Gold: The Bull Market Is Just Starting

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Gold is back above $5,200. Are we surprised?

Bullion.Directory precious metals analysis 03 March, 2026
By Peter Reagan
Financial Market Strategist at Birch Gold Group

We’ve been hearing about tariffs since before President Trump’s second term, so I believe their connection to gold’s price action is weaker than ever.

On the other hand, the attack on Iran has been the biggest story of the past week. The idea is that the U.S. is striking Iran before they can retaliate. Peace through superior firepower and so on.

I’m not qualified to comment on that. I can tell you that the Middle East conflict is still nothing more than a footnote in terms of precious metals. Granted, it’s terrible for the people involved, but all but irrelevant for gold price.

Despite what mainstream news tell us, gold has been moving without regard to military action since 2022.

The other big news item regarding gold recently? The idea that “unrruly” Chinese traders are to blame for gold jumping to $5,500 from $5,000 in a day. (I found it very interesting that the Treasury Secretary came out to corroborate this story.) Besides Trump’s gold nods and Judy Shelton’s efforts, our government officials normally don’t talk about gold.

I mean, why would they? Talking about gold at all means having to address the price of gold. How it keeps going up despite the much-discussed “strength” of the U.S. dollar. Everyone hates inflation, right? Talking about gold means government officials might have to confront these facts:

• While the U.S. dollar was on a pure gold standard, annual inflation averaged 0% to 0.1%
• Since the end of Bretton-Woods, annual inflation has averaged 4%

I’m able to tell you the truth about this: That inflation is bad for citizens, but it’s good for debtors. And it’s best for the U.S. federal government, the greatest debtor in history. I can tell you these things because I’m not a political official and I don’t have to worry about reelection…

So why did Treasury Secretary Bessent comment on gold at all? Honestly, it’s not the first time:

I think he didn’t want the American public getting the idea that gold is undervalued amid the most explosive run in the last 50 years. Or questioning the rate at which our dollars are losing purchasing power.

Regardless of how Secretary Bessent feels about gold as a private citizen, in his role as a federal official (especially the one nominally in charge of the dollar’s purchasing power) he cannot afford to say anything negative about the dollar. Period. Ever.

Regardless of the short-term volatility we’ve seen in the price of gold, MKS Pamp says we’re in the middle of gold’s cycle. Forecasting that, by the time for midterm elections, gold will reach $6,750. That’s an aggressive forecast from a firm that’s mostly neutral in its predictions…

Think about this: If that’s the high end of the cycle, what’s the bottom? $5,000? $4,500? That’s really not very low.

MKS PAMP isn’t alone. Others like Bank of America and JPMorgan shifted their forecasts recently above $6,000.

The China story might end up being buried in history as total nonsense. It may yet turn out that gold briefly fell after organically climbed to $5,500 due to high demand and inflation concerns.

Do we know any other metal where all this seems familiar?

Sprott CEO agrees $90 silver “isn’t okay”

Eric Sprott is doubling down on the idea of $300 silver, as seen on Kitco.

Tripling down, I should say, as we spend yet another week below $100.

As the founder of Sprott, Eric isn’t fully neutral on this issue. But he is no doom crier on the corner of the street, either. His opinions on precious metals do hold plenty of weight, and this one is particularly relevant. Watch here:

Sprott is saying what I have said almost to the letter, which is that silver’s low price, which we’re being told is “high,” is the result of a massive short squeeze. I don’t claim we have incredible foresight or data that others can’t access. (He might, I’m just a regular guy.)

Rather, this is bare-bones data that anyone can go over and essentially the only logical conclusion that explains silver’s moves. When he says:

“There’s no doubt there’s a physical short squeeze going on.”

He goes on to back up the claim with data. Shanghai will lose 10% of their inventories on a given day as silver “claimed to exist” is being demanded. Sprott says that their sinking to 11 million ounces amounts to a stockpile equal to zero for a country of China’s size and clout. And he has a good point.

Interestingly, Sprott points to a recent change in how Indian funds operate as what could push silver to $300. As he notes, India’s government recently said that funds can allocate up to 35% to gold and silver, meaning $385 billion in new investment capital could be entering the precious metals marketplace.

He believes that India will forego New York and London price fixes and start trading in silver with its own price fix. Somewhat similar to China’s Shanghai fix we’ve seen in gold for over a year.

Unsurprisingly, Sprott is paying a lot of attention to the gold-to-silver ratio and says 15:1 makes sense. True, that was the norm for most of history. And it especially makes sense with the kind of industrial demand that silver has now. On the other hand, since the end of Bretton-Woods, the typical gold-to-silver ratio has been 55:1. I think it’s much more reasonable to expect a range of 50-60:1 and tactically choose to buy gold and silver when the ratio gets out of whack.

Where I don’t necessarily agree with Sprott is that banks have lost control. Will they truly lose control? It will be easy to know, since with how gold has been moving, silver would in that case rocket to $200 very quickly. But a climb to $300 would mean that they have indeed lost control, which is hard to believe in the absence of a silver version of the Basel III agreement.

(I plan to soon cover why the absence of one essentially mandates silver price manipulation for readers who aren’t familiar with how the agreement impacted gold. Here’s my colleague Phillip Patrick’s take on how Basel III impacts bullion trading.)

My estimate is that even with $6,000-$6,500 gold as forecast by JPMorgan and BofA, silver will struggle to hold $200. We’ll be told it’s “the greatest run in silver ever” even though it remains 30% or more below where history says it should be. Having said all that, $200 silver is a surprising forecast for a bearish perspective, isn’t it?

Is “digital gold” showing us the real price of gold?

Digital gold tokens are trading above $5,500/oz, varying based on the cryptocurrency in question.

As it happened, I saw tokenized gold prices today before I saw the spot gold price. I thought to myself: “Gold’s back to $5,500?” Then I noticed that not only is spot $5,200, but Kitco’s Monday fix was bearish on gold, putting the price closer towards $5,100.

We’re big on sleeper stories here. I’m always pointing to that one thing that’s seemingly going under everyone’s radar while looking huge. To me, this is an early pick for the sleeper story of the month (even of the quarter).

Here’s why I think this is such a big deal.

As you may or may not know, the biggest nightmare of any U.S. dollar stablecoin (basically a cryptocurrency “priced” at $1) to lose its peg to the U.S. dollar. The big ones like Tether or USDC will sometimes show a $0.999 price, possibly $0.998 or $0.997, but only as a result of heavy volume. The moment a stablecoin “breaks the buck,” it’s almost guaranteed to collapse. Money flees because nobody wants to own a $1 coin that’s only worth $0.50 (can you blame them?)

Just like a bank run, this means that the firm issuing it has lost credibility and can no longer promise to honor withdrawals. The same reasoning applies to gold tokens, which are in effect a form of gold stablecoin. Gold tokens are designed to be backed by one ounce of gold bullion, and therefore each one’s price should reflect the spot price of gold. (No gold financial derivative, unless it’s specifically made to speculate on a future gold price, is meant to diverge from spot.)

Yet on Monday, gold stablecoins are up to $300 higher than spot gold price.

If they were $300 lower, they would not be that quickly, as we’d have a familiar collapse scenario that we’ve seen with stablecoins many times now.

Since they are higher, we should be seeing either:

1. A dollar collapse of some kind
2. The spot gold price shooting up very quickly

Yet, very oddly, we are seeing neither. There is no official reason why we have $5,200 gold and $5,500 tokenized gold. Neither is there an explanation past the second being gold’s real price. Not being “formally” tied to gold, unlike spot fixes, tokenized gold is seemingly allowed to float based on supply and demand.

Are we now seeing a true supply-and-demand-based gold price from the crypto market, of all places?

Will the price of gold converge with the digital gold price? It’s a story to watch, for sure.

This article was originally published here

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