I think you will find that in practice the relationship of correlation is not linear. On paper yes I agree with you but in reality, our stock market has a very high makeup of foreign funds. It is these funds that could decide how we react to a US melt down whether its economy or ccy. It is a sentiment thing between greed and fear and in times of high volatility, fundamentals is out of the window when margin call or simply fear of exposure among the small and large investors.
Just have a look at GFC and how our banks were reacting to valuation. The big 4 had AAA ratings yet the sell off was severe. Can you imagine if we had a loose APRA embracing Von Hayak type model. That sell off included gold price and it was the intervention of QE that had a mad rush for the fear of hyper inflation. Some seems to have forgotten that.
Holding on to your physical with such highly stressed melt down would only protect your sanity in the knowledge that your gold had more valuation than paper stocks etc. It would be like Greece with no banks accepting credit with each other even overnight except with sky high multi-Libor padded rate if optimistic or outright NO. You won't be able to pay your grocery electronically except with cash and the practically of hammering out the gold into wafer thin strips as payment? By this time your fear of fiat paper means that you will hold on tight to the physical, again only a psychological protection?
The US would not ring the bell before the melt down and let everyone else prepare for the worse. Just fantasy land hoping for a US meltdown to save yourselves from wealth destruction. It has nothing to do with sane or logical strategy whatever one elect to hedge the black swan events. Just fear inspiring more fear in a death spiral. Welcome to the world of Emoji, the type of teenagers hanging around in groups dressed in black with the gothic look.
