The hard asset decade has begun – Do you own enough? [Video]

Gold moved first. Industrial Metals followed. Energy is repricing now. Agriculture could be next. 

With Brent testing a potential new support zone near $97–$100, Diesel close to record highs and UBS advocating diversified Commodity exposure, 2026 may ultimately be remembered as the beginning of something much bigger. 

That is the thesis behind The Gold & Silver Club’s transition from “The Year of Hard Assets” to “The Hard Asset Decade.” 

The latest moves in Oil offer a compelling illustration. 

After Saudi Arabia restarted its strategically important East-West pipeline and expectations of improved Middle Eastern supply eased immediate concerns, Brent fell towards $97 a barrel. 

But, it did not stay there. 

Over the following two trading sessions, buyers returned aggressively – driving Brent almost 12% higher – with prices surging back above $108 a barrel. 

The significance should not be underestimated. $100 Oil, once viewed as an extreme price is increasingly behaving like support rather than resistance. 

The message from the physical market is becoming difficult to ignore: 

Scarcity is establishing progressively higher prices for the resources the global economy cannot function without. 

Commodity Supercycles do not send every Hard Asset vertically higher at exactly the same time. 

Leadership rotates. Then the scarcity trade broadens. 

Precious Metals can move first as traders respond to inflation, debt, currency concerns and geopolitical instability. 

Industrial Metals follow as infrastructure investment collides with constrained mine supply. 

Energy then becomes increasingly important because extracting, processing and transporting almost every physical resource requires enormous amounts of fuel and electricity.

Eventually those pressures can reach Agriculture. 

History offers an important precedent. 

During the great 2000s Commodity boom, Oil and Metals were already experiencing powerful advances before Agricultural Commodities began their major surge in 2006. GSC Commodity Intelligence subsequently identified rising Energy and Fertilizer costs as important forces amplifying Agricultural prices.  

“This is how scarcity spreads through a Commodity Supercycle,” says Lars Hansen, Head of Research at The Gold & Silver Club. “Gold can expose the monetary problem. Industrial metals expose the infrastructure problem. Energy exposes the physical supply problem. Agriculture is where all of those pressures can ultimately collide.”

The most important Energy price in the world right now may not even be Brent Crude Oil. 

It may be Diesel. 

U.S Diesel prices reached a record national average of approximately $6.53 a gallon on 22 September. In addition, U.S distillate inventories, which include Diesel and Heating Oil, fell to their lowest levels for this time of year in records dating back to 1982. Analysts at GSC Commodity Intelligence expects inventories to remain below the five-year low through most of 2027. 

That matters because Diesel powers the physical economy. 

Trucks. Tractors. Harvesters. Mining fleets. Construction machinery. Freight networks. 

When Diesel becomes scarce and expensive, the damage does not stop at the pump. 

It moves into transportation, mining, manufacturing, farming and ultimately into food prices. 

“Hard Assets consume other Hard Assets,” Hansen says. “You need Energy to mine Copper. You need enormous amounts of electricity to produce Aluminium. You need Diesel, Natural Gas and Fertilizer to grow food. One shortage can become the catalyst for the next.” 

That makes Agriculture potentially one of the most underappreciated and highly lucrative opportunities heading into the next phase of the Hard Asset cycle. 

A global food crisis is not inevitable. Harvests can improve, acreage can expand and high prices can restrain demand. 

But Agricultural supply operates according to physical and biological timelines. 

You cannot print another harvest. 

A missed planting window cannot be repaired with an interest-rate cut. A drought cannot be reversed with quantitative easing. Fertilizer plants cannot double production overnight. And productive farmland cannot suddenly appear because financial markets demand more food. 

Meanwhile, elevated Energy costs raise the price of planting, harvesting, fertilizer, refrigeration, processing and transportation. 

That is why Wheat, Corn, Soybeans, Sugar, Coffee, Fertilizers and the wider Agricultural complex deserve increasingly close attention. 

“If Energy remains structurally expensive, Agriculture could become one of the defining trades of the next phase,” Hansen says. “Food sits at the end of an enormous chain of physical inputs. Once scarcity reaches that chain, repricing can happen extremely quickly.” 

Perhaps the strongest confirmation of the broader thesis is that institutional investment advice is now moving in the same direction. 

UBS’s investment guidance urges clients to “position for a Commodity Upcycle,” highlighting government debt, geopolitical risks, rising electricity demand and supply constraints. The Swiss Investment bank advocates diversified exposure across Precious Metals, Energy, Industrial Metals and Agriculture, with active management as leadership shifts between sectors.

Wall Street is starting to catch up with the physical economy.

And that matters because financial capital can move almost instantaneously. 

Physical supply cannot. 

Trillions of dollars can decide tomorrow that portfolios need greater Commodity exposure. 

But the world cannot produce trillions of additional barrels of Oil, tonnes of Copper, functioning refineries or acres of productive farmland tomorrow. 

When rapidly moving capital encounters slowly expanding physical supply, there is only one immediate adjustment mechanism: Price. 

At the start of the year, analysts at The Gold & Silver Club declared 2026 “The Year of Hard Assets.”

The firm’s longer-term thesis is that the forces supporting this cycle could extend well beyond a single year, creating significant wealth creation opportunities across the resources underpinning the global economy. 

“This is no longer simply the Year of Hard Assets,” Hansen says. “We believe we are transitioning into The Hard Asset Decade. In a world increasingly defined by scarcity, Commodities are becoming one of the smartest strategic places for capital to be positioned.” 

The world spent decades pricing abundance. 

It may now be entering a decade forced to price scarcity. 

And that leaves one increasingly uncomfortable conclusion: “none of us own enough Hard Assets”. 

By the time everyone reaches the same conclusion, the greatest repricing may already have happened. 

Where are prices heading next? Watch The Commodity Report now, for my latest price forecasts and predictions: