This was another fascinating year. Perhaps it was not as eventful as 2016 (when the Brexit referendum and Trump’s triumph in the presidential election happened), but it was still very interesting. Trump officially became the President of the United States, while Emmanuel Macron won the French elections. Later this year, Trump almost unleashed nuclear war on the North Korea. And the cryptocurrencies rallied at the end of 2017, drawing the attention of the world. The last year was also a time of changes within the Fed – Powell was nominated as Yellen’s successor. But generally it was a rather politically calm and economically positive year, despite the natural disasters, which may explain the modest gains in the gold market. The conflict over North Korea did not explode, the U.S. stock market continued its upward move, and the Fed gradually tightened its monetary policy. The global economic growth accelerated and became more synchronized.

In this edition of the Market Overview, we will summarize the last year in the gold market from the perspective of its fundamentals. This analysis should help investors better understand the gold market, and draw investment conclusions for the New Year. We will also present our gold outlook for 2018, presenting the base scenario and examining some black swans or potential triggers for the rally in the gold prices. We will focus on the impact of the macroeconomic trends, the Fed’s monetary policy and the U.S. dollar value on the price of gold. Given that in the long run the gold trade is generally about the confidence in the greenback, the fate of this currency may be the biggest driver in the gold market next year.