BFI Capital Group

In a matter of days, barring similar circumstances to 2020, the most powerful nation on the planet will have a new leader. The implications for the rest of the world, both economically and geopolitically, are extremely important, as are those for both American and international investors. As is customary by now, this vote has been described by the media as “the most important election in history”, like the one four years ago and the one before that too. Levity aside though, it is not an exaggeration to say that this particular election cycle has been different than the ones that preceded it on quite a few different levels.

In our last edition of our BFI InSights, we looked at the new role gold is playing as an anchor in today’s global financial system. We made the case why precious metals in general have a promising outlook for the months and years to come. Over the course of the summer, gold has moved decisively higher, pushing through some very important resistance points and currently prices are trading around USD 2’615, so in recent weeks there has been a more than 10% gain for the yellow metal. However, as explained in our last update, the action in the gold market can’t be seen as isolated from all the other ongoing developments around the world.

The global financial, monetary and economic landscape is once again shifting and the changes that are already underway are bound to have a significant impact on investment strategies. After much speculation and anticipation, the Federal Reserve recently announced its decision to cut interest rates by 50 basis points, very likely signaling a return to a more dovish policy direction.

As September rolled into October, tens of thousands of Bank of America customers found themselves logging into their accounts only to see that those accounts were temporarily unavailable…or even worse, with a zero balance! Some were stranded without access to their direct salary deposits, while others couldn’t pay rent on time. Let this be a warning the computer glitches are a glaring reminder of why “jurisdictional diversification” needs to become part of your vocabulary!

For the 14th year in a row, Switzerland continued its innovative advantage when it again ranked 1st in the Global Innovation Index (GII) published by the World Intellectual Property Organization. The index assesses world economies leading in global innovation from amongst 133 countries using some 80 different indicators to measure their overall strengths and weaknesses.

It probably goes without saying that when you plan on buying physical bullion, you need to choose the dealer you are going to purchase from and store with well. Like any investment, that can be hard enough to do, but in a recent (and yet another!) case out of the U.S., apparently even choosing a reputable, recommended dealer isn’t enough. Once again, the victims are U.S. retirement account holders that were simply trying to protect their wealth.