Sadly, not many investors understand the notion of buying an asset which is unloved and undervalued, like gold and silver at the turn of the century.

Overall stocks have been a great investment for the last 100 years due to the massive credit expansion and money printing worldwide.

All currencies will reach their intrinsic value of ZERO in the next few years. Something that has fallen in value by 87-98% is guaranteed to complete the journey until it has lost 100%.

Investors in the US would have made $262,000 more by investing in gold than in the S&P. In the UK, an investor would have made £448,000 more by investing in gold instead of the stock market.

2017 has just started but some longer-term trend changes already seem to develop.

At the beginning of a new year it would be totally natural to forecast what the likely events and trends will be for 2017. A lot of experts around the world will predict a number of “new” events as if a lot of things will change just because we are entering a new year.

We are now approaching the final mania in markets. The Dow seems to be on its last swansong. Investors have been determined to take it up to 20,000. So far, the market has been twelve points from this magic level. At the same time treasury bonds are crashing.

We will see in-flation, stag-flation, hyperinflation and de-flation. Many of these flations will happen simultaneously.

With a very limited downside and an upside of many thousand dollars, at current levels of $1,175 physical gold is an absolute bargain.

Few people realise the coming bargains in all asset markets within the next five years or so. Stocks, bonds and property will be fractions of current prices.

Very few people realise the enormous wealth transfer that will take place in the next 5 years. Most will lose 75-90% of their wealth and some 100%. What is interesting is that investors needn’t lose most of their money if they took a few measures to protect their fortune.

There is a total misunderstanding of the role of gold and why it is so critical to own physical gold. Gold should not be bought or sold based on rumours or events. In connection with the US election, gold moved for totally the wrong reasons.

Gold doesn’t fit into a modern monetary system. It restricts the unlimited expansion of money and credit which is the new paradigm for prosperity and growth.

As the gold market takes a break in its journey to much higher levels, it is good to step back a bit and understand why gold has appreciated so dramatically in the last 100 years and why this will continue for many years to come.

The mistake that most people make is to measure gold in US dollars. Gold in pounds for example is only 8% from the September 2011 peak.

The selling of gold we saw last week was another desperate attack by the BIS and some central banks, together with the bullion banks, to manipulate the gold market lower.

Today, we might be standing at another historical peak in the global economy. There are certainly many similarities like deficits, debts and decadence. Just like the Roman Emperors, current leaders have illusions of grandeur of a magnitude that the world has never seen before.

The world economy is now at its most dangerous point in history. In virtually every major country or region, there are problems of a magnitude which individually could trigger a collapse of the financial system.

Gold and silver is money and instant liquidity. Throughout history, in every country where there has been a serious financial crisis, gold and silver have always functioned as money or barter.

In the last 36 years, US debt will have increased 22 times. It took 220 years to reach $10 trillion debt and Obama has achieved to double this in only 8 years.