I’d love to be able to declare that the bull market in gold and silver is back on. Gold and silver bull markets are wonderful things. Maybe the bull market begins tomorrow. I hope so. But I’m afraid that, depressing though it may be, I have to be honest and say I can’t see it. The conditions aren’t right.

We need triggers. In 2001, people turned to gold as they fled stockmarkets after the dotcom crash. Ditto post 2008. From being a forgotten asset there grew a genuine belief that the monetary system was broken and that gold was the solution.

Such beliefs may well be even more correct now than they were then. But the problem is there are fewer such believers; there is no common narrative to give such a bull market impetus. The “money-is-broken” narrative has moved over to bitcoin. The stockmarket is rising and acting as a perfectly good hedge against inflation. Why bother with gold?