It was the summer of 1985, and I was a footloose college kid visiting the Big Apple on my own. I knew the city a little — years earlier, my dad was a quartermaster on the Circle Line boats that take tourists around Manhattan. But as I walked through Midtown, soft pretzel and Coke in hand, I was still every bit the wide-eyed tourist.
I found myself at 725 5th Avenue, looked up and saw those big gold letters spelling out “Trump Tower.” The building had opened only two years earlier. I just had to go in.
You know what struck me most once I got inside to the soaring public lobby atrium?
Golden swaths of metal around the elevator entrances. Gold-tinted decorative mirrors and moldings. Even the marble cladding the walls of the atrium seemed to wink back with shiny flecks of something I imagined as gold in the stone.
All by design of course. Gold figures highly in the image of Donald Trump.
But where does gold figure in Trump’s finances?
Thanks to his run for the GOP nomination, and financial disclosures filed with the Federal Elections Commission, we have an opportunity to find out.
And I’m here to tell you: Donald Trump owns gold bullion.
It’s right there in black and white on Page 36 of the disclosure document, under “Part 6: Other Assets and Income.” For item No. 26, it says “Investment In Gold” and lists the value of his gold stash: between $100,001 and $250,000.
Now what kind of gold bullion … the document doesn’t specify. It could be stacks of gold bars. Or it could be bullion coins — U.S.-minted Eagles, South African Krugerrands or Canadian Maple Leafs.
I’ll admit that Trump’s gold ain’t much of a hoard (for a billionaire). But how much do all of Trump’s GOP rivals own? Or Hillary and Bernie Sander? I’ll give you a hint, based on the publicly available data: If you don’t own any gold yourself and buy even a few ounces … you’ll possess more than all of them put together.
Perhaps they ought to pay attention to Sovereign Investor’s Jeff Opdyke’s call on gold: It’s time to buy.
The One Safe Haven in the Market Storm
As Jeff noted recently here in Sovereign Investor Daily, today’s headlines give us more reasons than ever to own the yellow metal.
For one, you can’t find a more out-of-favor sector than gold these days. The Keynesian economists at the Fed hate the stuff — it gets in the way of their money printing. Wall Street hates it too — brokers like to sell paper-based assets, not the periodic table of elements. The mainstream media hates the yellow metal even more, unless it’s one of those gold $18,000 Apple iWatches.
All that hate indicates there’s a lot of money sitting outside of gold. As the market turmoil continues and the Fed fails to lift rates, investors are going to go searching for that one safe haven that’s rising above the chaos. And they’re going to find gold, driving the price sharply higher.
The second reason to own gold? It’s an inflation hedge. Jeff covered that one in a recent article too.
I know what you’re saying: What inflation? All true. Commodities are at death’s door. But let’s think ahead here. What happens when oil (or any other commodity for that matter) falls way down in price? Producers shut off the taps, sooner or later. And then what happens, a little further down the road, when the global economy revs up speed again?
You got it: Much higher prices — and much higher inflation as those prices get priced in to the global economy.
Insurance for Your Portfolio
But that’s over the horizon. Why buy gold now? Simple: It’s like the card you get from GEICO, Allstate (or whoever your auto insurer is), after you renew your policy. You stick it in your wallet or glove compartment. When you have an accident, you pull out the card and the insurance company takes care of the mess.
What happens when our investment portfolios have an accident? What happens if the “interest rate cops” at the Federal Reserve decide to pull the economy into the emergency lane?
Gold is your portfolio’s insurance card. As the markets remain volatile in the face of global economic uncertainty and the turmoil the Fed is sure to introduce as it weighs higher rates, gold will offer protection. While the yellow metal suffered a pullback on Tuesday, it settled at $1,138.30 —a gain of 6.2% from its July 24 low. Over the same time period, the S&P 500 Index has dropped approximately 7%. Gold continues to be a great store of wealth in volatile markets.
Regards,
JL Yastine
Editorial Director, The Sovereign Society
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