In a recent appearance on the Money Metals podcast, host Mike Maharrey sat down with Rhona O’Connell, StoneX’s head of market analysis for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, to discuss a sweeping array of economic and geopolitical trends. Their wide-ranging conversation touched upon the evolving U.S. political landscape, shifting interest rate expectations, ballooning national debt, the structural risks building within private credit markets, and the intensifying competition between Singapore and Hong Kong to become Asia’s preeminent precious metals hub.
StoneX, the global financial services firm O’Connell represents, has deep roots stretching back to Chicago in 1923, when founder F.C. Stone began his career selling eggs door to door. Today, the corporation has evolved into a massive international operation employing approximately 5,000 people. Generating billions in annual revenue, the company serves roughly 50,000 corporate clients and more than a quarter-million retail clients across a diverse array of global markets.
O’Connell’s Career Began in Mining
O’Connell brings decades of deep industry experience to her current role, with a career in precious metals that stretches back to the early 1980s. During those formative years, she worked in corporate development at Consolidated Gold Fields, which was then recognized as the world’s second-largest gold producer behind Anglo. Her early analytical work included preparing a comprehensive 10-year silver-market outlook in 1982 for a major feasibility study, followed by a subsequent, detailed study focused on the platinum-group metals.
Before joining StoneX in 2019 to establish its London-based metals analysis team, O’Connell led the prominent GFMS team at Thomson Reuters. Over the course of her distinguished career, she has witnessed numerous market cycles, structural transformations, and geopolitical shifts. At StoneX, her purview extends well beyond precious metals to encompass base metals, agricultural commodities, energy markets, foreign exchange, and a broad suite of complementary financial services.
Election Uncertainty Could Weigh on the Dollar
The podcast interview followed closely on the heels of a U.S. election cycle that appeared to place Democrats in control of the Senate with a majority of at least four seats, alongside a House majority hovering near 100 seats. According to O’Connell, the immediate market reaction to this political shift involved a noticeable softening of the U.S. dollar and somewhat lower bond yields. Investors quickly anticipated that the incoming congressional alignment might constrain future fiscal stimulus measures.
Looking ahead, O’Connell noted that both the dollar and interest rates could continue to soften in the medium term, though the ultimate trajectory remains heavily dependent on how effectively the new Congress governs. A smooth, orderly transition toward workable legislative policies could potentially limit further dollar weakness. Conversely, if lawmakers struggle to establish a clear policy direction, political uncertainty could quickly return to the forefront, placing renewed downward pressure on the U.S. currency.
Inflation and the Fed Remain Key Risks
Turning to monetary policy, O’Connell emphasized that future decisions by the Federal Reserve will remain tethered to incoming economic data, specifically inflation readings, the health of the labor market, and developments in the Gulf region. With the unemployment rate hovering around 4.2%—a level she characterized as roughly equivalent to full employment—the central bank faces a resilient job market even as inflation has stubbornly remained above the Fed’s stated 2% target for 67 consecutive months.
Ahead of upcoming policy meetings, StoneX’s strategy team anticipated potential rate increases both in December and during the first quarter of the year. O’Connell observed a visibly more hawkish tone from Federal Reserve officials during recent press conferences compared to prior gatherings, leaving the door open for multiple additional rate hikes depending on the behavior of global energy prices and potential supply chain disruptions.
Even if geopolitical tensions in the Gulf were to ease, O’Connell cautioned that consumer prices, crude oil, distillates, jet fuel, and broader inflation metrics may not decline immediately. The time required to unwind existing supply chain disruptions can be surprisingly lengthy. Furthermore, she pointed to a persistent 2.5-percentage-point gap between the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Producer Price Index (PPI), warning that manufacturers and downstream businesses in the supply chain will likely continue passing accumulated cost pressures on to everyday consumers.
"The lead time for inflation to be brought under control in the States is probably a good six months longer than some people think it is," O’Connell remarked during the discussion.
High Yields Could Limit Gold’s Gains
Analyzing the precious metals sector, O’Connell described gold as being currently caught in a tug-of-war between fundamentally supportive tailwinds and persistent negative headwinds. While a weakening U.S. dollar could theoretically help propel gold prices toward the $4,200 per ounce mark, stubbornly high real bond yields continue to act as a significant drag on the non-yielding asset. "If we’re looking at persistently high real bond yields," she explained, "that works against gold."
At the beginning of the year, when spot gold prices were trading above $5,000, O’Connell correctly warned that the market appeared overcrowded and publicly forecast a correction toward $3,800 by year-end. During the podcast, she characterized her current outlook as neutral within a broad trading range of $3,800 to $4,500, perfectly reflecting the competing macroeconomic forces currently influencing the market.
When host Mike Maharrey raised the hypothetical scenario of gold potentially dipping as low as $3,500 before staging a recovery, O’Connell agreed that a major systemic economic shock could initially trigger widespread distress selling across financial markets, which would subsequently clear the way for renewed, aggressive physical and investment demand. "You’d get distress selling first, and then it would pick up again," she noted.
Providing broader context, she referenced warnings issued by the OECD during the September IMF and World Bank meetings, where officials cautioned that heavily depleted fiscal room has severely eroded the capacity of governments around the world to respond effectively to future economic shocks.
Debt and Private Credit Add to Financial Strains
The conversation naturally gravitated toward systemic financial vulnerabilities, with O’Connell pointing out that U.S. government debt currently stands at approximately 123% of gross domestic product, while Maharrey noted that the broader national debt has climbed to roughly $40 trillion. In her view, the Federal Reserve’s overall room to maneuver is severely constrained by these historic debt burdens accumulated across federal, corporate, and household sectors.
O’Connell also expressed growing unease regarding the rapid expansion of the private credit market. She highlighted a fundamental structural mismatch: retail and institutional investors frequently expect the ability to withdraw their invested capital within a three- to six-month window, whereas private credit funds typically lock their capital into much longer-term, illiquid assets. She pointed out that some investors attempting to pull their funds out of these vehicles are already facing strict redemption limits capping withdrawals at roughly 5% of their holdings.
While emphasizing that she was not explicitly forecasting an imminent global financial crisis, O’Connell drew unsettling parallels to the overlooked structural risks that preceded the 2007 subprime mortgage meltdown. The migration of credit creation into less-regulated financial channels, paired with severe maturity mismatches, remains a major red flag. "I’m not comfortable with that at all," she stated clearly.
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie for Asia’s Bullion Trade
Shifting focus to the international trade of precious metals, O’Connell highlighted the intensifying commercial rivalry between Singapore and Hong Kong as both jurisdictions vie to establish themselves as Asia’s preeminent bullion trading hub. Discussions at the Asia Pacific Precious Metals Conference in Singapore earlier in the year frequently centered around market fragmentation and lingering questions regarding mainland China’s growing regulatory and financial influence over Hong Kong.
O’Connell argued that the two financial centers possess complementary expertise, infrastructure, and resources that could greatly benefit the broader market if both hubs choose cooperation over hostile competition. Given that Asia has historically served as the epicenter of physical gold demand, ensuring the smooth, efficient cross-border movement of metal is vital for maintaining healthy global liquidity. "It’s a question of expediting flows and not going for supremacy, but trying to make it holistic," O’Connell observed.
She noted that this strategic rivalry has increasingly become a fixture of specialized industry dialogues, including panel sessions at the London Bullion Market Association’s annual conferences. Whether Singapore and Hong Kong will ultimately forge a collaborative framework or engage in a prolonged battle for regional market dominance remains an open question for the industry.
Finding StoneX Research
Concluding the interview, O’Connell encouraged listeners seeking deeper analytical insights to visit StoneX.com, where the global firm regularly publishes comprehensive market intelligence, research reports, and commentary across its extensive operational footprint. She emphasized that StoneX maintains a robust network of boots-on-the-ground analysts stationed globally, including throughout Latin America and North America, covering diverse commodity markets ranging from agriculture and dairy to industrial and precious metals.
