Goldcorp founder Frank Giustra said during a New Orleans investment conference that he would not rush to sell gold as long as the global order remains fragile and political trustworthiness and goodwill in the banking system have not fully returned. In his view, the current gold price is not being driven purely by speculative sentiment. Persistent central bank accumulation is building a thick floor of support for the market. At the same time, he expects major mining companies to be forced to step up acquisitions of smaller miners in the coming years to replenish reserves, while accommodative monetary policy may return as a policy option as risk events recur.
The investor, who has spent more than four decades in mining and finance, said the market appears calm on the surface but is filled with potential risk events. If any of them are triggered, policymakers may turn back toward a looser monetary environment. He believes that for a considerable period, global markets will still see multiple rounds of quantitative easing. The reasons are not complicated: geopolitical conflict, fiscal pressure and adjustments in the monetary system are pushing central banks to reallocate assets, and gold is one of the core tools in that process.
Giustra pointed to Iran as the most important external variable in the near term. He said the market is overly optimistic about the prospect of de-escalation and may be underestimating the impact that further conflict could have on energy and the global economy. On the day of the interview, Brent crude briefly rose above $110 a barrel, reflecting traders' concerns about supply disruption and regional risk. If the situation deteriorates further, he said, oil prices could climb higher and put deeper pressure on the global economy, possibly raising recession risk.
Still, he did not completely rule out a diplomatic resolution. Giustra said that although U.S. strategy is controversial, backchannel communication has not been broken off, and both sides are looking for some kind of acceptable arrangement. The real uncertainty is whether new attacks could occur before a final easing. For him, that remains an important source of short-term market volatility.
In the market moves that followed the interview, oil prices swung sharply. On November 2, traders bet again on diplomatic cooling, and Brent crude fell about 7.6% in a single day, retreating to $104.77 a barrel. On November 3, reports emerged of a U.S. move against Iran-linked targets, and oil prices again saw obvious volatility. The rapid switching in energy prices showed that the market remains in a highly sensitive state.
Beyond external conflict, Giustra also sees U.S. domestic politics as an important variable affecting asset prices. He said Republicans are facing a difficult situation as midterm elections approach. Polls themselves are becoming harder to use as a clean guide to actual voting behavior, but the seat landscape suggests the House could see large shifts and the Senate race is also unfavorable to Republicans. Market prediction data showed the probability of Democrats winning the Senate rising, while control of the House is more likely to tilt toward Democrats.
He expects the election result may not land smoothly, with disputes, accusations and investigations potentially following. If Democrats gain more power, Washington could enter a tougher oversight cycle, and government efficiency may be dragged down. In his view, the core issues voters care about are not abstract. They are mainly the cost of living and the sense of corruption in public governance. These two emotions will directly affect the political landscape and, in turn, the market pricing of fiscal, monetary and risk assets.
On the gold logic, Giustra attributed long-term support to war costs and currency dilution. He noted that U.S. war spending over the past two decades and more has been enormous, with academic estimates putting the cumulative cost of related conflicts near $8 trillion. Fiscal consumption on that scale does not simply disappear. It is ultimately absorbed through looser monetary conditions, higher debt levels and weaker purchasing power. Once the dollar is persistently diluted, he said, gold becomes a more direct hedge and store of value. That is not an abstract theory, but a practical result seen in long-term capital flows.
Central bank behavior is reinforcing that judgment. Industry statistics show that global central banks net bought 321 tonnes of gold in the third quarter, the fastest pace of accumulation since 2024. That buying happened while gold prices were still well below their January highs, suggesting the official sector is not entering only when prices surge. It is adjusting reserve structures over a longer horizon. Giustra said the trend toward de-dollarization will not be completed overnight, but it is gradually changing the demand base for gold.
On the price level, gold touched a historical high of $5,589.38 an ounce in January before pulling back toward the area near $4,000. Giustra does not believe this correction means a reversal of the long-term trend. For him, the point of holding physical gold is not short-term trading, but preserving wealth across cycles. He advised investors who are genuinely allocated to gold to continue holding, because the asset's core function is to hedge against institutional risk, currency depreciation and unpredictable political events, not to chase short-term gains and losses.
His view on mining companies is similarly optimistic, but he emphasized that the industry's structure will change. Giustra recalled that in 2001, when gold was below $300 an ounce, he and his partners traveled to Toronto, New York, London and Zurich to pitch the case for a return to gold to institutional investors, and almost no one bought it. Market sentiment was cold, and bullishness on gold was seen as untimely. Later, when he helped raise $100 million for Wheaton River to acquire the Luismin gold and silver mine in Mexico, the process was difficult. But a year after that, a $250 million financing for the Alumbrera project in Argentina became so oversubscribed that the roadshow had to end early.
He described current market sentiment as clearly improved, but still short of full-blown euphoria. Even when gold approached $5,600 an ounce in January, he said he did not see the broad speculative fervor typical of a bull market at the conference. In his view, a true market party has not yet arrived because U.S. institutional investors still keep some distance from gold, and some still treat gold allocation as an alternative asset class rather than a mainstream holding. Once that capital enters on a large scale, trading volumes will expand rapidly, and only then will the market fully appreciate the breadth of a gold bull.
At the same time, cost pressure on mining companies is rising. Agnico Eagle disclosed on October 28 that diesel costs at its Nunavut operations were about 45% higher than budget, while full-year all-in sustaining costs rose nearly 24% from the previous year. Giustra said he still holds positions related to Agnico because he believes gold prices are unlikely to fall sharply. Even if there are short-term corrections, he said the downside is limited. He also holds shares of Colombian miner Aris Mining, which has set a long-term target of producing about 1 million ounces a year, though project progress still depends on permit approvals.
In his view, large miners are still waiting, but declining reserves and rising costs will eventually force them to turn to acquisitions. Whether in gold or copper, the industry faces similar pressure. Giustra is especially bullish on the long-term opportunity in copper, saying the global copper market could face a clear supply gap, and that gap would push more capital into upstream resources. Compared with gold's monetary attributes, copper more directly reflects real demand from energy transition, grid construction and industrial expansion.
On new investment regions, Giustra is looking toward Colombia. He said the country's new government is working more actively to attract foreign investment, especially in mining and oil and gas, where it has sent stronger signals. On September 8, the United States and Colombia signed a critical minerals framework agreement. On October 9, Copper Giant, another company in which he is involved, began cooperating with Colombia's national mining agency on contracts for strategic mining areas, involving parcels near the Mocoa project. These developments show that Latin American resource countries are re-entering the view of global capital.
Speaking about his personal experience, Giustra said wealth itself is not the endpoint of life. At age 39, after serving as chairman and CEO of Yorkton Securities, he chose to retire. But soon after, the Bre-X scandal erupted, and the market entered a long slump. The retirement he had planned quickly lost its appeal. He then founded Lionsgate, which he described as one of the most difficult ventures of his life. That entrepreneurial experience gave him a deeper understanding of cash flow, organizational management and risk boundaries.
He said the real question after success is what to do next. For him, the answer gradually shifted toward philanthropy. Since 2007, he has devoted significant resources to poverty-reduction projects, with cumulative donations of about $200 million. He mentioned that his father had been a nickel miner in Sudbury and at first did not believe the wealth was real. Later, his father worried that he would spend it away. Giustra explained that he was actually very conservative, but had simply spent a long time working in high-risk industries. For him, gold, resources, political risk and his own story of wealth all point to the same reality: what is truly scarce is not one more price rise, but the ability to preserve long-term value in an uncertain world.
