Gavekal-IS

January delivered a near 20% surge in metal prices, a move so rare that it has occurred only twice in the past 35 years. Despite the recent pickup in volatility, driven largely by margin-call changes in silver futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Didier says the fundamental question remains whether it is now time to take profits.

It has been a turbulent start to 2026. But beneath the geopolitical sound and fury, global macro conditions are nicely aligned for an equity bull market. In particular, notes Didier, in the third quarter of 2025, productivity growth in the US outpaced real GDP growth—a rare and potentially powerful signal.

In this week’s Gavekal-IS note, Didier looks at the movement of giant shoals of sardines to draw key lessons about the optimization of asset mixes within investment portfolios.

Ask an asset manager why they are buying equities and there is one answer you will never hear: “Because the market is rising and everyone else is buying.” Admit it, and one’s professional reputation, along with any justification for charging fees, quickly unravels. Yet behavioral effects do not disappear just because they are inconvenient for professionals to acknowledge. Such factors shape financial markets every day. In this report, Didier asks, what today is the manager’s unspoken truth?

Some of the world’s first gold coins were minted 2,500-odd years ago in modern-day Turkey to pay the sovereign’s foreign mercenaries as he sought to counter the rising Persian Empire. Didier argues that gold’s origin story is inseparable from military spending—and that this linkage may still hold true today.

Last week, Louis Gave argued that pressure on Europe to accept a peace in Ukraine forced by Washington and Moscow threatened it with an existential crisis. In this piece. Didier looks more closely at the notion of catastrophe as it shapes nature, economics and even religion. He uses a multi-disciplinary approach to get insights relevant to those who must manage money.