00:00As geopolitical risk increases, so do the prices of precious metals, gold and silver,
00:08as those with money, whether it's their own or other people's, look for somewhere it might
00:11be safe.
00:12And that includes government central banks, worried about the US dollar, which has already
00:16depreciated 10% this year, while gold has gone up 45%.
00:22Tonight the gold price is at a new record high, and silver is only about a dollar away
00:26from the 1980 record high when the Hunt brothers briefly cornered the market.
00:31But there's another factor in the rise of precious metals, technology.
00:35Gold's correlation with the Nasdaq share index, which is mostly technology, has gone from
00:40very negative to very positive, and the idea is that technology, especially artificial intelligence,
00:45will lead to greater inequality and therefore more disruption and risk.
00:50Another reason to look for safety in something heavy that shines.
00:54On the share market, Broken Hill metals jumped more than 20% because it struck silver in
00:57Broken Hill.
00:59The market as a whole went up because of strong gains by CSL and Commonwealth Bank.
01:04US and Asian markets rose on Friday and today, apart from Japan.
01:07And by the way, one sour note in the New York market is the vaccine stocks, Moderna and Pfizer,
01:14which made so much money in the pandemic.
01:16The US government doesn't like vaccines anymore, so they've collapsed.
01:20And the Australian dollar is up slightly at 65.7 US cents.
01:25Medicare statistics for June came out the other day and GP visits fell, but surgery, pathology
01:30and imaging were all up.
01:32In fact, GPs have been the big losers since the COVID lockdowns.
01:36Volumes simply haven't recovered and have been virtually flat for three years, although I suspect
01:41there's a lot more telehealth going on now.
01:44And that's finance.
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