Jim Rickards just laid out one of the most bullish gold cases of late 2026, and the core of it is not a chart pattern.
It is a balance sheet trick hiding in plain sight, plus a Treasury that now talks like it has a war chest as large as the Pentagon. Gold had already survived a brutal slide from about $5,400 an ounce down to a low tick near $3,900. It then clawed back toward $4,700 before a hawkish Kevin Warsh speech knocked it around again.
“Possibly before the end of the year, but sooner than later… if it’s mid 2027, it doesn’t matter that much. It’s coming soon.” The reasons he gave are the same ones that have been building for years. Central banks are still net buyers. Mine supply is still flat. The geopolitical map is, in his words, “practically standing on its head.” And for countries that fear U.S. sanctions, gold is still the clean alternative to Treasuries. Then he connected Scott Bessent, the Treasury General Account, and the official U.S. gold hoard in a way that should make every metals investor sit up. The Treasury owns roughly 8,133 metric tons of gold. The Fed still carries gold certificates on its books at the old statutory price of about $42 an ounce. Market gold is more than 100 times that level. Rickards said one phone call could change the accounting. “All the Fed and the Treasury would have to do, if the Treasury called the Fed, one phone call from Scott Bessent to Kevin Warsh and said, Hey Kevin, I’d like you to mark up the asset. And Kevin could do that. It’s just an accounting entry.” Mark those certificates closer to $4,500 an ounce and the math, he said, is roughly a trillion dollars. That credit would land in the Treasury General Account, the government’s checking account at the Fed. That is cash already collected, not new bonds sold into a stressed market. “That would give the Treasury a trillion dollars of spending money in the financial war on Iran without issuing any debt.” Bessent has already framed Treasury as a weapons shop, not just a debt office. “He said, in effect, the Treasury has as many weapons as the Pentagon.” Rickards also noted that the certificate quantity lines up almost exactly with the Treasury’s physical gold. That is why Washington has not been a seller since around 1980. The gold has to stand behind the paper. Warsh’s hawkish tone may sting gold for a few sessions. Rickards treated that as noise.“In the short run, that’s a little bearish for gold, but only in the short run.” His bigger point is that the fundamentals never flipped. Gold found a floor near $4,500 and is still hanging in there while official buyers keep accumulating and mine output refuses to surge.
A revaluation of the U.S. gold certificates would not just be an accounting footnote. It would scream to the world that the metal on the Treasury’s books is worth what the market already says it is. That is the bullish punchline. Paper gold on the Fed’s balance sheet is still priced like 1973. Spot gold is living in 2026.
If Bessent and the Fed ever close that gap, a trillion dollars of new TGA firepower appears without a single extra Treasury auction.
It is a balance sheet trick hiding in plain sight, plus a Treasury that now talks like it has a war chest as large as the Pentagon. Gold had already survived a brutal slide from about $5,400 an ounce down to a low tick near $3,900. It then clawed back toward $4,700 before a hawkish Kevin Warsh speech knocked it around again.
Rickards was unfazed.
“Absolutely I expect it to go a lot higher.” He said the timeline is not some distant five year fantasy:“Possibly before the end of the year, but sooner than later… if it’s mid 2027, it doesn’t matter that much. It’s coming soon.” The reasons he gave are the same ones that have been building for years. Central banks are still net buyers. Mine supply is still flat. The geopolitical map is, in his words, “practically standing on its head.” And for countries that fear U.S. sanctions, gold is still the clean alternative to Treasuries. Then he connected Scott Bessent, the Treasury General Account, and the official U.S. gold hoard in a way that should make every metals investor sit up. The Treasury owns roughly 8,133 metric tons of gold. The Fed still carries gold certificates on its books at the old statutory price of about $42 an ounce. Market gold is more than 100 times that level. Rickards said one phone call could change the accounting. “All the Fed and the Treasury would have to do, if the Treasury called the Fed, one phone call from Scott Bessent to Kevin Warsh and said, Hey Kevin, I’d like you to mark up the asset. And Kevin could do that. It’s just an accounting entry.” Mark those certificates closer to $4,500 an ounce and the math, he said, is roughly a trillion dollars. That credit would land in the Treasury General Account, the government’s checking account at the Fed. That is cash already collected, not new bonds sold into a stressed market. “That would give the Treasury a trillion dollars of spending money in the financial war on Iran without issuing any debt.” Bessent has already framed Treasury as a weapons shop, not just a debt office. “He said, in effect, the Treasury has as many weapons as the Pentagon.” Rickards also noted that the certificate quantity lines up almost exactly with the Treasury’s physical gold. That is why Washington has not been a seller since around 1980. The gold has to stand behind the paper. Warsh’s hawkish tone may sting gold for a few sessions. Rickards treated that as noise.“In the short run, that’s a little bearish for gold, but only in the short run.” His bigger point is that the fundamentals never flipped. Gold found a floor near $4,500 and is still hanging in there while official buyers keep accumulating and mine output refuses to surge.
A revaluation of the U.S. gold certificates would not just be an accounting footnote. It would scream to the world that the metal on the Treasury’s books is worth what the market already says it is. That is the bullish punchline. Paper gold on the Fed’s balance sheet is still priced like 1973. Spot gold is living in 2026.
If Bessent and the Fed ever close that gap, a trillion dollars of new TGA firepower appears without a single extra Treasury auction.
And gold, already the asset of last resort for sanctioned nations and restless central banks, gets another official stamp that the old $42 fiction is over.
Rickards is not waiting five years for that story to matter. “This is something I expect in a relatively short period of time.”
