On Monday, George Friedman, global-intelligence expert and chairman of Geopolitical Futures, dropped a bombshell: “I’m usually the guy to tell you about the next decade, but today I’m going to tell you about the next week. It has become apparent that the US is preparing to attack North Korea.”

Friedman—who in his long career has advised the US government and military as well as Fortune 500 companies—held the keynote speech at the annual Strategic Investment Conference hosted by investment research firm Mauldin Economics.

In the speech, he asserted that the US is very close to launching a strike on the rogue Asian nation, whose leadership has escalated its grandstanding in recent weeks.

It all started pretty harmlessly: in December 2016, after about 12 months of deliberations, the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) and the World Gold Council announced a new “Shari’ah Standard on Gold.”

The new standard was celebrated as a potentially big boost for global gold demand as it would give more than 2 billion Muslims in the world access to gold-based financial products that were previously forbidden to them.

That included vaulted gold, gold accumulation plans, gold certificates, gold-backed ETFs like GLD, and gold mining stocks.

On May 7, Marine Le Pen's defeat in France's presidential election secured an integrated EU and had many investors breathing a sigh of relief.

Had the election gone her way, French workers could have seen the devaluation of their euro-denominated pensions if Le Pen had made good on plans to quit the currency in favor of returning to the franc.

Monetary sovereignty sounds all well and good until it claims a huge chunk of your life savings.

Precious metals aren’t just used as investments and for jewelry—some of them have a wide range of industrial applications as well.

Silver, for example, is used (and used up) in a multitude of products, from solar panels to glass coatings, LED chips, semiconductors, touch screens, water purification, and more.

Silver’s big brother gold, on the other hand, has far fewer industrial uses. However, that could change very soon.

In a 1998 speech at Harvard, legendary investor Warren Buffett shared his thoughts on gold:

“[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again, and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility.”

Buffett is correct—gold doesn’t produce earnings or pay dividends. There are, however, some good reasons gold should be an essential part of every investor’s portfolio.

In the wee hours of March 27, plucky thieves stole one of the world’s largest gold coins, a 221-pound colossus named the “Big Maple Leaf” from the Bode Museum in Berlin, Germany.

The coin, which takes two to three strong men to carry, had a face value of $1 million, but at current market prices is worth around $4.5 million.

Despite its weight, which is about the same as a refrigerator or an average-size male red kangaroo, the thieves had no problems carrying the coin through the museum and up at least one flight of stairs to hoist it out of a back window.

The first round of the French presidential election takes place this Sunday, April 23… and the future of the European Union depends on the outcome.

Establishment candidate Emanuel Macron leads in the polls, but Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Front National is trailing him by only 1%. However, the real story of the past month has been the rise of far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

In the latest polls, Mélenchon sits only 4% behind the leader—and if we learned anything from Brexit and the US election, it’s that polls can be “slightly off.”

France has a two-round election process, where the two candidates who receive the most votes make it to a final showdown. It’s quite possible Le Pen and Mélenchon, both of whom are running on an anti-EU platform, could lock up the two spots.

Why should you care about French politics? Here’s why…

Since we just finished tax season, many first-time gold investors might wonder what to do about their precious metals holdings. How are they taxed, and are there any legal ways to lessen those taxes?

Precious metals like gold, silver, and platinum are considered capital assets, so you will have to pay capital gains taxes when you sell them for a profit.

For almost any asset class, the amount of time you hold them plays an important role in how much you pay in taxes.

Short-term capital gains are taxed differently than long-term capital gains—in fact, the difference can be quite substantial.

With much of the price action in gold driven by sentiment and technical analysis, you should keep an eye on the broader trends, even if you consider yourself a buy-and-hold investor.

Traders use technical analysis to predict future market moves based on recent price action. Most of it sounds complicated, but it really boils down to simple math.

One of the most commonly cited technical indicators is a moving average. Day traders often use moving averages based on very short time frames—sometimes as short as one minute—while longer-term investors refer to 50-day and 200-day moving averages to spot opportunities.

Gold had a satisfying first quarter, rising 9% since the beginning of the year. While that can be considered a good start, five events sprinkled throughout 2017 could send it much higher.