On this day in May 1578, Martin Frobisher sailed out of Harwich on the first of three exploratory trips to Canada. He thought he had made it REALLY big! He returned with rock samples that gleamed a bright yellow hue in the sunlight. On his third sailing, he brought back hundreds of tons of the stuff. Gold? Nearly… but not quite. It turned out to be Iron Pyrite, now better known now as Fools Gold. Legend has it that the rocks were crushed and used for highway work. Hence the spread of the ‘fake’ news at the time that the streets of London were paved with gold.

The hero of the story would be absolutely gutted now as the price of gold on Friday evening was £45.07 per gram having peaked on 18 May at £46.76 per gram. To put that in some context, just one of the 12.4 kg bullion bars stolen in the original 1969 Michael Caine film, The Italian Job, which would have been worth less than £6,000 at the time, would now be valued at over £550,000. Oh… and how the bullion dealers just love a good global crisis, don’t they? The price is a one way bet, until of course, it isn’t. As an example, on 1 January 2020, pre-coronavirus, the price of gold was £36.80 per gram which means that there has been a 22% increase over the past five months alone. Compare that with the FTSE 100 which has fallen from 7,604 to 6,077 (-20%) having previously hit 4,993 (-34%) on 23 March. And property which has, well… also fallen… but, like everyone else, we are not yet quite sure by how much. The MSCI All Property Q1 returns showed a capital loss of just 2.6% over the quarter and it is probable that the valuers will apply a similar mark-down over Q2. But more the question is where will they alight? In both the three year crisis periods between 1990-92 and 2008-10 they fell in aggregate by over 30%. The latest IPF consensus forecast indicates an aggregated three year loss of just 10%. However, given the severity of the country’s economic circumstances, if that really proves to be the case, it conjures up images of another classic film… The Great Escape.

You may have thought that the Venezuelan Government would be rubbing their hands with glee (and sanitiser). After all, a large part of their gold reserves are held in the trusted hands of the Bank of England, who is the world’s second largest custodian of gold behind the New York Federal Reserve. But the request for their gold to be returned has fallen on deaf ears. The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street has politely told them to whistle for it. The UK, and about 60 other countries, believe that Mr Maduro rigged the last presidential election two years ago and they suspect he will spend the money on sweets for himself and not for the general betterment of the country. And to be fair, as from tomorrow, the risk of this happening has risen hugely. June is National Candy month when we are supposedly expected to fill our faces with all sorts of confectionery. (Who sets up these national days?) Anyway, Mr Maduro is sufficiently cross to have served the Bank with a law suit for £1 billion. If he wins, The Weekly hopes he has something rather more robust than a Mini Cooper in which to transport the bullion back home.

The saying goes… charity starts at home. But in recent times for many private investors securing a charity as their shop tenant has been a life-saver/only option. There are now 11,200 of them across the UK run by 233,000 volunteers and (under normal circumstances) they would expect to generate about £300 million a year. But of course 2020 is anything but a normal year. And, adding to their challenges, the sector is bracing itself for a massive influx of clothes, books and odds-and-ends, as well-meaning folk complete their Spring cleans. Brilliant… except this may be a classic case of ‘too much of a good thing’ as the shops are unlikely to have enough space to quarantine all the donations for the required 72 hours! But it most certainly isn’t just the big charities who are up against it. As many readers will know, St Bride’s Managers are closely associated with Boost, a charity which funds sports programmes for the disabled and most vulnerable. Over the past fortnight, we have made a (virtual) trip around the UK and Southern Africa checking out how the twenty-seven projects we support are coping. With just one exception (a golf project for the visually impaired) they are all still firmly locked down. And, whilst hope springs eternal, the overriding mood in the sector seems to have moved from reconciliation to frustration and now, in many cases, to desperation. There have been no marathons or village fetes, which are so often the life-blood of small charities. Boost has always received a large number of funding applications, but the number now pleading for money is ridiculously disheartening.

If that has left you speechless, you may or may not welcome the fact that today is also National Speak in Complete Sentences Day. This means that acronyms, which are a key part of daily life for regular Twitter users, should be avoided. For example ‘’GAS 2U | .02 | IMHO, ARE = ADIH’’ translates into ‘’Greetings and salutations to you. Here is my two pennies worth. In my humble opinion, an acronym rich environment is another day in hell.’’ So on that jolly note: ‘’NJOY YR U | TC | 1/52’’ which means;