The U.S. Treasury and Fed are providing dollar/euro loans to Japan to prop up the yen and prevent Treasury sales before the election. Rickards says currency interventions like this never work in the long run; he expects the effort to fail and the yen to go much lower.
Using Jim Rogers' rule that no commodity reaches a peak without a 50% drawdown, plus fractal scale invariance, Rickards called gold's correction bottom near $3,600 from the $5,400 January peak; the actual low was around $3,900. He believes the bottom is in and maintains his $10,000 gold target, expecting a much higher move.
Rickards rejects the popular 'debasement trade' narrative that the dollar and Treasury market are about to collapse and be replaced by the yuan, a BRICS currency, or crypto. Central banks hold securities rather than currencies, and the U.S. Treasury market is the only real reserve asset at scale. Therefore, getting out of dollars is not warranted.
The US-Iran standoff is a game of chicken that Iran is winning. Iran can keep the Strait of Hormuz closed by blowing up a vessel every four or five days, which keeps shipping, insurance, and cargo owners away and leaves oil/gasoline prices elevated. The Iran-Oman deal is conditioned on US concessions that will not happen, so the Strait remains effectively closed.