Gold had already started its run well ahead of this catastrophe that some people like Michael Burry (who just last week bought US$1.6 billion of put options against the S&P 500 and Nasdaq with end of year expiries – making up 90% of his current portfolio), who was sifting through the mortgage backed securities data in the subprime market as early as 2005, were starting to cotton on to. The commodity performed incredibly well from the early 2000’s when it was around US$260/oz, all the way through to 2011 when it broke US$1,800/oz – which occurred in a climate with persistent negative real yields and inflation.

Gold was one of the few saving graces investors had during the GFC, and the tear it continued on afterwards set off a boom in M&A across many parts of the world. 2010 saw 89 gold acquisitions with an average deal value of US$338 million for a total transaction value of over US$30 billion. While this level of activity was relatively short lived, and many miners and explorers had to hide for a few years while gold was out of favour again, the titans of the industry are back with a vengeance and are looking to lay groundwork that will set them up for decades to come.