Roulette and the “Everything Hedge”

When the stock market is calm, retail investors complain that it’s “boring” because there’s more opportunity when there’s volatility. But now that there’s finally some movement in the markets in 2025, people are afraid to play “headline roulette” and take the risk of a less-than-perfect entry.

Living in Texas, the adage holds true: preparation often follows disaster. Harsh weather—bitter cold freezes or brutal power outages—catches many off guard, revealing a human tendency to act only after crisis strikes. The 2021 winter storm Uri, which left millions shivering without power, was a wake-up call. Pipes froze, grocery shelves emptied, and unprepared households scrambled for warmth. Only post-crisis did Texans stockpile generators, insulate homes, and pack emergency kits with essentials like water, batteries, and food.

What it highlights, is people tend to like to act when there’s action in front of them. Stagnation generally doesn’t breek much action.

This is an unproductive mindset. Sure, the stock market can ebb or flow on any given day depending on the latest U.S.-China trade negotiations. In this unpredictable environment, only a mind reader would be able to make a perfect stock trade entry.

Perfect entries and exits should never be the objective, though, even when the markets are calm. Trying to pick asset-price bottoms and tops is futile when there are so many unknown and unknowable factors at play.

Just one of those factors is earnings reports, and we’re now underway with earnings season. This week, we’ve got Microsoft and Meta Platforms (Facebook) reporting their quarterly earnings on Wednesday, followed by Apple and Amazon reporting on Thursday.

This happens every three months regardless of who is in the White House, and it’s entirely unpredictable. Even if you manage to correctly guess whether these companies “beat” earnings, there’s no way to know how the market will react since short-term traders can be irrational.

Fortunately, you don’t have to play that game in order to beat the major stock market indexes. Gold has outperformed the S&P 500 since the beginning of this century, so if you had added any amount of gold to your portfolio, you’d be ahead of the stock market. By adding some high-quality gold mining stocks, you would have done even better than that.

Courtesy: @JrMiningGuy

 
In other words, just because gold is strong, this doesn’t mean it can’t run higher. Overall gold production is expected to remain flat or slightly up through the year 2030. Although new gold discoveries are being made, the supply isn’t expected to keep up with the intense demand for bullion.

Most legacy media commentators don’t want to acknowledge any of this. You’ll see articles about how to “tariff-proof your finances,” but they won’t mention owning gold.

They’ll talk about “shopping smarter” and having an emergency cash fund, which is all well and good. What about having an emergency gold fund, though? Wouldn’t that make sense if the trade war is perceived as a threat to the dollar?

It’s as if the legacy media doesn’t know how to process gold’s strength. Just recently, Barron’s magazine ran a feature story titled, “Gold Is Beating Everything. How to Get a Piece of the Action.”

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not hard to “get a piece of the action.” Just buy some physical gold and add some gold-mining stocks if you want to. It’s really as simple as that.

Courtesy: @IGWTreport

Truly, it’s a sign and symptom of de-dollarization on a global level. Long before the U.S.-China trade frictions began, China, Russia, and other nations have divested their American bonds and dollars in favor of gold and, to a lesser extent, Bitcoin.

Elite, smart-money investors acknowledge this. For example, BlackRock strategist Jay Jacobs observes that “This whole diversification away from traditional assets and into things like gold and also crypto… probably began three, four years ago.”

Indeed, many of the same reasons to own gold also apply to Bitcoin. The current presidential administration is Bitcoin-friendly, and even the Federal Reserve Board is taking baby steps in aligning its policy toward crypto innovation.

But then, even if it’s a worthy investment today, Bitcoin can’t claim to be the “everything hedge” that gold has been for centuries. As long as you have some gold-associated assets in your holdings, you can pay attention to the headlines without having to wager your hear-earned capital at the market’s roulette table.