It cant happen here, the saying goes. But when it comes to negative interest rates, the idea that the Federal Reserve wont implement them here in the U.S. appears to be losing ground, judging from two high-profile endorsements of the policy.

Although Fed chief Janet Yellen told the media during her news conference Wednesday that negative rates havent been discussed by U.S. central bankers, in a February statement to Congress she acknowledged, Were taking a look at them again because we would want to be prepared in the event that we needed to add accommodation. I wouldnt take those off the table. But we would have work to do to judge whether they would be workable here.

A good thing, says IMF: And negative rates (NIRP) got a strong endorsement Friday from International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde, who said, If we had not had those negative rates, we would be in a much worse place today, with inflation probably lower than where it is, with growth probably lower than where we have it. It was a good thing to actually implement those negative rates under the current circumstances.

Lagarde was seconded Friday in a blog post by Yellens Fed predecessor, Ben Bernanke, writing for the Brookings Institution in a piece titled What tools does the Fed have left? Part 1: Negative interest rates.

Although saying he is skeptical about deeply negative rates in the U.S., he acknowledged that NIRP might be more powerful than thought.

Manageable, says Bernanke: After outlining concerns about NIRPs potentially adverse effects on money-market funds, bank profits, and the overall financial markets, Bernanke concluded that the anxiety about negative interest rates seen recently in the media and in markets seems to me to be overdone and that any repercussions ought to be manageable.

Bernanke then argues that NIRP would be a reasonable compromise between no action and rolling out the big QE gun.

Remember: Bernanke is the person who in 2007 declared that the subprime-housing market was contained just before the fallout helped create the financial crisis, the TARP bailouts, and the Great Recession. If Bernanke says NIRP is manageable, look out.

Cash ban goes hand-in-hand: NIRP endorsements from Lagarde and Bernanke have followed other recent calls to ban high-denomination currency bills, most notably one-time Fed-chief candidate Larry Summers editorial urging the eradication of the $100 note.

Although Yellen just talked down the notion of NIRP, Lagarde and Bernanke are now running interference for her, keeping the idea in the minds of the media and the public.

Why is NIRP important to gold? If low interest rates are bullish for gold, then negative rates are even more potent. HSBC just published a note arguing that NIRPs growing prevalence will boost bullion.

With an increasing number of central banks implementing a negative rates policy, and this reflecting continued economic weakness, we expect gold to be supported by this backdrop, HSBC analyst James Steel wrote. Negative rates are a sign of distress, which may increase flight-to-quality demand for gold. They lower the opportunity cost of owning gold and therefore encourage purchases.

Rally may last longer, says bank: HSBCs note also points out that gold historically has rallied for 100 days after the Fed has started lifting rates, which it did in December. Steel thinks that the latest statement from the Fed that it will only likely hike twice this year will prolong that effect on gold. Given that rate hike expectations continue to be pushed into the future (HSBC economists expect the next hike in June), we expect the rally may last longer than it has historically.

And with the Feds dovish statement Wednesday also pressuring the dollar, sending it into its worst slump since 2011, HSBC thinks the yellow metals 2016 bull run will be sustained. Moreover, the coming of negative rates in the U.S. likely could light a massive fire under the gold price going forward.

Caution about two major central-bank meetings later this week sent gold into consolidation mode Monday.

After golds push to 13-month highs last Friday, the pullback to about $1,235 Monday afternoon was not unexpected given that the metal is sensitive to interest-rate moves from the Federal Reserve, which is conducting a two-day meeting that ends Wednesday. The Fed is expected to stand pat on rates but hint that another hike could be coming in June. The Bank of Japan, which imposed negative interest rates in January, also meets this week.

Following golds lead, silver dropped about 0.8% to hit $15.35.

481 tons bought on futures market: The cooldown comes as the latest CFTC positioning data shows that as of March 8, hedge funds and money managers increased their bullish positions to the highest level in 13 months. This was the eighth increase in net long positions in the last nine weeks, Commerzbank said. Since the beginning of the year, the equivalent of 481 tons of gold have thus been purchased via the futures market.

Moreover, inflows into gold-linked ETFs also continue to surge, at roughly 18-month highs and enjoying the longest stretch of gain since 2012.

Negative rates are driving investors into physical gold as well. Manager Takahiro Ito of the Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo K.K.s store in Tokyo said his clients are buying even as the price soars.

Many customers are wagering that its better to turn their savings to gold as a safe asset rather than deposit money at banks that offer low interest rates, he said.

Buybacks keeping S&P afloat: Gold also has paused as the stock market shows some signs of life. However, that could be a mirage, because a new Bloomberg analysis found that stock buybacks among S&P 500 component companies are on track to hit $165 billion.

Anytime when youre relying solely on one thing to happen to keep the market going is a dangerous situation, Andrew Hopkins of Wilmington Trust Co. noted. Over time, you come to the realization, Look, these companies cant grow. Borrowing money to buy back stocks is going to come to an end.

The lack of sound fundamentals supporting the stock market is just one reason why Morgan Stanley is slashing its stock-index targets and setting global recession odds at 30%.

Weaker growth forecasts and rising political risk lead us to close our positive tactical stance and lower exposure in global equities, it said. The probability of a global recession has risen.

IMF fears global derailment: As more proof in the pudding that all is not well with the global economy, the International Monetary Fund on Sunday endorsed the unconventional monetary policies of Europe and Japan (that is, negative rates and quantitative easing), citing rising risks worldwide.

The world is heading toward economic derailment unless policymakers make tough choices to get the recovery back on track, warned top IMF deputy David Lipton, saying downside risks are clearly much more pronounced than at the start of 2016.

Trend now flipped for gold: The burgeoning global risks have turned an increased number of firms into bulls on the yellow metal. Ned Davis Research is one such firm.

Since 2011, gold has had a very tough time relative to other major asset classes, it wrote. Why hold an asset with absolutely zero yield when its losing ground to every other major asset class? That trend has now flipped. Gold is starting to beat T-bills, long-term bonds stocks and even housing. That brings in even more interest thats already been generated.

The early stages of the rally were likely fueled by speculators and traders. Gold beating other asset classes gets it on the radar for other, longer-term strategic asset allocaters. Weve already seen these massive inflows into physical gold funds but there could be more if the strategic crowd gets involved.

Gold could hit $4,212: And CLSA strategist Christopher Wood thinks the price could even hit new all-time nominal highs if this bull market gains significant further steam. He sees the price potentially reaching $4,212 an ounce, basing his prediction on the fact that gold hit $850 in 1980 and per-capita U.S. incomes have risen 4.5% a year since then. Adjusting for rising incomes, he computes $4,212 for bullion prices.

One factor that could get the price there is rising investment from pension funds in search of yield in a negative-rate world. Wood recommends these funds take a 70% stake in gold. If even a small number of these funds were to take Woods advice, the price of gold would skyrocket, needless to say.

Gold investors were bracing for a major dip in the yellow metal Thursday upon the European Central Banks bombshell announcement of more quantitative easing and further cuts to its deposit rate, which already is in negative territory, along with other measures.

That gold-price drop occurred initially, because the easing and rate-cutting measures in the euro currency conversely tend to strengthen the dollar.

Gold pulls off powerful reversal: But then ECB chief Mario Draghi spoke at a post-meeting news conference and said the central bank probably would not cut rates further in the future. From todays perspective and taking into account the support of our measures to growth and inflation, we dont anticipate that it will be necessary to reduce rates further, he said.

Markets reversed, with U.S. stocks and oil prices both falling.

You had the dollar go up and then down, and gold followed the dollars lead, TD Securities strategist Bart Melek told Bloomberg. Gold has an inverse relationship to the dollar, typically.

The fact that the ECB cut rates but did not implement tiered-deposit rates turned out to be the kicker and another big disappointment to the markets other than gold, Tyler Richey of The 7:00s Report told MarketWatch.

Markets see beer goggles come off: For Peter Boockvar of the Lindsey Group, the negative reaction of stocks proves that central banks are running out of ammo. Were experiencing firsthand the end of the road of the influence central bankers can have on the market, he said. Central bank policy put beer goggles on investors, and now those goggles are coming off.

Boockvar added: Todays not a question of did Draghi do more or less than expected. Hes just doing more of what has not worked.

As a result, investors are flocking to what has worked so far this year: gold. The yellow metal rose more than 1% to finish near $1,270 and 13-month highs. Silver advance 1.7% to $15.53 and remains bargain-priced when compared with golds recent runup, the gold-silver price ratio indicates.

Gold could be taking swing at $1,307: With gold holding steady in 2016, some major investment banks and analysts continue to issue bullish forecasts and revised price targets. We are not overly concerned about the pullback we saw in the past two days, as we think golds uptrend remains intact as long as the metal closes above $1,246, ScotiaMocatta analysts wrote.

In our view, gold will likely consolidate here before taking a swing at $1,307, a price unseen since January 2015.

And Rich Ross of Evercore ISI issued a note forecasting bearish movements in the S&P 500. My Bullish tactical call is over, he wrote. While we have repeatedly highlighted 2030 as our upside target, the rapid post ECB reversals in the cross asset technicals dictates that we abandon our tactical view at this time in favor of a far more defensive posture. Our structural Bear Market call with downside to 1,670 remains intact. We would sell Global Equities and Commodity Currencies (BRL, CAD, RUB) on the back of recent countertrend strength and buy Gold.

Citi sees 30% odds for $1,425: And even before the ECB meeting, Citi Research was forced to revise its price targets upward, although it still thinks the gold rally could run out of steam in the second half of the year.

Nonetheless, it put a 30% probability on gold reaching $1,425 by years end because of a further exacerbation of somewhat elevated US and global growth concerns, perhaps even a global recession, which sends prices above $1,400/oz. in 2H.

Given the possibility of that bullish scenario, Citi raised its gold targets by 11% and 5% in 2016 and 2017, to $1,185 and $1,110, respectively.

Time will tell whether gold folds as the year progresses, but with 2016 so far marked by unexpected surprises, we might see Citi revising its forecasts even further by Q3 or Q4. The Feds rate-setting meeting next week will tell investors more about the metals near-term direction.

All eyes are focused on this Thursdays meeting of the European Central Bank, at which President Mario Draghi is expected to unleash even more stimulus to solve the European Unions deflationary problems. Whether he will succeed is unclear, but gold stands to benefit along the way as more money printing rekindles a race to the bottom for global currencies.

A recent Bloomberg poll found that a nearly unanimous number of respondents think Draghi will take some kind of action, whether by expanding the ECBs quantitative-easing bond-buying program or by cutting interest rates further below zero, into negative territory.

As a result of continued easy money, gold stands to gain further, said BlackRocks chief investment officer for global fixed income, Rick Rieder. Gold is mispriced by two or three hundred euros if we’re going to go down the road of growing the balance sheet of the ECB, he said. Money is going to go into gold.

Rothschild sees more difficult 2016: The problem is that the world is losing faith in central bankers to stimulate the economy through the tools at their disposal. Some heavyweight players in world economics are warning of trouble ahead. No less an authority that Lord Rothschild of the famed banking dynasty and chairman of RIT Capital Partners recently revealed that his firm has cut exposure to stocks even more because market conditions have deteriorated further since 2015, he wrote. So much so that the wind is certainly not behind us; indeed we may well be in the eye of a storm.

Citing the inefficiency of QE to boost already-overpriced stocks; the economic slowdowns in China as well as the U.S. and Europe; the Middle Easts turmoil; an explosion in debt; and the possibility of a British exit, or Brexit, from the EU, Rothschild warned: Our view is that 2016 is likely to turn out to be more difficult than the second half of 2015.

Gathering storm building, says BIS: And Rothschild wasnt alone in invoking stormy metaphors to describe the current economic landscape. The central bank for central banks, otherwise known as the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), also spoke of signs of a gathering storm that has been building for a long time.

Some BIS economists warned in particular of the dangers of negative interest rates, the appearance of which only prove that central banks have dwindling options to confront todays economic crises.

Negative interest rates risk backfiring the longer and more deeply central banks in Europe and Japan venture into this unconventional monetary policy, Londons Financial Times said of the BIS research, which cautioned that it was difficult to predict how individuals or financial institutions would behave if rates were to fall further below zero or stay negative for a long period.

The viability of banks business model as financial intermediaries may be brought into question, the BIS researchers said.

Negative rates a sign of distress: Although experts are uncertain just what the effects of prolonged negative rates might have on the economy, golds reaction to such conditions is little in doubt. Several financial firms have recently weighed in on NIRP, or negative-interest-rate policies.

Coxe Advisors LLC: Speaking at the 2016 PDAC Convention in Toronto, Don Coxe also touted the virtues of gold amid NIRP and argued that pension funds would seek increased shelter in gold. Why should someone want to own a five-year bond with a negative interest rate? he asked. Ibelieve this is the single biggest new argument about why gold is going to be revalued. A negative yielding bond is not something valuable. Pension funds are going to look for something; youre telling me gold is riskier than a negative yielding bond?

HSBC: How does this play out for gold? chief metals analyst James Steel asked. Positively we think. The imposition of negative rates is a sign of distress, which is gold-bullish. Furthermore, the uncertainty surrounding the long run impact of negative rates as outlined in the BIS report is also supportive of gold. The BIS report seems to say that negative rates have brought uncertainty, especially as regards their impact on financial intermediaries, but have not delivered hoped for gains for households and businesses. This is to golds benefit.

Societe Generale: Whats happening today, in a world where safe assets have negative yields, gold by simply having zero yield has a competitive advantage to the other assets, SocGen exec Kokou Agbo-Bloua told CNBC. Thats ultimately what makes an interesting case for gold as this safety play.

Strategas Research Partners: A more widespread adoption of negative interest policies (NIRP), however, leads us to believe that bank profitability may be impaired worldwide. We now believe that the yield curve in the U.S. will remain flatter, longer than we had previously hoped. It is for this reason that we have also decided to decrease our exposure to the Financials, its analysts wrote.

Finally, it can be said that, perhaps for the first time in recorded history, gold may have a somewhat durable positive carry.We have increased our exposure to precious metals as a result.

Stay tuned for what the ECB and Draghi do this Thursday. That meeting is a leadup to the U.S. Federal Reserves March 15-16 conclave, at which Janet Yellen and her colleagues will be debating whether the U.S. economy is strong enough to withstand another rate hike. Quite possibly, NIRP could be on the Feds agenda in the not-so-distant future.