Juliette wanted to become a doctor during the 90s, but she was pressured towards a career in finance. Her objective was to become financially independent, and finance was a faster career track for her.

This year was surprising with the amount of political populism that began self-destructing. Increasingly the economies of the world are being run into the ground. This is the monster that central banks have created where the people often don’t see the direct consequences of the central bank and geopolitical policies. Populism may have a limited impact until these slowdowns start causing unemployment.

This year has shown that consumers can be quite resilient, and she feels that people have been reacting appropriately to negative interest rates by saving more. Central banks have not gotten the reaction that they expected from the consumer.

She sees the case for higher gold and recommends it to her clients. However, she doesn’t consider herself to be a gold bug. Global yields are collapsing, and the answer to the next downturn will eventually be co-operation by monetary and fiscal authorities by directing stimulus money to the people instead of via the financial markets. This method may work since getting money to the right pockets may improve consumer spending. Gold will benefit from inflation fears, and there are times when investors should own it tactically.

Her favorite book on investing is “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator” by Edwin Lefevre. It made her realize that for every buyer in the market, there will be a seller. Trading is not about the news but about being in a position of strength ahead of the news. For this to occur, you need to understand the underlying macro and market trends.

She is interested in the copper market and discusses how it tends to reflect the direction the markets will take. She thinks copper and world markets will rebound, but if copper makes new lows, that would be cause for concern.

Time Stamp References: 0:35 - Her early career choice. 2:30 - Market outlook and world politics. 5:40 - Where is gold headed? 7:35 - Experience and mistakes in the market. 8:40 - Favorite books and author. 10:10 - Copper's predictive powers.

Talking Points From This Week’s Episode • How new stimulus programs may eventually play out. • Holding gold at times from a tactical perspective. • Copper as a reflection of future market direction.

Juliette Declercq is the founder and chief analyst at JDI Research. She has a strong macroeconomic background and 19 years of experience in strategy and proprietary trading (JPMorgan & Morgan Stanley and at two hedge funds Idalion and Stone Milliner). Juliette has spent most of her career advising some of today’s most successful portfolio managers. Juliette Declercq has a proven ability to turn a vast amount of information (macro, geopolitical, technical, statistical, and psychology analysis) into high impact & good risk-reward trade ideas (cross-product and cross-asset). While being aware of all macro trends and studying them in-depth, Juliette believes that psychology plays as big a part in driving asset prices. She spends much time gauging consensus and the possible ways that it will swing from one narrative to the other than on the macro story itself. This process allows for consistent and precise market timing.