Gold has spent a fair amount of time above US$2,000 per ounce this year, although more recently it’s pulled back.

What has demand for the yellow metal looked like in 2023? Speaking to the Investing News Network, Chris Blasi, president of Neptune Global, said he’s seen high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth buyers entering the market.

“January, February started off a little on the slow side. Then comes March, and here in the US we had this banking crisis — the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank up in New York and then most recently First Republic Bank. What we’ve seen is a large influx of what we call high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth investors,” he said during the interview.

“And what they were telling us, what we got, is they can move money around and spread it between banks, because everyone is worried about insurance coverage. But a lot of them came to the conclusion that they wanted to reduce these large cash positions they had and now they were resigned that it’s time to get in the metals market,” Blasi explained.

Large players are buying silver too, although the white metal is seeing more attention from smaller-scale investors.

In Blasi’s view, gold is in a long-term secular bull market, which means that, despite its fall back below the US$2,000 mark, it still has plenty of room to run. He said the first leg of the bull market ran from 2001 to 2011; then the second leg brought a pullback of 50 percent, with a bottom for gold in December 2015. The third leg is now taking place and could end in a parabolic blow off.

“As long as this keeps playing out … gold should be substantially higher in the next few years,” Blasi said.

He pointed out that the world is changing quickly, moving from a unipolar system to a multipolar setup.

“When you’re passing the baton from one order to the next, that is always a time of tremendous disruption and change. And that’s when gold thrives — gold thrives in chaos because it is a historic store of wealth that is outside the system, is real money,” he said.

Watch the interview above for more of Blasi’s thoughts on gold, as well as the next steps from the US Federal Reserve, the trend toward de-dollarization and fallout from the debt ceiling. He also discusses the platinum and palladium markets.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Charlotte McLeod, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Editorial Disclosure: The Investing News Network does not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the information reported in the interviews it conducts. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not reflect the opinions of the Investing News Network and do not constitute investment advice. All readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence.