In Gold We Trust 2011: The Climax of the Golden Decade
16. Februar 2026
In 2026, we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the In Gold We Trust report. To mark this milestone, we are revisiting 20 years, 20 threads, with each one highlighting a vintage that helped shape how investors understand gold, money, and the global monetary system.
This time, we turn to 2010, the fourth edition of the series. Published in a narrow window between the Global Financial Crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis, the In Gold We Trust 2010 report captured gold at a pivotal inflection point, just as the Golden Decade was entering its most powerful phase.
As highlighted in the In Gold We Trust 2025 report, 2010 sits firmly in the second half of the 2000s secular gold bull market, later dubbed the Golden Decade.
While gold had already been rising for nearly a decade, this was the moment when the rally began to accelerate meaningfully. The foundations had been laid earlier in the 2000s, but by 2010, momentum was building toward what would ultimately culminate in the 2011 peak.
The 2008 Global Financial Crisis tested every asset class. Gold was no exception: it corrected sharply as liquidity evaporated and forced selling dominated markets.
Nevertheless, the key insight of the 2010 report was simple and powerful: the bull market had not broken.
Corrections were framed not as failures, but as necessary pauses within a broader secular trend. By 2010, the conclusion was clear: the crisis had acted as a catalyst, not a derailment.
By the time the 2010 edition was published, gold had achieved something remarkable: nine consecutive years of outperformance versus virtually every major asset class.
From 2001 to 2010, gold delivered approximately 16.5% annualized returns, while displaying lower volatility than many industrial commodities and outperforming global equity markets. This combination of resilience and performance gave gold a standout risk/return profile that few assets could match.
One line from the report has aged particularly well:
“The bark is repaired, but the wood stays rotten.”
Emergency measures stabilized the visible symptoms of the crisis, but structural problems remained unresolved: excessive debt, distorted incentives, and a growing erosion of trust in institutions and fiat currencies.
In hindsight, this assessment reads less like commentary on 2010, and more like a diagnosis of the last two decades.
Despite gold’s strong performance, the report forcefully rejected the idea that the market was euphoric.
The data spoke for itself:
Only around 0.8% of global financial assets were allocated to gold
Gold ETFs remained tiny compared to money market funds
Analysts’ price targets were still cautious and clustered near perceived cycle peaks
In short, gold was rising but it was far from mainstream. Naturally, markets that are not widely owned are rarely bubbles.
One of the defining metaphors of In Gold We Trust 2010 was the concept of gold as portfolio insurance.
Gold was not presented as a short-term trade or a speculative vehicle. Instead, it was framed as financial fire insurance: something you don’t buy because you expect disaster, but because you understand that disasters are part of the system.
This framing helped re-anchor gold’s role as a strategic allocation rather than a tactical bet.
A historic shift was already underway. In 2009, central banks turned from net sellers to net buyers of gold for the first time in roughly 20 years.
Countries such as India and China led the way, signaling a gradual but profound change in how official institutions viewed gold. Once again, gold was being treated not merely as a commodity, but as a monetary reserve asset. Demonstrably, such a trend continues to shape the market today.
The report leaned heavily on Austrian economics, emphasizing a fundamental monetary insight:
“Gold and silver are money. Everything else is credit.”
Money, the report argued, evolves toward the most marketable good. Simply put, one that is durable, divisible, and universally accepted. History, once again, pointed back to gold.
Another strikingly prescient theme was resource nationalism. The report warned that as prices rise and strategic importance increases, governments inevitably seek greater control over natural resources.
This dynamic was summed up by a timeless quote from Ronald Reagan:
“If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it.”
In today’s context of US–China trade tensions and renewed great-power competition, this warning feels more relevant than ever. Commodities, mining, and supply chains are once again tools of economic statecraft.
Interestingly, while the report maintained a bullish outlook, mainstream analyst consensus was already turning cautious.
Median projections at the time suggested:
2011: USD 1,163
2012: USD 1,035
2013: USD 988
With hindsight, these forecasts dramatically underestimated gold’s resilience and upside potential. Obviously, a reminder of how consensus thinking often peaks at exactly the wrong time, providing a contrarian signal.
The In Gold We Trust 2010 outlook was bold but grounded:
USD 1,600/oz as a medium-term milestone
USD 2,300/oz as the inflation-adjusted 1980 all-time high
At the time, these targets sounded ambitious. Looking back, they were remarkably prescient.
Drawing parallels with the 1970s, the report argued that secular gold bull markets often end with a blow-off phase.
In the 1970s, gold rose 24-fold. By 2010, the structural setup — debt, monetary expansion, negative real rates, and trust erosion — looked eerily familiar.
With the benefit of hindsight, In Gold We Trust 2010 captured a defining moment:
Crisis as catalyst, not conclusion
The Golden Decade entering its decisive phase
Gold’s remonetisation gaining traction
📘 Revisit the In Gold We Trust report 2010 and explore how clearly these dynamics were already laid out at the time.
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