In March, the European Commission introduced a major new initiative, claiming it as game-changing for the bloc’s growth and global competitiveness. President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the “Savings and Investment Union” (SIU), a plan that’s aimed at harnessing fresh capital—primarily from private sources—to fund strategic investments across Europe. The EU has been struggling for long time with inadequate public funding that fails to cover its chronically excess spending, as was highlighted in a report by Mario Draghi in September 2024. The bloc is estimated to need an annual investment of 750-800 billion euros by 2030 to modernize its economy, to pay for all its ambitious plans and initiatives, and to maintain its foundational socioeconomic model. The former chief of the European Central Bank warned that the current path the EU is on is one of “managed and gradual decline” that is “condemning itself to a slow agony”, and unless something changes, the Union is very likely to suffer long term economic stagnation, as well as serious challenges in terms of geopolitical relevance, security and independence.

On April 28, the entire Iberian Peninsula experienced the most extensive and severe blackouts in Europe’s living memory. Much of Spain, Portugal and the south of France were plunged into darkness for over ten hours. Thousands of train and metro passengers were left trapped for hours, and millions were left without phone or internet coverage.

Finding one’s way through the current financial landscape feels a lot like trying to climb the Matterhorn without a knowledgeable Swiss guide. For wealthy families, the stakes are even higher as complex portfolios not only span different investments (stocks, real estate, crypto, gold), but also different jurisdictions. As reported in our last post, today’s markets demand agility, clarity, and control, which is where BFI Consulting is stepping in with their modern asset reporting system.

A lot has changed in our economic, geopolitical and financial environment over the last decade. Extreme political shifts and conflicts, de-globalization, central bank interventionism, escalating public and private debt, and almost incessant global crises of one kind or another have radically changed the rules of investing, especially in the last few years. Purely macroeconomic-focused or long-term oriented investment approaches simply do not work as well as they used to and much more dynamic, hands-on and responsive strategies are called for.

For centuries, gold has served as a reliable store of value and it has functioned as a universally recognized medium of exchange, especially when all other alternatives falter. More relevantly to modern investors, however, it has consistently proven itself to be the most dependable hedge against inflation and currency devaluation, against market crashes and economic crises, and against geopolitical turmoil and uncertainty. We’ve seen this repeatedly confirmed since time immemorial, but over the last few years it has become blatantly obvious and objectively undeniable

In our last edition of our BFI InSights, we looked at the new role gold is playing as an anchor in today’s global financial system. We made the case why precious metals in general have a promising outlook for the months and years to come. Over the course of the summer, gold has moved decisively higher, pushing through some very important resistance points and currently prices are trading around USD 2’615, so in recent weeks there has been a more than 10% gain for the yellow metal. However, as explained in our last update, the action in the gold market can’t be seen as isolated from all the other ongoing developments around the world.