then bond rates were all over the
place.

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And people were worried about the dollar.

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And actually, when the nominee was
announced, which was Walsh,

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who is seen as certainly more sensible
than some of the other names being thrown

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around.

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You know, we were reminded that actually
the Fed still matters when it comes to

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gold and the fact the Fed nominee looked
more

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sensible and Fed policy might not be so
radical going forward.

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We saw the froth come out of the gold
market very quickly.

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Froth it was as well.

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So where does that, and actually I'll come
to where does that leave us towards the

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end.

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The other factor that really contributed
to the extraordinary volatility in the

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gold market was the extraordinary
volatility in the silver

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market.

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All sorts of stories coming out now that
the silver trade was subject to

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deleveraging

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and there was a lot of Chinese influence.

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And in fact, I saw something flash across
my screen just about half an hour before

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we started, George,

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about a Chinese trading company that
purportedly made...

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500 billion US dollars out of the silver
market.

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So silver, a factor, speculatively?

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It certainly was very noticeable in the
sell-off.

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And it's obviously, I've always seen
silver as leveraged gold, and it's been

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acting like that, particularly in the last
few months.

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It is obviously more attractive to a lot
of retail people because you can buy more

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with less money, essentially.

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So you can actually buy a significant
amount of silver.

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And therefore, it's always been a favorite
of retail investors.

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But as a result, there's always been more
leveraged.

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And clearly, you know, with gold moving as
it did, silver moved.

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I have to say, if you look at last week,
everything was moving.

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We saw all metals moving, platinum,
copper, aluminium.

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We even had oil moving up quite
significantly.

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Some people said that was Iran, but it was
almost a general anti-dollar trade.

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I think we've also got to remember this is
a bit of a rush for hard assets, which has

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occurred at the same time.

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So people are getting more worried about
the AI tech trade,

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and you're seeing a rotation more
generally into hard assets and resource

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equities in many markets.

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Given what you just said over the last few
minutes, there's still a case for gold,

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isn't there?

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Where do you see it going from here?

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And how would you play it?

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In other words, what vehicles would you
use to take advantage of what you see as

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the future of

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gold?

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We're clearly in a very volatile period.

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When you've got a trading range of over
$1,000 in the last week, you've got to be

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very careful.

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And clearly, we need to see things settle
down.

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I have to say, if I look at all the
drivers for gold, you know, when we talk

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fundamentals, we're really talking
drivers.

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If you say, you know, interest rates like
to fall or rise in the States, they're

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likely to fall.

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That's positive gold.

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Does that mean the US dollar weakens or
strengthen?

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It probably on margin means it weakens.

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That's positive for gold.

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Are geopolitics getting any less uncertain
or stable?

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They look like they're going the opposite
way.

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We still have Iran, we still got, you
know, US and China essentially competing

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more ferociously with each other.

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That just creates a very unstable
backdrop.

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So all those drive, as you would say, and
economic uncertainty remains, you know,

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very high.

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A lot of question marks about the US
market, US debt levels, fiscal policy,

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what's going to happen in the midterms.

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There's nothing, you know, pointing you to
say, oh, I can see why things are going to

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settle down and we won't need, you know,

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people won't look for gold as a safe
haven.

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So all those drivers are in place.

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Almost the most worrying thing about gold
at the moment is one,

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it's moved a lot already and it's very
hard to come up with a bare argument for

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gold.

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And that's always a worrying thing when
you're looking at any market.

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All that said, that means, I mean, my view
certainly is gold is likely to hold

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current ranges, and that's a wide range.

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But let's just say I think gold can hold
above $4,500.

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And the risk, if I'm wrong, is that it
goes higher rather than lower.

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Where do I look to invest?

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And this is, you know, might sound like a
repeat.

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I'm a gold equity fund manager.

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And so obviously I'm going to say
equities, but actually.

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You know, today, I believe it more than
ever, because the equities, whilst they're

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up three times over the last year,

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or many of them are, that actually their
margins are up four to five times.

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So we're still looking at equities trading
on single digit PEs with good growth

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numbers.

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And what you have to believe, and it is
maybe a big ask, but you have to believe

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gold's going to stay about four and a
half, if you believe that.

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These companies actually, or many
companies, not all, but many companies

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look very, very cheap today.

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Right.

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Let's move from gold to copper, the red
metal.

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And that's been quite extraordinary as
well.

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We spoke about it last time and I could
almost see or rather hear a twinkle in

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your eye if that's possible when I
mentioned copper.

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And it hasn't disappointed, has it?

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No, it's been one of those very pleasing
trades.

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In last August, we got bullish copper.

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We felt there was a squeeze coming.

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The tariff thing obviously was driving
copper to be delivered to the US,

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which continued probably stronger than we
believed.

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But it meant that essentially we've ended
up with all the copper inventories in the

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States and very tight markets elsewhere in
the world.

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And that's led to this squeeze for a
moment where copper prices have been

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driven higher,

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as essentially they've had to push prices
up to attract metal out of the States or

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at least stop it going in.

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I have to say, though, you know, copper is
more based on fundamentals.

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You know, if I look at copper today, you
know, demand is pretty lackluster.

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Now we're coming into Chinese New Year.

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It's always a difficult time of year to
judge what real demand is.

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But certainly all the indicators at the
moment is it's pretty soggy.

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People are not willing to pay these high
prices.

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And whilst there is some units moving,
there doesn't seem to be a big fundamental

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drive in the demand side now.

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Certainly, we probably should wait the end
of March and post-Chinese New Year.

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It might be the Chinese have just stopped
ahead of New Year and will be driven to

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buy, you know, come back into the market
in March.

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But if that doesn't happen, copper feels
definitely overextended.

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And actually, you know, I invest in copper
equities.

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If I look at copper equities today, unlike
gold equities, copper equities have

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actually kept up with copper prices, if
not.

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ahead of them.

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So valuations of copper equities, the pure
plate copper equities, actually look

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pretty stretched.

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We're talking PEs in the 20s, even 30s in
some cases,

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which the assumption therefore is that
copper prices are going to be here or

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higher long term,

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which I think is too bold an assumption.

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So does that mean you've adjusted your
positioning at 91?

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Yeah, we've essentially taken some profit
on the copper equities we've held.

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And we've certainly put a bit more back
into gold over the last month.

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The other thing we've done, though, in the
mining space is added more in the large

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diversifieds.

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And that's been particularly driven by the
sort of speculation around the

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Rio-Glencore merger,

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which we're waiting to see hopefully any
day, whether that happens or not.

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Our view is it happens.

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Our view is it's positive for Rio and
Glencore.

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George, thanks so much for your time and
your analysis.

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George Cheveley is a portfolio manager at
91 in London.

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The views and opinions expressed in these
podcasts are those of Lindsay Williams and

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various contributors and do not reflect
the policy,

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position or opinion of any other agency,
organisation,

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employer or company associated with
StrictlyBusinessPodcast.com.

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Assumptions made on the analyses are not
reflective of the position of any other

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entity other than the speaker or the
author

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and since we are critically thinking human
beings these views are always subject to

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change, revision,

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and rethinking at any time.

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Please do not hold us to them in
perpetuity.
