$102,000 Profit in One Trade - The Case For Gold

As of the morning, I'm writing this on February 26, 2026, I have made about $102,000 so far and counting, or slightly less than 18% - from a trade I executed on February 2nd, 2026 - so it will be a month soon. Before I proceed, I cannot overemphasize how much this is not Financial Advice - and normally - I do tend to put strategies that people can follow if they are discerning or determined enough. To me, those things are no different than Financial Bloggers advising you to DCA into an ETF.

But this. This is definitely NOT one of those things.

In this article - I'll go over the following:

1) Some Mistakes - or rather, Some Metrics People Used to Determine Buy/Sell and the Common Errors They Make or Miss Out

2) The Case For Gold - Is It Something You Can Still Buy, Yes or No and Why Not

3) The Trade - And What's Next Gold and Silver are not a new topic, but they were fading in the background for a long time. Technically gold has had an unprecedented, ridiculously high run - but much like Japan equities, they were dwarfed by forex trading, then crypto, NFTs, crypto again... And now when overseas tensions are running higher than before, Gold is also poised for another run.

A couple of Financial Bloggers have spoken up about it, such as The Astute Parent and Loo Cheng Chuan (1M65). Both of them are against investing in Gold now. Incidentally, it's quite funny to look at their posts in hyperlink form - you can see the difference in priorities. Astute Parent: SG_Moomoo AI_16x9_260213_1

1M65: This Gold Rush is Not Safe! 70% Crash Possible! Goldman Sach You can claim it's not financial advice all you want and that's fine - I'm not condemning that. Rather, I was actually moved by the fact that they have conviction. It reminds me of my younger days. ...so of course I had to disagree with their analysis. -_-" Because Money Maverick isn't allowed to get along with people, it seems, even at my ripe old age of 34. Without further ado, let's go over it...

1) Mistakes.

a) Cycles and Averages - A lot of financial bloggers or even FAs will make financial assumptions and predictions based on averages and market cycles. This is a reasonable heuristic most of the time, particularly in stocks and bonds - but not for a commodity like gold.

If we take averages, we get terrible results where we would conceptually assume that a bull run is short and a bear run is long. If we break down a cycle into parts, we could incorrectly identify where we might be in the cycle, which is typically executed over 15 to 25 years.

But if we break the cycle into parts and understand the reason for each part, the average duration is not important.

The cycle looks similar:

Base (Bull): Gold goes sideways or a little upwards, outperformed by major assets but economic instability increases

Bull: Instability hits a breaking point and people start turning to gold more and more over time

Crash (Bear): Gold drops off like crazy.

Stagnation (Bear): Gold tends to drift lower or sideways If we look at the stagnation and base cyles, they are very similar with only minor returns on the Base side, so it's very hard to predict the difference just by numbers.

Logically, based on the time we've spent, we could incorrectly infer that the last gold cycle happened If we look deep into each phase of a cycle, the average duration of the cycle, or each phase of the cycle is not as important as what is HAPPENING in the cycle. The last time gold significantly crashed was in 2011/2012. The time before that was in 1980. That's a huge amount of time. Each time, there was a catalyst or clear reason for why gold crashed - and as a result, we can infer that a part of the cycle will end with a specific set of events, and it will not end otherwise (or take much longer, basically).

For example, in 1979, the newly appointed Paul Volcker took control of the Federal Reserve and implemented one of the most aggressive monetary tightening campaigns in modern history.

Inflation in the United States had spiralled into double digits, and Volcker made the controversial decision to crush it by dramatically restricting money supply and allowing interest rates to rise sharply. By 1980–1981, the federal funds rate had surged to nearly 20%, making cash and government bonds suddenly far more attractive than holding gold, which produces no yield.

As real interest rates turned strongly positive and confidence in the U.S. dollar was restored, the speculative demand for gold collapsed. After peaking around $850 per ounce in 1980, gold entered a long bear market that lasted for nearly two decades.

The crash was therefore not random — it was triggered by an extraordinary policy shift that fundamentally changed the monetary environment. In other words, rather than to assume outcomes through averages, we should look at the nature of the point of the cycle itself. If the cycle requires monetary tightening to move onto the next phase and it doesn't happen, that next phase may take years to come.

b) Price (of Gold):

The next mistake is usually in regard to the price of Gold - not just because Gold is at an all-time high, but the argument that a) It is unlikely it will go a lot higher b) When it does crash, it will crash significantly by 40 to 70%+. Technically...both arguments could be correct. If we base entirely off historical data, (a) is a reasonable conclusion since its not always the case that Gold will exceed its previous high. and (b) is absolutely correct if we look at history, and there's no reason why it wouldn't be the same today.

So then why is this is a common mistake? Even Astute Parent used price value to determine why he is not investing in Gold.

It's primarily because of the unprecedented nature of the events occurring. a) Central Bank Purchases: There's never been a period in all of history where central banks GLOBALLY are buying gold like they are now.

b) Debt Ratio: The US debt is higher than its ever been.

c) Dollar Dominance Reduced: The US dollar has never been more called into question, and even in Singapore we can see this as it drops to 1USD = $1.27 SGD.

We cannot assume that the past cycles will mean that globally we all will unanimously decide that gold is only worth that much. There would be minor corrections since many traders and fund managers may use those metrics to determine if they stay in gold, but it's quite unlikely that this bull run will end anytime this year.

3) Gold isn't a Real Asset:

A lot of people make their determination of gold about the purpose it serves. It has real world utility, its been considered a safe haven and a store of value of a good chunk of human history. But it also doesn't pay out dividends or appreciate in value naturally - it's speculative. So it might not be considered a real asset. And that's a reasonable conclusion. However  that logic only holds if you view assets purely through the lens of productive cash flow. Gold was never meant to be productive. It is monetary insurance.

Gold does not generate yield because its role is not to create income — its role is to store purchasing power when the monetary system is under stress. In normal environments, productive assets such as equities, businesses and real estate should outperform gold. They create value and distribute cash flows. Gold tends to underperform during those periods because capital prefers assets that actually produce something.

But when confidence in the financial system weakens, the calculus changes. Investors stop asking what produces yield and start asking what preserves value.

Gold historically performs best during periods of:

• Monetary debasement

• Negative real interest rates

• Sovereign debt stress

• Geopolitical instability
  

Sounds...familiar?

In other words, gold is not competing with productive assets. It is competing with fiat credibility.

That is why gold often moves violently during monetary regime shifts. It is not behaving like a commodity. It is behaving like a barometer of trust in the system.

And right now, that trust is being tested more than it has been in decades.

READ ALSO: Why a $200,000 Stock Portfolio is better than a $1,000,000 Property (Ongoing Article)

What is the Case For Gold?

If you're not already convinced even after reviewing the current environment - ask yourself these questions.

1) Will we print more money?

2) Will there be more interest rate cuts in 2026?

3) Will countries be swapping reserves from currency to gold?

4) Will there be more geopolitical tension?

5) Will central banks continue to buy gold?

6) Will confidence in the US Dollar increase?

The answers to these questions can only reasonably convince you that the bull run is not ending yet.

The Trade:

On February 1st, after making my determination, I decided to explore with my own portfolio.

You have to keep in mind that my assumption is that Gold could rise to at least 6200 still, which means I was only looking for an upside of a little over 15% when I first executed the trade. But I was a bit too excited because it was the first time in a long time I had studied something and derived conviction.

When I was an investment consultant, I woud experiment with my own money. This was because it is very hard to propose or suggest to clients that they should make changes you were not willing to make yourself. Obviously, your clients may be of a different age/background, but if you were them, could you risk your hard-earned money on such advice?

So I traded my entire Manulife (ML) portfolio - 5ILPs which I had purchased over the course of my career, or slightly over $600,000 - into the BGF Gold Fund. ALL of it. Not a single dollar is left untouched.

The trade was successful and I was updated that I had entered a little under $600,000 entirely into the BGF World Gold Fund.

The pictures above may be closer to 16% instead of 18% because the platform numbers haven't updated (February 23rd), while the fund has updated for February 25th. Its slightly higher at time of writing, but could go lower.

I did not adjust my Singlife/TM holdings because there wasn't Gold (last I checked) and the ML platform is ridiculously easy to do that compared to the former 2. The rest of my money is in businesses, Income-Linked Notes and crypto, so - its not like I could just go and buy some more just because I wanted to experiment.

So yes, I basically put all my money into gold and went from a little under $600,000 to a little over $702,000.

For now. I really hope it doesn't end up even worse than the worst investment I've ever made... READ ALSO: The Worst Investment I Made - Losing Almost $50,000 in Hard Earned Money

Some Caveats and Concluding Thoughts:

On a long-term portfolio, this is not as relevant as you think it is: Gold still remains speculative and there are cases where the US dollar could strengthen however briefly. However, in the longer term it doesn't seem like the US dollar will continue to retain dominance. If you look at the USD against the SGD following the dot.com bubble, USD lost significant value over time. It held briefly strong between 1.35 to 1.40, but its now plummeted to 1.27. I would personally hold gold until my target price and start to DCA out in intervals once its been hit back into Japan and Technology.

My Crypto has also been stacked, to use a poker term. I genuinely don't remember how much the initial capital was, but it had climbed up to $180,000 and then it's now at $60,000. DCA-ing into a crypto is not the same as a Unit Trust or ETF, as it turns out, because your average entry can shoot up like crazy and not recover for 5 years. -_-"

My point is that paper wins are about as relevant as paper losses - they really mean nothing until you actually exchange them for tangible goods and experiences. Most of my liquid assets over the last 4 years have gone into secured income that pays out a generous income per month to me, and that has now become a central part of my current business. I hope I will be able to talk about it soon. Money Maverick