Randy Walter has long warned that global financial markets are built on shaky ground. Recently, many more people are listening.

Walter is the founder and managing director of C&A Gold Merchants and has been preaching the gospel of gold as a wealth protection tool for decades. His predictions about the fading state of the world economy have largely come to be, and with rising global uncertainty, the price of gold is reaching record levels as huge tides of investors round the world flee conventional investments for the safety of bullion. What’s different this time is that even traditional havens like the US dollar and Treasuries are being dumped.

That’s why Walter reluctantly believes the price of gold will hit US$4000 an ounce next year, as predicted by an analyst cited in a recent Bloomberg report. That is a 25% increase from now – and over the past 20 years, gold’s price in NZD has risen by 798%, including a 38% increase during the last year.

He believes the trade war, the Trump administration’s shaky economic practices, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s response to all of the above has created thin ice financially for investors – and it’s not getting any thicker. They are losing faith fast in the US dollar and even US Treasury bonds, which have traditionally been a haven during times of trouble.