What a year! This fascinating time for the global economy and the gold market began with big news from Europe. The Swiss National Bank shocked the currency market, removing the peg of 1.20 franc per euro, the European Central Bank announced its QE program, the radical left-wing Syriza won the elections in Greece (in a few months, Greece would become the first advanced economy missing the payment to the International Monetary Fund), and negative interest rates made themselves comfortable in several European countries for good. Then, the attention moved to the emerging markets. The U.S. dollar appreciated further and commodity prices continued their decline, pushing Russia, Brazil and several other countries into recession. The economic slowdown in China, devaluation of the yuan and stock market crash in Shanghai, which caused the global stock market selloff in August, raised the biggest concerns. The geopolitical situation remained unstable, especially in Ukraine and the Middle East, leading to the migration crisis in Europe, the growth of terrorism, and eventually multiple terrorist attacks all over the world (in Paris, among others). In November, the IMF added the yuan into its SDR currency basket. And finally, the Fed hiked interest rates for the first time in almost 10 years.

In this edition of the Market Overview, we summarize the last year in the gold market from the perspective of its fundamentals. This analysis should help investors better understand the gold market, and draw investment conclusions for the new year. We will present our gold outlook for 2016, focusing on the impact of the Fed’s rise on the price of gold. Given that the gold trade is generally about the Fed’s actions and confidence in the U.S. economy, the future path of interest rates may be the biggest driver in the gold market this year.