I believe that the medium to long-term prospects are still very good. The environment favours gold in many respects. This includes, for example, the continuous devaluation of paper currencies. Added to this is the geopolitical situation, which encourages investors to invest in gold. Gold is a tangible asset compared to currencies. And it is also quite possible that we will end up with a negative real interest rate in the current situation of extremely high government debt, meaning that inflation is higher than interest rates. It is repeatedly noted that the gold price is currently at a historic high. But if you compare the gold price trend over the past 40 years with other variables such as the gross domestic product of many countries, or the development of the money supply, the gold price still lags far behind these.

There is extensive physical demand. This primarily includes purchases by central banks. And this physical demand also has a lot to do with the geopolitical situation. There are a number of countries, first and foremost China, that are in the process of establishing an alternative to our dollar-based financial system. Many countries are trying to get away from dependence on the dollar. And gold plays a very important role in these alternative financial systems. Demand from financial investors has not been particularly strong over the past two years because the dollar has been strong and interest rates have risen. This demand could now return as interest rates fall.

I don't necessarily think it has that much to do with the gold price at the moment. The price of gold has risen sharply over the past two years in an environment that, according to conventional thinking, was rather negative for the gold price. What may now be helping the gold price somewhat is the uncertainty that the new US administration brings with it. What are the priorities of the new US administration in the longer term? I see tariffs less as a factor in connection with the rising gold price.

As I said, we have a great deal of uncertainty regarding the new US policies. This will result in greater volatility because it is very difficult to predict what Trump will or will not actually implement. So far, however, the market is assuming that Trump is good for equities. One of the arguments in this regard is that Trump wants to advocate deregulation. But of course you also have to realise that US equities have already performed very well since the pandemic and have become very expensive.

It is well known that Trump's priority is to focus heavily on US industry. Industry should clearly benefit from this. And banks could benefit from the deregulation plans. But in general, the market is assuming that Trump's policies could benefit many American sectors and many American companies. And when looking at market capitalisations, the prevailing opinion on the market at the moment is that small and medium-sized US companies in particular should benefit from Trump's economic policies.

This is relatively difficult to assess at the moment as long as we don't know exactly where Trump's journey will take us. Let's just take the pharmaceutical industry as an example. Until recently, it was rumoured that pharmaceutical companies could suffer under the Secretary of Health. Now there is a growing realisation that things won't be so bad after all. It's all very volatile.

The European markets did well in 2024, and the US market has done very well. The US market has gained over 20% on average, the European markets 8%. The discrepancy is already relatively high. The valuation discount of the European markets compared to the US market is historically high. This speaks more in favour of the European markets, which also outperformed US stocks in January. Of course, this does not mean that many stocks in Europe are now really cheap, but they are more attractively valued than comparable US stocks. There could now be a certain reversal here, in other words, European stocks could narrow their valuation discount to US stocks.

At the moment, views on the euro are very, very negative. The reason for this is the gloomy outlook for the eurozone economy. At the same time, opinions on the dollar are very positive due to the expectation of protectionist economic policies. But Trump has also said often enough that he thinks the dollar is overvalued. And exactly the same was the case when Trump was first elected US president. The dollar was practically at its peak when he was inaugurated as president. And after that, the dollar tended to depreciate. We could see something similar this time too.

This is undoubtedly an important issue. The refinancing needs of governments, but also of companies, will be very high over the next 18 to 24 months. In terms of liquidity, the environment for the financial markets will therefore deteriorate. Many market participants are concerned about this. In the long term, however, we are still in an environment in which tangible assets should be favoured over monetary assets. In concrete terms, this means that equities should be favoured over bonds. The supply of government bonds will increase continuously over the next few years, while the supply of quality shares will continue to decline. This is because many quality companies are being bought up, or are buying back their own shares.