Spain’s real estate sector: from recovery to expansion

Spanish economy 27th July 2026

Government insists on extending rental contracts until 2028

The Council of Ministers is scheduled to approve tomorrow, Tuesday, July 28, a new royal decree-law on housing that will include the automatic extension of rental contracts until 2028 and an increase of VAT on tourist apartments to 21%. The Government is working on a royal decree agreed upon between PSOE and Sumar that will include proposals “supported by various political forces” throughout the legislature, according to the Executive itself….

Companies, European economy, Markets 27th July 2026

Commerzbank open to negotiating its takeover by UniCredit

The growing shareholder support secured by the Italian bank makes it necessary to initiate a “constructive and transparent” dialogue. Reported by the Consejeros Editorial Team After months of trying to resist, Commerzbank has agreed to open talks with UniCredit regarding a potential takeover. The growing shareholder support secured by the Italian bank makes it necessary to initiate a “constructive and transparent” dialogue to protect the interests of shareholders, employees and…

rosa garcia consejera caixabank acerinox ence

“Many companies complicate CSRD implementation more than necessary”

Rosa Mª García Piñeiro, board member at Caixabank, Acerinox, and Ence—serving as chair of the sustainability committee for the latter two and as a committee member at Caixabank—explains that “the directive does not set the materiality threshold. The company decides it based on its own criteria. There is nothing in the legislation that prescribes what is material and what is not. The auditor-verifier may have one opinion, the company may…

“We are one of Europe’s leading R&D investors: €1.45 billion last year”

antonio bonet

“We need to approach negotiations with the U.S. on terms that are completely different from those currently being proposed”

Says Antonio Bonet, president of the Club of Spanish Exporters and Investors. He points out that “Europe has a single tariff applied by all member states, but the U.S. applies a tariff to each country, meaning it can decide that the tariff applied to Spanish black olives is higher than that for Italian olives, as it did at one point. So there is a part of the negotiation between Europe…

IreneHernandez copia

“Fifteen years ago, the European economy was larger than that of the U.S. Today, the U.S. economy is one and a half times that of Europe”

ElenaJimenezdeAndrade

“It is a shame that we are able to mobilize economic resources for large-scale projects abroad, but not in our Spanish market”

Iberdrola acquires 80 stake in, Finland’s largest electricity operator, Caruna Group, for €2,014 million

Reported by the Consejeros Editorial Team Iberdrola has signed a sale and purchase agreement with Suomi Power Networks, controlled by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (Canada) and the KKR fund, for the acquisition – direct or indirect – of 80 per cent of the share capital of the company that holds 100 per cent of the shares in two Finnish concessionary companies, “Caruna Oy” and “Caruna Espoo Oy”, which together…

Gold enters uncharted teritory

Nitesh Shah, Head of Commodities and Macroeconomic Research, WisdomTree | While the speed of the recent move in the gold price may appear striking, it is consistent with the risks we explicitly highlighted around modelling gold in the current environment.

Our framework is calibrated using data from what could be described as a relatively stable period in gold’s modern history (1995–2025). That calibration implicitly assumes that gold operates within a steady-state macro regime, where long-run relationships between real yields, the US dollar and positioning dominate price dynamics. The past year has increasingly called that assumption into question.

Gold’s strength reflects a combination of structural and regime-driven forces that are difficult to capture fully in quantitative models. Central bank demand remains exceptionally strong and price-insensitive, driven by reserve diversification concerns following the weaponisation of foreign exchange reserves. At the same time, fiscal dominance risks have become more prominent as elevated debt levels constrain monetary policy choices, reinforcing gold’s role as a pseudo-currency rather than a cyclical inflation hedge.

In parallel, new sources of demand are emerging. Chinese insurers, Indian pension funds and even digital asset issuers such as Tether represent incremental buyers that sit outside the traditional speculative and ETF-driven channels on which models typically rely. These flows can materially tighten the market without clear contemporaneous signals in standard macro variables.

In this context, it is not surprising that prices have overshot consensus projections, as price projections can deviate meaningfully from estimated fair value when structural shifts dominate marginal macro changes.

Gold’s exceptional performance: echoes of 1979

Gold rose 65% in 2025, marking its strongest annual performance since 1979, when prices surged by 126%. That earlier episode coincided with rampant inflation, the Iranian Revolution following the fall of the Shah, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, and extraordinary volatility across commodity markets. Inflationary pressures were so severe that the Federal Reserve entered an existential phase, ultimately appointing Paul Volcker, widely regarded as the only figure willing to engineer a recession to restore the credibility of the central bank and ensure the long-term sustainability of the US economy.

While surpassing the 1979 benchmark would always have been a tall order, achieving more than half of that performance is nonetheless remarkable.

Trade fragmentation and the unravelling of globalisation

The introduction of ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs in April 2025 triggered fears of a sharp contraction in global trade and significant disruption to global supply chains. More broadly, concerns have intensified that the globally integrated economic framework, widely seen as a cornerstone of global growth over the past 50 years, is being dismantled in favour of more inward-looking, protectionist policies. This shift has been highly supportive for gold.

Fiscal dominance and gold as a pseudo-currency

Rising government debt levels are another major source of concern. The higher the stock of public debt, the greater the risk of financial market instability. While central banks are formally mandated to focus on inflation (and, in the case of the US Federal Reserve, employment), the threat of instability can prompt them to act pre-emptively by loosening monetary conditions.

This dynamic encapsulates the concept of fiscal dominance, a regime in which fiscal policy effectively constrains or dominates monetary policy. Fiscal dominance is unequivocally positive for gold. As a pseudo-currency with limited supply growth, gold acts as an antidote to the potential debasement of fiat currencies issued by central banks engaged in monetary expansion.

Importantly, this is not just an investor phenomenon. Central banks holding large reserves of fiat currencies are increasingly turning to gold to mitigate debasement risks and enhance reserve resilience.

Political pressure on central bank independence

President Trump’s repeated attacks on the Federal Reserve have not been helpful to the institution’s perceived independence. While we do not believe he will succeed in obtaining the legal authority to dismiss Governor Cook, nor do we expect him to act on his frequent public criticisms of Chair Jerome Powell, the broader implications are noteworthy.

When Powell steps down in May, leading contenders for the Chair position may prove less resistant to political pressure. Although a diverse Federal Open Market Committee, including recent notable dissents, will remain in place, leadership matters both substantively and symbolically. We are not suggesting a return to the pre-Volcker era, but a Federal Reserve more susceptible to fiscal dominance is a plausible risk. Even if that risk is remote, its mere existence has the potential to drive gold prices materially higher.

Is gold leaving its ‘steady state’?

WisdomTree’s gold model has been calibrated using data from a relatively stable period in gold’s modern history (1995–2025). Earlier data are unavailable for some key components, futures market positioning being the primary constraint.

The extreme inflation and volatility of the 1970s coincided with gold’s emergence as a fully investable asset class. The collapse of the gold standard frameworks (including Bretton Woods in August 1971) occurred during that decade, while the US ban on private gold ownership (Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102) was repealed on 31 December 1974. Although gold has been valued for millennia, a meaningful influx of private investors only began in the 1970s and 1980s.

In China, the People’s Bank of China allowed individuals to purchase gold jewellery in 1982, marking the gradual end of strict state control over gold ownership. Deregulation continued through the 1990s and 2000s, but 1982 arguably represented the most significant step change.

In short, our model may have been calibrated in what could be described as a ‘steady state’ world. The 65% increase in gold prices during 2025 raises the question of whether gold is transitioning to a new equilibrium. A global trade reset, heightened fears of fiscal dominance, a partial withdrawal of the US security umbrella from Europe (and potentially other regions), and the prospect of new investor cohorts entering the market all point in that direction.

New structural sources of gold demand

Chinese insurance companies

On 7 February 2025, China’s National Financial Regulatory Administration approved a pilot programme allowing selected insurers to invest in gold. By March 2025, the first investments had taken place.

Although no official data on purchases have been disclosed, insurers are permitted to allocate up to 1% of assets to gold. Using year-end 2024 asset bases and assuming full utilisation of this cap, potential gold demand could reach approximately ¥200 billion (US$25–30 billion). If deployed evenly at ¥20 billion per month, this would imply purchases of around 7.83 million troy ounces, or roughly 244 tonnes of gold.

For context, bar and coin demand in mainland China totalled 345.7 tonnes in 2024 (World Gold Council), while total Chinese gold consumption reached 985.3 tonnes (China Gold Association).

Digital asset issuers: Tether

In its Q3 attestation report, Tether disclosed holdings of US$12.9 billion in precious metals, assumed to be entirely gold. At end-September prices, this equates to approximately 115 tonnes, comparable to the official gold reserves of countries such as Greece, Hungary or South Korea.

Tether’s pace of accumulation has been rapid, with purchases of 24 tonnes in Q2 2025 and 26 tonnes in Q3 2025. Only around 12 tonnes back its gold-backed token (XAUt), implying that the majority is held as a treasury or reserve asset. Whether intended to facilitate future expansion of XAUt or to strengthen the backing of USDT, Tether has emerged as a significant and unconventional source of gold demand.

Indian pension funds

As of December 2025, Indian pension funds are permitted to invest up to 1% of assets in approved gold and silver exchange-traded funds. National Pension System assets exceed US$177 billion, implying potential allocations of up to US$1.7 billion. Even partial uptake would represent a meaningful incremental source of demand in an already tight market.

Central banks

Central banks have become materially larger buyers of gold in recent years. Since 2022, annual purchases have exceeded 1,000 tonnes, more than double the average of the preceding decade. This shift coincided with the onset of the Russia–Ukraine war and the freezing of the Russian central bank’s foreign currency assets by G7 nations.

That episode highlighted the vulnerabilities of reserve assets denominated in G7 currencies and accelerated efforts to diversify reserves. Gold remains the only viable pseudo-currency capable of fulfilling this role. In 2025, central bank gold purchases reached record levels, and we expect demand to remain elevated given the scale of reserves requiring diversification and the gradual pace at which such reallocation can occur.