From a technical standpoint, copper is currently flipping a ≈20 year old resistance for support. On a monthly chart, copper is in a multi-year upwards channel, and it’s now close to the upper trend line of that channel. Copper is also at record lows when priced in terms of gold and silver.
From a fundamental, supply/demand perspective, copper is required for electrification, data centers, new buildings, electric vehicles, and electric appliances in general.
The tariffs imposed by the U.S. on the European countries are detrimental to USD's position as a reserve currency. A capital outflow out of the U.S. dollar creates positive price pressure on gold via increased demand.
This is true regardless of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on whether President Trump can lawfully impose unilateral broad tariffs via executive order using the the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEAP).
It summarizes down to increased pressure on swapping USD-denominated reserves for gold (and renminbi/Chinese Yen), and the disincentives for acquiring/rolling-over USD treasuries, bonds and notes.
On November 22nd 2005 the president of Russia stated:
- "I believe it's necessary for the Central Bank to pay more attention to precious metals within the territory of the Russian Federation when forming gold and foreign-currency reserves. Those reserves are even called 'gold and foreign-currency' reserves. There's nothing to be shy about here."
At the start of 2026, gold represents ≈43% of Bank of Russia's (BoR) international reserves. Back in 2005, gold accounted for a mere ≈3.5% of the same reserves account.
Since November 2005, gold is up ≈840%, i.e. almost 10 times. In the same period, S&P 500 TR increased ≈726%, or almost 9 times. This means that (anecdotally) Central Bank of Russia's strategy outperformed the U.S. stock market index by ≈14%
Currently, gold trades at ≈$4400/oz (when you're reading this it's probably much higher ). This means there is about $4400-$1910=$2490 of margin on each ounce of refined gold. Almost all of this margin on the sale of an ounce of gold is pocketed by gold miners.
Since 1997 Bulgaria has operated under a currency board arrangement (CBA), which is an exchange rate regime where a country commits to keep its local currency to a fixed exchange rate against an anchor currency. For Bulgaria, that anchor currency is the Euro.
Given this, any discourse about how Bulgaria's entry into the Eurozone implies a dramatic change to its monetary sovereignty is likely unfounded. It didn't happen overnight - it's been an almost 30 year long process. Joining the Eurozone does, however, remove the pegging frictions for Bulgaria, and allows them to fully integrate into the monetary union.
Gold as a percentage of balance sheet size in Central Banks (ranked):
+ Japan (MoF + BoJ): ≈2.4%
+ China (PBoC): ≈4.5%
+ U.S. (Fed gold certificates): ≈15.9%
+ European Union (ECB + Eurosystem): ≈19.4%
+ Russia (BoR): ≈36.1%
Conclusions you can take from here:
- China's current gold reserves are small relative to its central bank balance sheet and ambitions for the renminbi, so the PBoC is likely to keep buying gold for years to move closer to a gold-backed reserve-currency profile.
- Russia has accumulated large reserves that will allow a strong expansion of ruble credit once trade normalizes, likely triggering a rally in Russian capital markets.
- The EU is relatively well-positioned but should both grow its gold reserves and deepen its capital markets (e.g., via CMU) to strengthen the euro’s appeal as a reserve currency.
From a technical standpoint, copper is currently flipping a ≈20 year old resistance for support. On a monthly chart, copper is in a multi-year upwards channel, and it’s now close to the upper trend line of that channel. Copper is also at record lows when priced in terms of gold and silver.
From a fundamental, supply/demand perspective, copper is required for electrification, data centers, new buildings, electric vehicles, and electric appliances in general.