I still play with leverage, and still get burnt on occasion, but...

I still play with leverage, and still get burnt on occasion, but its my 'fun' money and not betting the proverbial farm on it. Particularly with miners you can be right directionally over a medium timeframe, but get shaken out due to volatility. I see my leverage plays as somewhat protection, If I'm playing there it stops me doing too much 'dumb' with sizeable money. I also sell CSP as entries into stocks a little as well if that counts as leverage.

I think the demise of the USD is a bit overrated, have been hearing the same thing for decades. There is just no credible alternative globally with that level of liquidity. However, it has definitively been tarnished and we are seeing diversification accelerate, with Gold notably replacing the EUR as the 2nd most held reserve somewhat recently.

Forecasting is a bit of a mugs game I've come to realise, particularly in the realm of FX. USD shorts to me a bit crowded and that side of the boat is starting to feel a bit heavy in the short term. Time will tell, but at least for me the reason I am so strongly in favour of holding an allocation of gold is the currencies of the world will rise and fall, but they all make a zig zag pattern downwards against gold over time.

I agree, I expect this upcoming quarterly (and FY results) to be a sizeable re-rate in most of the producers. They have done well over the last year but relative to their margin expansion due to gold prices they aren't really any more expensive than they were 12 months ago. Its a sector that is drastically under-owned and been hated on for much of the last decade that players wanting an allocation will have to pay up.

Gold has been essentially above $5,000/oz all quarter. Most miners seemed to be getting around the $4600/oz. This quarter I expect (just eye-balling the chart) $5100/oz. Being above $5000/oz for the whole quarter isn't some 'war premium' that is going to dissipate or people discount. It begins to look more structural, and $500/oz of extra profit over last quarter will cause a few more to notice the sector.