Gold is trading above $2,700 an ounce as we enter 2026. It has been above $2,500 since the summer. In real purchasing power terms, it is close to its all-time high.
The Financial Times and Bloomberg have both recently questioned whether the gold rally can be sustained, arguing that at some point Federal Reserve normalisation will drive a correction. They may be right. Timing commodity markets is a fool's game and I do not pretend to be good at it.
But I think most of the mainstream commentary on gold is missing the more important question.
What Gold Is Not
Gold is not an investment in the ordinary sense. It pays no dividends. It generates no earnings. It has no cash flow. It does not compound.
If you want to build wealth over a thirty-year time horizon, gold is not the vehicle. Equities, real estate, businesses — these are the compounding assets.
So why do I own gold? Why do I recommend that serious clients hold a meaningful allocation in physical gold?
What Gold Actually Is
Gold is insurance. Specifically, it is insurance against the failure of sovereign monetary systems.
For five thousand years, human societies have used gold as a store of value because it has properties that are difficult to replicate: it is scarce, it is durable, it is divisible, it is portable, and — most importantly — no government can print more of it.
The US national debt is above $36 trillion. The debt-to-GDP ratio is at levels not seen since the Second World War. The interest cost of servicing that debt now exceeds the entire US defence budget. The EU's fiscal situation, particularly in France and Italy, is similarly stressed. Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio is above 200%.
Gold is rising because a significant portion of the world's serious money has concluded that the major sovereign currencies are being debased, and gold is the oldest available alternative.
The Central Bank Signal
Here is the data point I find most significant: central banks around the world have been buying gold at a record pace for the past three years. The People's Bank of China. The Reserve Bank of India. The National Bank of Poland. The Central Bank of Turkey.
These are not speculators. These are institutions whose job is to protect the purchasing power of their countries' reserves over decades.
When central banks are buying gold in record quantities, they are making a collective judgment that the major reserve currencies are less reliable stores of value than they were. That judgment may be wrong. But it is not uninformed.
What This Means Practically
For my clients, I consistently recommend holding physical gold — allocated, vaulted outside the banking system, ideally in a politically neutral jurisdiction — as a component of a well-structured wealth protection strategy.
Not as a bet on the gold price. As insurance.
The question I ask is always the same: if the financial system experienced significant stress — the kind we saw in 2008, or that Argentina experiences periodically, or that Turkey has lived through — what do you hold that is not dependent on the solvency of a financial institution or the creditworthiness of a government?
Physical gold, properly vaulted, answers that question.
The price going up is not the reason to own it. The structural case for owning it has not changed. The rising price is simply confirmation that a growing number of people are reaching the same conclusion.
Work with Sebastian
Gold storage, allocation, and the broader question of how to build genuine asset protection across jurisdictions are all part of what I work through with clients. If this is a gap in your current structure, let's address it. Book a consultation.