I've spent two decades tracking the forces that move gold...
For 20 years I've lived inside the data, the cycles, the macro shifts...
And what's happening right now between Saudi Arabia and the Chinese is a turning point that will move the price of gold in a way we haven't seen in generations.
Because the Saudis have quietly walked away from a pact it struck with the U.S. in 1974...
A pact that quietly ran the global financial system for the past half-century.
The arrangement was simple: Saudi Arabia would price its oil only in U.S. dollars — which meant every nation on the planet had to stockpile U.S. Treasuries just to buy energy.
That single agreement is the bedrock American financial supremacy has rested on for fifty years.
And now, it's gone.
The mainstream press barely covered the unwinding of this deal...
And in the beginning, the surface looked calm.
But the cracks are now impossible to ignore...
Saudi Arabia inked a $7 billion currency swap with Beijing… Started clearing oil transactions in digital yuan… And plugged itself into mBridge, China's cross-border settlement network.
Conflict with Iran is pushing Gulf states toward yuan-denominated oil contracts...
And vessels moving through the Strait of Hormuz are now paying tolls in yuan, in crypto, in anything other than the greenback...
On both shores of the Persian Gulf, the dollar's grip is loosening... and something else is taking its place.
The collapse of this enormous, built-in global demand for dollars will rewrite how money works.
Because if crude no longer requires dollars, then the world has no reason to warehouse U.S. currency.
And when dollar demand softens… Treasury demand softens right alongside it.
Ten-year yields are already creeping toward 4.4% — the level where the machinery starts to seize up.
Weaker Treasury demand → climbing yields → Fed steps in → the printers fire up → and the dollars in your account quietly lose their muscle.
That's the chain reaction unfolding in front of us.
As the dollar weakens and foreign buyers walk away from American debt, gold has nowhere to go but up.
A sinking dollar is the most powerful tailwind gold has ever known.
But the smartest way to position for the dollar's decline isn't to load up on bullion…
There's a different vehicle for capturing gold's next leg higher...
An asset that's still priced at a dramatic discount to where gold itself is trading today.
It's gold exposure at a fraction of the cost...
Click here to see how it works.
Best,
Garrett Goggin, CFA, CMT
Chief Analyst and Founder, Golden Portfolio
Dollar General Signals Reversal With 60% Rebound Potential
Authored by Thomas Hughes. Article Posted: 6/2/2026.
Key Points
- Dollar General's Q1 results showed net income up 13.3% and diluted EPS up 12.4%, beating expectations by more than 625 basis points, while management raised full-year earnings guidance by 10 cents at the midpoint.
- The stock's long-term chart shows a nearly complete Head and Shoulders pattern, with a potential price rebound of as much as 60% from its current critical support level.
- Analysts consensus rates Dollar General a Hold with a $140 price target, implying roughly 30% upside, while institutions have accumulated shares and own more than 90% of the stock.
- Special Report: Elon Musk already made me a “wealthy man”
Dollar General’s (NYSE: DG) market still has hurdles to overcome, but it seems only a matter of time before it clears them. The company's decision to pause share buybacks, focus on growth, and improve the balance sheet is paying off.
Dollar General is reducing debt, reigniting growth, and remains on track to sustain improvement through year-end, with the impact reflected in the stock’s price action. The shares are at generational lows, trading at a deep discount while quietly signaling a reversal. The long-term monthly chart shows a nearly complete Head & Shoulders pattern, suggesting robust stock price gains ahead.
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Discover all 4 steps to help protect your bank account nowThe Head & Shoulders pattern is a powerful signal of a market in transition. The question is whether this market will transition from a downtrend to an uptrend or remain range-bound. Assuming the worst, Dollar General’s stock price could rebound by as much as 60% from the critical support level and still remain within the range. The best-case scenario is that Dollar General advances by 60%, tests resistance at the pattern’s neckline, and then continues moving higher.
The Q1 earnings release and the guidance update for fiscal 2026 gave the market exactly what it needed: proof of accelerating earnings growth. That is a key reason to believe this stock can continue rising over the long term.
Dollar General’s Mixed Results Were Strong Where It Matters Most
Dollar General issued a mixed Q1 report with revenue falling short of MarketBeat’s consensus estimate. The miss, however, was narrow and offset by seasonal factors, including weather impacts and strong margins. Even so, the $10.8 billion in net revenue was up 3.5% from the prior year, only 20 basis points (bps) weaker than expected, driven by store count and comps. Comparable sales increased 2%, led by a 1.4% increase in traffic and a 0.5% rise in average ticket, with strength across categories.
Margin details were the strongest part of the report. Dollar General’s inventory rationalization, improving store traffic, and operational improvements drove a 60 bps increase in gross margin. That improvement was only partially offset by higher expenses, resulting in faster earnings growth than top-line growth. Key details include the 13.3% increase in net income and 12.4% improvement in diluted earnings per share (EPS), more than 625 bps better than expected and supported by strong guidance.
The guidance was equally mixed and bullish for the market. The company reaffirmed its full-year revenue targets despite a weak Q1, underpinned by expectations of 2.5% comp-store growth and wider margins. While the revenue target was reaffirmed, management raised its full-year earnings target by 10 cents at the midpoint, leaving it about 10 cents above consensus. The likely outcome is that Dollar General continues to gain traction and outperforms as the year progresses.
Dollar General’s Balance Sheet Strengthens: Investors Gain Value
The only downside to Dollar General’s strategy is the pause in share buybacks, which was implemented to preserve capital. The upside is that cash flow is improving, the cash balance is growing, debt is falling, equity is rising, and dividends continue to be paid. The Q1 result produced nearly 14.75% equity growth, which more than offset the slight rise in share count. The likely outcome for fiscal 2026 is that Dollar General continues to gain traction, driven by renewed growth and balance sheet strength, and eventually resumes buybacks, possibly as soon as next year. The dividend is safe, amounting to less than 40% of earnings.
The initial analyst response following the release was cautious, but it suggests a turning point may be at hand. The first update came from Telsey, which reaffirmed its Market Perform rating and $140 price target. That view aligns with broader analyst sentiment, which pegs the stock as a Hold with a 41% Buy-side bias and a $140 price target, implying 30% upside over the next 12 months. Institutions are likewise bullish, having accumulated shares over the trailing 12 months and now owning more than 90% of the stock.
Dollar General’s primary risk is high gas prices and inflation, which continue to pressure its core consumer. While trade-down economics are helping growth today, rising inflation is still eroding spending power in the company’s core demographic and threatens to undermine the outlook. Meanwhile, big-box competitors like Walmart (NASDAQ: WMT) continue to gain traction in the dailies and consumables categories. The primary catalysts for this stock include lower oil prices and interest rates, either of which would help relieve pressure on consumers throughout the stack. In the meantime, DG will continue leaning into store count expansion, remodels, and relocations.
Rocket Companies Turns Around, But Mortgage Risk Remains
Authored by Peter Frank. Article Posted: 5/26/2026.
Key Points
- Rocket returned to profitability as acquisitions and improving housing activity strengthened results.
- AI tools and platform expansion are helping Rocket build a broader home-finance ecosystem.
- Rocket’s future remains closely tied to housing demand and mortgage market conditions.
- Special Report: Elon Musk already made me a “wealthy man”
Rocket Companies (NYSE: RKT) has pulled off a dramatic financial turnaround, thanks to the company’s strategic reinvention and the strength of homebuyers. Whether mortgage rates and the housing market continue to cooperate may determine whether potential investors will also be buying.
That’s a far cry from where the Detroit-based mortgage giant was a year ago, when it was battling losses and squeezed between high interest rates that were slowing the housing market and the cost of two major acquisitions.
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Discover all 4 steps to help protect your bank account nowNow, those acquisitions are paying off, and the housing market, though still highly volatile, has positioned the company to take advantage of any upswing.
Rocket’s Financial Turnaround Gains Momentum
For the first quarter of this year, Rocket reported total revenue of $2.94 billion, nearly triple the $1.1 billion it posted in the same quarter last year. Net income swung from a loss of $212 million to a profit of $297 million. Mortgage closings more than doubled, reaching $44.7 billion in loans.
The numbers look just as strong on an adjusted basis, a measure that strips out volatile swings in the valuations of mortgage servicing rights and provides a clearer picture of underlying business performance. Adjusted revenue climbed to $2.82 billion from $1.36 billion a year earlier, also topping expectations. Adjusted net income soared above analysts’ expectations to $422 million, or 15 cents a share, from just $80 million. And for the full year 2025, Rocket generated $6.86 billion in adjusted revenue and $628 million in adjusted net income, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of $1.28 billion.
Liquidity is also solid. Rocket ended the first quarter with $9.4 billion in total available liquidity, including $2.7 billion in cash. Those funds could come in handy as the company invests in technology, weathers market volatility, and continues returning capital to shareholders.
Rocket Reinvents Its Business Model
Today’s Rocket is not yesterday’s company. It is still a mortgage originator that sells those loans on the secondary market and keeps the servicing rights for a fee. But market cyclicality has pushed it to rethink its model.
The company made its name as Quicken Loans, an online mortgage originator that disrupted the traditional model by letting Americans apply for home loans from their couches. When it went public as Rocket Companies in 2020, it rode a refinancing boom fueled by pandemic-era interest rates near zero.
Then rates rose sharply, refinancing dried up, and Rocket’s revenue cratered. The company spent 2023 and 2024 restructuring, instituted major cost reductions, and made two strategic bets. It bought Redfin, an online real estate brokerage, in July 2025. Then it closed on Mr. Cooper, one of the country’s largest mortgage servicers, in October 2025.
The decision is paying off faster than expected. By the end of March, more than half of the combined mortgage servicing portfolio had migrated onto a unified platform. The $400 million in cost synergies the company projected by the end of 2027 are now on pace a full year early.
AI and Acquisitions Expand Rocket’s Reach
The company has also deployed AI tools that automate early-stage outreach and customer qualification. In addition to driving efficiencies, conversion rates from inquiries to loans improved by double digits. The company estimates its AI tools added about $1 billion in incremental loan volume per month in the first quarter, on top of similar gains in the prior three months.
Combined with Redfin’s platform and Mr. Cooper’s servicing book of 9.4 million loans and a servicing portfolio of $2.1 trillion, Rocket is now helping homebuyers find a home, finance it, service the loan, and retain customers for future transactions. Higher-margin products are also growing, with home-equity and jumbo loans more than doubling year over year.
Mortgage Cycles Still Create Risks
So, given its progress, what could go wrong? Rocket is still a mortgage company. If long-term interest rates rise or housing affordability falls, home originations could drop sharply. It’s happened before. And if, in the other direction, rates fall and homeowners refinance, the value of those assets drops, leading to GAAP results that look even worse. For its part, the costs of acquisitions and the volatility of its mortgage servicing rights contributed to a net loss of $234 million for 2025, equal to 5 cents per share, under GAAP guidelines.
Also, the planned integrations, though apparently going well, are never settled until complete. Migrating millions of customer accounts onto new technology systems and pushing an ambitious AI rollout always carry inherent risks.
Wall Street Sees Potential Upside
These competing realities — a company reinvented and the volatility of its market — have played out in its stock price.
Rocket shares hit a 52-week high above $24 in January but are down to around $14 currently, tracking sentiment in the housing industry more broadly. Wall Street analysts carry an average 12-month price target of around $21, implying substantial upside, and the consensus rating is a Moderate Buy. Analysts are evenly split, with nine rating the stock a Buy and nine suggesting Hold.
For investors willing to accept cyclical risk, Rocket is a serious contender when the next housing-finance upcycle arrives. Its synergies, AI integration, and liquidity are attractive. And though the company does not pay a regular dividend, it does issue special payouts.
Still, the housing market can be fickle, and those who depend on it must ride out its fortunes. If investors want stability, predictability, and steady dividends, they might want to look elsewhere in the financial sector. But if they’re looking for a company primed for growth if, or when, homebuyers come out in force, Rocket might be worth considering for a ride.
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