Gold or gold shares?

Gold is up 52% year to date and barely shivered when US President Donald Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese imports.

That rattled markets somewhat but they quickly recovered when Trump saw the damage he had caused to markets (not to mention the insider trading that front-ran his social media posts) and then quickly appeared to soften his stance.

Is it better to own gold or gold stocks?

Actually, a bit of both seems to be appropriate.

Gold’s rise above $4,100 an ounce is the result of geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and the Middle East and the potential disruptions caused by a widening war in any of these theatres.

There’s something else more fundamental going on here: the US has wracked up a debt mountain of $37 trillion, a figure so staggeringly high there appears no way to pay it off. That means it will get booted down the road until the US defaults or, by some miracle, trades its way back to solvency. Where money expansion goes, inflation follows.

Gold has lived up to its vaunted status as a