Yes, a good time to add a bit more IAU? I think so.

@MikeM - I can’t comment on that. I know you’ve held some precious metals and nearly asked you in another thread if you’d made any money on them. :)
They can be fun and exciting, but can also plunge rapidly and unexpectedly. If you add in my

indirect exposure through PRPFX - plus some more concentrated holdings - I’d say I’m in the 5-6% 7-9% (of portfolio) range on precious metals / miners, plus have another 1-2% invested in a predominately industrial metals miner. You’ll find strong gold bulls and strong gold bears among the pundits. So, I don’t have any strong opinion.
My guess is that like every other market that has already advanced retail investors will start throwing money at the precious metals. Then, after a bubble forms those markets will fall precipitously. Last in will get hurt the most. Albeit, we’re still in the early stages.

...I can’t wait either.

I bought GS, JPM and MTB last week. I see longer term opportunities in financials.

Giroux just moved GE from his Top 5, even Top 10, but GE +GEHC (spinoff) combo still had the weight of 1.84% of AUM on 12/31/22. So, that was down from 2.00-2.25% of AUM earlier (Edit: GE topped at 4.7% of AUM in early-2022) . I think that he will stick with GE until the last spinoff happens next year (Power Vernova). Since October low, GE has done quite well when mid-December spinoff GEHC is taken into account. When GE was his #4 or #5, it was just too much distraction for him in the media as he was asked about it in almost every media interview.

Japan's Sakhalin exception was done LAST YEAR while formulating the oil price-cap policy, https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2022/11/b7ea9d8ec6d2-us-excludes-oil-for-japan-from-russias-sakhalin-2-from-price-cap.html
The NEW price-cap exception for Japan is recent, https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/japan-breaks-with-western-allies-and-buys-russian-oil-above-dollar60-a-barrel-cap/ar-AA19qoFT

In the first two months of this year, Japan bought about 748,000 barrels of Russian oil for a total of ¥6.9 billion, according to official trade statistics. At the current exchange rate, that translates to $52 million, or just under $70 a barrel. Russia exports millions of barrels of oil a day, making Japan’s purchases a minuscule share of total Russian output.

The price cap is no longer a real cap if the 2nd richest economy needs an exception.

Here’s a look at every country’s share of the world’s $101.6 trillion economy:
Rank	Country		GDP (Billions, USD)
#1	United States	$25,035.2
#2	China		$18,321.2
#3	Japan		$4,300.6
#4	Germany		$4,031.1
#5	India		$3,468.6

China and India, both of which have declined to condemn Russia or impose sanctions over the war, became the biggest buyers of Russian crude oil last year as Western countries restricted imports and imposed sanctions.
China’s imports of Russian crude oil spiked 8 percent in 2022, the equivalent of 1.72 million barrels per day (bpd), according to Chinese customs data, making Russia the East Asian giant’s second-biggest supplier.

European Union leaders said the war has had a silver lining in terms of moving the bloc forward on targets for renewable energy. Countries that were previously reluctant to get on board with expanding renewables are finally doing so, and those on the wagon are investing more. As a result, as part of its REPowerEU package, the EU agreed to increase its targets for renewable energy to 45 percent by 2030 this week, up from a prior target of 40 percent. (The EU gets just over 20 percent of its total energy from renewables right now.) A new report from the International Energy Agency suggests the world could add as much renewable energy in the next five years as it did in the last 20 years.
...
But you can’t make silver without getting some dross. In an effort to replace Russian oil and gas in the short term, countries like Germany are reactivating some old coal-fired power plants to fill the energy gap. Countries including France, Austria, the Netherlands, and Italy are putting mothballed coal plants back into service. And EU countries are negotiating long-term contracts for gas with countries like Qatar, which policymakers said could ultimately lock these countries into buying more gas than they hope to need by the time 2030 rolls around.

[Japanese] Government data released on Thursday [Jan 19, 2023] showed that oil imports from Russia fell around 56% last year, while coal imports were reduced by 41%.
But imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) were up more than 4% in 2022.
Sakhalin-1 produces oil, while Sakhalin-2 produces both crude and LNG, and experts say access to Russian gas is what Japan is most concerned about protecting.
Last year, 9.5% of Japan’s total LNG imports came from Russia, up from 8.8% in 2021 — most of it from Sakhalin-2.
So when Japan joined a price cap on Russian oil last year with its G7 allies, the European Union and Australia, it obtained an exemption for Sakhalin-2.

Japan has almost no fossil fuel of its own and relies on imported natural gas and coal for much of its electricity.
...
“It’s not as if Japan can’t manage without this. They can. They simply don’t want to,” said James Brown, a professor at Temple University’s Japan campus. Prof. Brown, who studies Russia-Japan relations, said Japan should move to withdraw from the Sakhalin projects eventually “if they’re really serious about supporting Ukraine.”

Saudi-Led Oil Producers to Lower Output Further
A group of large oil producers led by Saudi Arabia said Sunday they would cut more than a million barrels of output a day starting next month, a surprise move that upset Washington and led to a jump in crude prices amid concerns about the global economy. The output cuts amount to about 3% of the world’s petroleum production taken off the market in seven months.
The production cut will hit an oil market that was widely seen as tightly balanced between supply and demand, meaning it could lead to a longer-term rise in prices. If higher prices last, they could stoke inflation and complicate decisions for central bankers, who are caught between trying to tame rising prices and propping up a teetering banking system.
According to people familiar with the decision, it was negotiated primarily between the Saudis and Russian to get ahead of a global slowdown and raise prices to fund Saudi Arabia’s ambitious domestic projects and replenish Russia’s reserves.
Oil prices had been trending downward since late last year on global recession fears [and] some in OPEC see oil demand taking a hit in a recession. The price moved beyond $85 a barrel after the announcement, before falling slightly.
“Given the preventive nature of OPEC decisions, there is clearly something OPEC knows about demand trends and inventories that we have yet to discover fully in overall supply and demand balances,” said [the] global head of energy strategy at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
An oil analyst at Denmark’s Saxo Bank said the decision to cut production again reflected concerns over the U.S. economy, where interest rates are widely expected to increase.

World Bank Warns of Lost Decade for Global Economy
The World Bank is warning of a “lost decade” ahead for global growth, as the war in Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic and high inflation compound existing structural challenges.
The Washington, D.C.-based international lender says that “it will take a herculean collective policy effort to restore growth in the next decade to the average of the previous one.” Three main factors are behind the reversal in economic progress: an aging workforce, weakening investment and slowing productivity.
“Across the world, a structural growth slowdown is under way: At current trends, the global potential growth rate—the maximum rate at which an economy can grow without igniting inflation—is expected to fall to a three-decade low over the remainder of the 2020s,” the World Bank said.
Potential growth was 3.5% in the decade from 2000 to 2010. It dropped to 2.6% a year on average from 2011 to 2021, and will shrink further to 2.2% a year from 2022 to 2030, the bank said. About half of the slowdown is attributable to demographic factors.
Weakness in growth could be even more pronounced if financial crises erupt in major economies and trigger a global recession, the World Bank report cautions.
Earlier this year, the World Bank sharply lowered its short-term growth forecast for the global economy, citing persistently high inflation that has elevated the risk for a worldwide recession. It expects global growth to slow to 1.7% in 2023.
The World Bank identifies a number of challenges conspiring to push down global growth: weak investment, slow productivity growth, restrictive trade measures such as tariffs and the continuing negative effects—such as learning losses from school closures—because of the pandemic.
Some view the World Bank’s projection for a lost decade as too pessimistic. Other organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think tank, expect global GDP growth to expand a more robust 2.9% in 2023.
Harvard University economist Karen Dynan said that aging populations in nearly every part of the world will be a drag on global growth, but she was more optimistic on raising productivity—output per worker.