I’ve spent my career studying the gold cycles…

For the past 20 years I've buried myself in my research...

And what’s unfolding right now in the Persian Gulf is the end of a cycle that will affect the price of gold like nothing before it.

Because Saudi Arabia just abruptly terminated a deal it made with the U.S. back in 1974...

This deal single-handedly controlled the global financial system for the last 50 years.

It was an agreement that Saudi Arabia would sell oil exclusively in U.S. dollars – forcing every country on Earth to hold U.S. Treasuries.

That system has been the foundation of American financial dominance over the past five decades.

There was virtually nothing reported about the end of this agreement...

And at first, nothing changed.

But now the consequences are becoming undeniable...

Saudi Arabia signed a $7 billion currency swap with China… Began settling oil in digital yuan… And joined mBridge, China’s cross-border payment system.

The war in Iran is driving Gulf nations to settle oil deals in yuan...

And tankers are being forced to pay tolls for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in yuan, cryptocurrency, or basically any denomination that's not the U.S. dollar...

At both ends of the Persian Gulf the dollar system is being dismantled... even replaced.

This removal of massive global demand for dollars will rewrite the rules of global finance.

Because if oil doesn’t require dollars, the world doesn’t need to hold them.

And when demand for dollars falls… Demand for Treasuries falls with it.

Yields on the US ten-year Treasury are pushing toward the 4.4% danger line — where the system starts to break down.

Falling treasury demand → rising yields → Fed intervention → money printing → the loss of your purchasing power.

That’s the sequence playing out today.

As the dollar pulls back and countries step back from buying more US debt, gold has to reprice higher.

A declining dollar is the single strongest driver of the gold price.

But the best way to play the decline of the US dollar is not to buy physical gold…

There's an alternative way to leverage gold's continued rise...

Using an asset that still trades at an extreme discount relative to gold's current price.

It's like buying gold for pennies on the dollar...

Click here to learn more.

To your wealth,

Garrett Goggin, CFA, CMT
Chief Analyst and Founder, Golden Portfolio

Best Buy’s Turnaround Is Gaining Traction, But Wall Street Still Needs Proof

Submitted by Peter Frank. Publication Date: 6/30/2026.

Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) is doing what many thought unlikely.

After a pandemic-fueled surge came and went, the company is showing signs of stabilizing sales and gaining online momentum. Rather than becoming another big-box casualty, it is focused on improving margins and expanding its business. It is also maintaining strong profitability despite sluggish consumer electronics demand.

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Porter Stansberry nearly canceled the entire project. When he first saw the claimed returns - only one down year in nearly two decades and total gains of almost 2,000% - his immediate reaction was disbelief.

It took a trusted friend's personal vouching for Emmet Savage and a face-to-face trip to Ireland to change his mind. The full documentary, Investigating Project Prophet, is now live.

Watch the full story and see the verified track record for yourself

In fact, the most recent three-month results came in above most analysts’ expectations. Comparable store sales rose, and management reiterated full-year guidance with enough detail to suggest the trend has improved.

Investors who had written off the company as too old-fashioned may be surprised by the evidence. Whether now is the time to buy the stock depends largely on what happens next.

Best Buy Delivers Better-Than-Expected Results

Best Buy’s first fiscal quarter, which ended on May 2, tells a solid story of incremental progress across several key initiatives.

Revenue beat expectations and reached $8.94 billion in the quarter, up from $8.77 billion a year earlier and reversing a fourth-quarter slide during the key holiday season. Adjusted diluted earnings per share climbed to $1.28 from $1.15, also above analyst estimates. Reported net earnings climbed more than one-third to $276 million from $202 million a year earlier.

Comparable sales rose 2%, more than the company had anticipated and in contrast to a 0.7% decline in the year-ago period. Domestic revenue increased 1.5% to $8.25 billion, with domestic comparable sales up 1.8%.

Operational results were also encouraging. Operating income reached 4.1% of revenue, the company’s domestic gross margin expanded to 23.7% from 23.5%, and adjusted selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses as a share of domestic revenue edged down to 19.3% from 19.4%.

Those were not dramatic changes, but in retail, fractions of a percentage point matter. Extracting more margin from slightly more revenue points to positive momentum, even if the headline numbers do not suggest a major shift.

New Growth Businesses Are Gaining Momentum

Where the growth came from is perhaps more important than the growth itself. The company said its biggest contributors to comparable sales gains were gaming, computing, mobile phones, and services, categories with momentum. In contrast, sales of consumer electronics slipped slightly while appliances fell nearly 14%.

The recent numbers also provided proof that the company’s strategy is working. Best Buy Ads, which promotes brands and products through Best Buy’s customer base, and the company’s online Marketplace, which hosts third-party sellers, both delivered strong performances. For lines of business that barely existed a few years ago, the company is expanding its profile beyond TVs and computers.

Results from the company’s international operations were also encouraging. Revenue in that segment rose 7.3% to $687 million, led by 4.7% sales growth, with the rest attributable to favorable foreign exchange rates.

Wall Street Remains Cautious

Best Buy is also regaining investor attention. Shares are up more than 16% since the start of the year, but the stock still trades below $80, well under its level above $100 less than two years ago and below its 52-week high near $85.

Even with the recent results, analysts remain cautious. Of the 22 analysts following the company, the average rating is Hold on the stock. Six analysts say Buy, 14 suggest Hold, and two recommend Sell.

With a 12-month average price target of $79.50 per share, analysts see only limited upside from recent trading levels.

Risks Continue to Limit the Upside

The Hold recommendation also reflects a few other factors.

Best Buy raised its quarterly payout by 1 cent to 96 cents per share in March and paid $202 million in dividends in the first quarter. That represents a yield of more than 5% based on current prices.

But the company’s guidance for 2027, though solid and suggesting the improvement is durable, is roughly flat compared with the results reported last year.

The bear case has also not completely disappeared. The retail sector is notoriously volatile. And with the housing market not offering much support, the decline in appliance sales, which now represents 10% of its business, is not likely to reverse anytime soon.

Broader competitive pressure from e-commerce, warehouse clubs, mobile carriers, and direct-to-consumer brands is also as intense as ever. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT), Costco (NASDAQ: COST), and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) all compete for the same shoppers.

Another question hanging over the company is the recent turnover in senior management. Best Buy changed both its future chief executive officer and its chief financial officer within a short period.

The company has announced that Jason Bonfig, who oversees merchandising, ecommerce, marketing, supply chain, Best Buy Canada, and Best Buy Ads, will succeed Corie Barry as CEO at the end of October. The company’s chief financial officer will also step down at the end of July.

Best Buy's Comeback Still Needs More Proof

Patient investors attracted by the dividend and the company’s leading brand are likely paying attention. With execution improving and profit pools expanding, Best Buy is making a credible case. Profits are up, and its efficiency strategy appears to be working.

Other investors may want more proof. A leadership transition and a muted sales trajectory make a quick run-up unlikely in the near term. Waiting for results from another quarter or two may be the smart move to confirm the comeback is real.

Microsoft's Boring Stock Story May Be Its Biggest Strength

Submitted by Chris Markoch. Publication Date: 6/22/2026.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is down approximately 20% over the last 12 months, and much of the news surrounding the company has been negative.

There have been layoffs, significant ongoing capital expenditures to support its artificial intelligence ambitions, cost pressures in its gaming division, and an ongoing transformation in Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI.

A letter from Shannon Stansberry (Ad)

Porter Stansberry nearly canceled the entire project. When he first saw the claimed returns - only one down year in nearly two decades and total gains of almost 2,000% - his immediate reaction was disbelief.

It took a trusted friend's personal vouching for Emmet Savage and a face-to-face trip to Ireland to change his mind. The full documentary, Investigating Project Prophet, is now live.

Watch the full story and see the verified track record for yourself

That’s created significant noise around the company and takes away from the fact that the business is doing just fine. 

Significantly, investors are only paying about 22x earnings to own MSFT. That has some investors crying foul due to the company’s self-reported $80.1 billion in capital expenditures in the nine months ending March 31, 2026.

But there’s more nuance to that story than may appear. And that’s where the boring but beautiful story begins.

Microsoft's AI Spending Is Backed by Strong Cash Flow

It's fair to point out that Microsoft's free cash flow (FCF) is down. Operating cash flow over that nine-month stretch mentioned above was $127.5 billion, which means CapEx alone consumed roughly 63 cents of every dollar of operating cash generated. That's compared to about 51 cents in the prior-year period.

But there’s an equally compelling counterargument that needs to be considered in an honest discussion: Microsoft is funding the buildout primarily through the cash machine it already runs, not by mortgaging the balance sheet.

In fact, long-term debt is actually shrinking. The $80 billion CapEx isn't leverage-fueled speculation; it's a company deploying its own cash to build infrastructure it expects to monetize. That should bring investors to the company’s nine-month net income, which hit $98 billion.

The takeaway is that Microsoft’s cash generation engine isn't under stress. Perhaps more importantly, the company’s AI business surpassed an annual revenue run rate of $37 billion in the last quarter. That was up 123% year over year (YOY).

Azure grew 40%, and contracted future revenue was up 99% YOY to $627 billion. That backlog is the story behind the infrastructure spending. Management is guiding for roughly $190 billion in capital expenditures for calendar year 2026 and simultaneously reporting demand that continues to outpace capacity.

Microsoft's Dividend Growth Story Is Easy to Overlook

But something else has been going on behind the scenes over the last 23 years. That’s the number of consecutive years that Microsoft has increased its dividend payment.

Many investors will yawn at a yield of just 0.95%. However, the more salient number is the average annual growth rate of over 10% in the last three years. That's resulted in an annual payout per share of $3.64. Both numbers are well supported by a payout ratio of around 18% based on next year’s earnings estimates.

It may not mean much to say that Microsoft will be a Dividend Aristocrat in two years. But the company’s path to that title hasn’t come at the expense of growth. In the last 10 years, MSFT has delivered a total return of over 780%, and obviously, with a dividend yield under 1%, virtually all of those gains have come from stock price appreciation.

What makes the dividend story particularly compelling right now is the timing. Microsoft's next annual dividend increase is likely to be announced alongside its fiscal Q4 earnings report, due in late July. Investors who buy before that announcement lock in a lower cost basis on a growing income stream. That's a straightforward value proposition that tends to get overlooked by investors who are fixated on CapEx.

MSFT's Valuation Looks Increasingly Attractive

MSFT’s 20% decline in 2026 has quietly created one of the more attractive entry points Microsoft has offered in years. At roughly 22x forward earnings, MSFT is trading approximately 24% below its 10-year average price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of around 31x.

Investors can choose to look at MSFT as a stock in distress. However, a more accurate framing may be to view it as a company being repriced because the market is impatient with infrastructure spending that hasn't yet fully shown up in free cash flow.

Microsoft’s business, however, hasn't missed a beat. Over each of the three most recent quarters, Microsoft posted 18% revenue growth. Operating margins expanded year over year in each of those same periods. Net income for the trailing 12 months recently crossed $125 billion.

Are those the numbers of a company in trouble? It doesn’t seem so. They look more like the numbers of a company transitioning from a software giant into a cloud and AI infrastructure platform. That transition is measurably ahead of schedule.

For investors who want exposure to AI without paying the speculative premiums attached to pure-play names, Microsoft is an unusual combination. It's a business growing at 18% annually, returning capital through buybacks and a growing dividend, with a balance sheet that carries more cash than long-term debt and a contracted backlog approaching two-thirds of a trillion dollars.

The noise around the stock may be real—but it’s also masking the opportunity.