MOST Ilonggos, I think, probably haven’t heard of Palantir, but it is one of the most famous (if not infamous) companies in the world partly for its politics, and partly for its service: Intelligence.
Palantir uses algorithms and AI (Artificial Intelligence) to gather and analyze information, and they offer their services to Western intelligence agencies.
Now, Palantir bought a large volume of gold recently, and they bought actual gold, not financial instruments that represent gold.
Gold is an important asset to have in any portfolio because it acts as a hedge in any downturn. Is the economy down? Gold assets will protect your wealth from inflation because its value is not dependent on financial institutions or government manipulation.
So when a company that specializes in intelligence gathering decides to divert a portion of its assets to buy gold, what are they hedging against? A lot of traders and investors would like to find out, but Palantir isn’t telling.
One explanation, and one which I agree with, is that Palantir has been seeing more and more “black swan” events in recent years, and they expect some kind of major event or series of events that could severely harm the global economy.
A black swan is an unanticipated (usually bad) event. An example would be the coronavirus pandemic. Another would be the ongoing American disaster in Afghanistan. No one could have predicted that a global pandemic would emerge from China in late 2019, and American generals assured everyone in the US and their allies that the Afghan army will be able to beat back the Taliban. I think Palantir expects many more such events to happen in the future, which explains the gold purchase.
Whether their bet holds true or not only time will tell, but I would suggest we copy them. Save your money and put it somewhere safe where it won’t be damaged by either inflation or deflation./PN
