Actually · Will Media

Perché dovresti INVESTIRE nell'ORO?

·33 min·2 clips

In 2022 the international community froze Russia's $300 billion in dollar-denominated reserves overnight, triggering a global rush by central banks to hold physical gold instead.

1. 'Actually' interviews Jacopo Spennati, head of gold investment at Italpreziosi, to explain why gold rose 65% in 2025 and whether the structural case for gold remains intact. 2. Spennati is presented as the head of investment gold at Italpreziosi, a 42-year-old precious metals company based in Arezzo, Italy, with 5.8 billion euros in 2025 turnover and 120 employees. 3. The episode's central thesis is that gold's appreciation is no longer just a response to individual crises but reflects a structural loss of confidence in the global financial and monetary system. 4. Spennati recommends a 5–15% allocation to gold as a decorrelated asset — one with no counterparty risk, no issuer risk, and no geographic dependency. 5. He explains the Russia sanction example: in 2022 Russia's $300 billion in dollar-denominated strategic reserves were frozen overnight, triggering a global reassessment of dollar-denominated assets among central banks worldwide. 6. Central banks have responded by buying more than 1,000 tonnes of gold per year from 2022 through to 2026, which Spennati characterises as a strategic defence operation, not a speculative trading position. 7. Gold's short-term drops during crises (including the Strait of Hormuz tension) are explained by panic selling: gold is the first asset investors sell because it has the highest unrealised gain, triggering margin calls on leveraged financial products. 8. De-dollarization is presented with a concrete data point: the dollar's share of global trade regulation fell from 78% in 2001 to 48% in 2026 — the first time it has dropped below 50%. 9. Spennati explicitly distinguishes financial gold (ETFs, derivatives, futures that replicate the gold price) from physical gold (coins or ingots you hold and can liquidate universally), arguing that during a genuine crisis only physical gold fulfils the safe-haven function. 10. Gold versus Bitcoin: Spennati frames them as structurally opposite — gold is tangible and cannot be remotely reset; Bitcoin exists on a screen and could theoretically be wiped with a click, making it unsuitable as a crisis-phase safety asset. 11. Italpreziosi holds the LBMA certification (London Bullion Market Association), one of only 66 companies worldwide and 12 in Europe to do so; the certification covers purity, traceability, and the entire supply chain from extraction to final product. 12. The company stores gold in its own vaults in Tuscany, in collaboration with a Swiss deposit institution, and is evaluating facilities in Singapore and New York to serve its growing international industrial business. 13. The extraction fact: producing one gram of gold requires processing one tonne of rock, which Spennati uses to illustrate why gold prices, though high, are justified by production costs. 14. For silver: known gold reserves of ~50,000 tonnes against annual extraction of ~4,000 tonnes implies approximately 12 years of supply at current rates, while silver faces a six-year structural deficit where demand (AI, solar, medical) grows and supply cannot respond for 8 years after a new mine is found. 15. Asteroid mining is discussed as a theoretical threat to gold's scarcity premium, but Spennati argues extraction costs in space make it economically unviable at any foreseeable gold price, including scenarios where gold doubles or triples from current levels. 16. Italpreziosi's industrial division serves the jewellery industry and refining sector across all continents, while the investment gold division is currently more domestic but is targeted for European and eventually global expansion. 17. The purchase and resale process for physical gold through Italpreziosi is described as simple: via e-commerce, phone, chat, or email; repurchase is guaranteed including products from competitors, provided they carry recognised certification. 18. The episode is a relaxed conversational interview; the host self-deprecates as having 'gotten everything wrong on gold' and frequently translates Spennati's answers into questions a typical retail investor would ask. 19. Well suited for Italian-speaking retail investors curious about gold and silver allocation, particularly those who have only used digital financial products and have never considered physical precious metals. 20. Less useful for listeners who already invest in physical gold or for those seeking purely quantitative portfolio construction models.

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