The June 23 Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom, in which voters will decide whether Britain should exit the European Union, has been boosting gold sales there, with one Reuters headline reading, London appetite for gold bars, coins rises on Brexit nerves.

And with physical bullion sales taking off as British investors hedge against Brexit blowback uncertainty, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group likes golds prospects.

Gold bull set to resume bull cycle, a June 10 research note reads. Last weeks unexpectedly weak U.S. jobs data and subsequent cautious tone by [Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet] Yellen has opened the door for gold to resume its bull cycle. However, Brexit could see gold push towards USD1,400/oz.

It called the Brexit vote a real watershed moment for gold. With market attention diverting away from the Fed, the impact of the referendum on the gold market is likely to be much greater.

Opinion polls remain divided, with both Remain and Leave camps ahead at various times. What is clear though is that the price of insuring against a collapse in the pound has hit a seven-year high. If the Leave campaign is successful, the expected collapse in the GBP and resultant market volatility would likely see investors seek safe haven assets. This could provide a massive boost to investor demand and would likely push gold towards USD1,400/oz.

ANZs stance is in line with HSBCs longstanding call that a Brexit would boost gold. Gold would also likely benefit from a sizable safe-haven bid in the event of a Brexit vote, HSBC analysts wrote in April.

As far as the geopolitical element, its certainly not a chicken little atmosphere, said Jim Steel, HSBCs chief precious-metals expert. I think theres enough uncertainty facing the global economy and even some geopolitical tensions to keep buying the gold market.

So far in 2016, gold has defied conventional wisdom by soaring as much as 20% in the wake of the Federal Reserves December 2015 interest-rate increase, the first in almost a decade.

That wasnt what conventional wisdom was calling for in the months leading up to the central banks hawkish move. After all, CW holds that the yellow metal does best in low-rate environments. Thus, those who took the contrarian stance that gold would rise after a Fed hike have profited.

Commodities outperforming stocks: Perhaps the global head of commodities at the S&P Dow Jones Indices should be counted as a contrarian. As Jodie Gunzberg has noted in recent interviews, the overall commodities complex is doing what it hasnt done in quite some time, that is, beat stocks in the wake of the Feds rate hike, no less.

For example, the S&P 500 gained 3.22% year-to-date though June 6, while the S&P GSCI Index of commodities returned 10.69%. And in the past three months alone, the S&P GSCI increased by 18.1%.

If this outperformance holds through the year, it will break the longest number of consecutive years that stocks outperformed commodities, Gunzberg told The Ticker Tape. Following the last time stocks outperformed commodities for near as long in 1980-86, seven consecutive years, commodities returned almost 300% through 1990 when the trend reversed.

Rising rates good for gold: Contrary to conventional wisdom, Gunzberg told Indias Business Standard in late 2015, historically, rising rates have been good for commodities, for two reasons. One is that the return on collateral, a component of the total returns in commodities, increases as interest rates rise. The other direct and measurable impact of interest rates on commodities can be observed from the formal relationship between spot and futures prices. The theory of storage equation defines the futures price in terms of the spot price, the interest rate, the cost of storage and the convenience yield. All else being equal, commodities futures prices rise as interest rates rise.

Industrial metals have been more sensitive to interest rates than precious metals from their economic sensitivity and term structures. For a gold bull market to form, high inflation and a weak dollar would be useful, in addition to higher interest rates. Plus, ETF (exchange traded fund) buying that takes physical supply off the market is a positive indicator.

U.S. election fears boosting gold: Now that the gold bull market has returned, at least so far this year, Gunzberg thinks momentum is with the yellow metal thanks in part to the uncertainty over the U.S. presidential election, with Republican Donald Trump likely to face Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Investors love to feel the safety of gold in the volatile times, not only for the factors that I just mentioned but also the extra uncertainty and volatility coming around the election year is making the demand for gold pick up, and based on the history, again, if I look at the past index performance, it looks like gold could go well into the $1,800s, she told Bloomberg. So theres still a ways to go potentially if gold continues its pattern in the volatile times.

Yen to thrive under NIRP?: Gunzbergs $1,800 target, as well as her argument that rising rates are good for gold, could be considered contrarian, but apparently a professional investor in Japan is ready to go even further in his price prediction.

Wakabayashi FX Associates Co. President Eishi Wakabayashi has gone contrarian in his forecasts for both the Japanese yen and gold. Despite the Bank of Japans imposition of negative interest rates earlier this year, Wakabayashi thinks the yen is going to strengthen, not weaken. Hes predicting that the yen will strengthen almost 20% to 90 per dollar by early next year as Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kurodas negative interest rates fail to weaken this years best-performing Group of 10 currency, according to a recent Bloomberg interview.

He has a respectable track record, having already predicted the yens record high in 1995, its faltering in 2012, and its advance so far this year.

Buy gold to preserve wealth, trader says: But Wakabayashi is even more bullish on golds prospects for the long haul. He foresees an era of global deflation, and recommends investors seek capital gains and buy gold. The metal may climb to $6,000 in the next six years as U.S. stocks collapse and the nation struggles to spur inflation, he said.

Like some other analysts, Wakabayashi touts the contrarian stance that gold can perform well during deflation, versus the conventional wisdom that bullion does best during inflation. During the Great Depression, when the price of gold was fixed, mining stocks of the commodity jumped sixfold in the five years from 1930, Bloomberg reported in summarizing his stance.

Under deflation, asset values fall across the board, Wakabayashi said. How do you protect your financial assets? Its easy: Buy gold.

Two different investors, two contrarian stances on gold, commodities, and currencies. With 2016 so far being the year of the contrarian, it might not be the time to bet against Gunzberg and Wakabayashi.

With the United Kingdoms Brexit referendum just weeks away and the outcome still very much uncertain, jitters are increasing on fears that the Leave faction will prevail.

But at least one prominent Brit is skeptical of claims that a UK exit from the European Union would be economically devastating. Former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said in April that the Remain crowds predictions of huge losses to personal incomes and GDP are exaggerated. And he said in late May that hes deeply disappointed by the rhetoric coming from both sides.

And while his own vote on the Brexit issue is unknown, King has come out publicly in favor of another sometimes-controversial subject: gold.

Central banks are maxed out: In comments carried in the World Gold Councils June issue of Gold Investor, King also was highly critical of central-bank monetary policies ironic, considering that he ran the Bank of England for a decade, from 2003 to 2013.

Monetary policy has reached its limits, he said. If you repeatedly bring down interest rates to try and persuade people to spend today rather than tomorrow, it works for a while. But they become increasingly resistant to being asked to spend their resources now rather than save for the future. And the longer domestic spending is in excess of potential output, the more you have to borrow from the rest of the world to finance it. Eventually people wake up to the fact that this is unsustainable and then you get a sharp adjustment downwards.

Wrong direction with more debt: Although King said raising rates now isn’t necessarily a good idea (That would just lead to another downturn), he levied significant blame on governments borrow-and-spend policies and failure to enact fiscal reforms.

If we had too much spending and too much borrowing before the crisis and we have even more spending and borrowing now, then were moving further and further away from the point that we’ve got to get back to, he said. So monetary policy is not only meeting diminishing returns, but its making the ultimate adjustment even bigger. Its taking us in the wrong direction.

Echoing recent concerns from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, King fears that without effective governmental reforms, the risk is that we just muddle through with a prolonged period of very low growth. The longer that goes on, the more output we will have lost in the interim. And in the long run, it makes another crisis more likely because, if everyone is relying on monetary policy and it isn’t the answer, we wont get back to a new equilibrium.

Sensible to own gold: Therefore, gold remains a key defensive asset to enhance wealth preservation, King says. Its still early days to conclude that around the world, governments have found the solution to maintaining price stability with a managed paper currency, he said. We made real progress in the 1990s and early 2000s and a lot of countries went down that road and followed us. But hyperinflation has clearly not disappeared the second biggest hyperinflation in history was in Zimbabwe in this century so I can understand why holding gold would seem to be a sensible part of a national portfolio. Because there is clearly a need to take some precautions against an unknowable future.

The run into gold by many emerging-market nations, particularly China, makes a lot of sense to King.

I can understand why they feel that some proportion of their portfolio needs to be in gold, he said. Who knows what the future holds, but China and other countries do not want to be in a situation where all their international assets are in effect dependent on the US. Of course the US would not want to renege on its debts, but if some awful conflagration occurred, then all China’s assets in the US might be annulled. So there are plenty of big concerns that make it extremely reasonable to have assets in your portfolio that are not dependent on the goodwill of other countries.

Royal Mint appeals to pensioners: And King, of course, isn’t the only Brit who sees value in physical golds safe-haven properties, which include the lack of counter-party risk. The United Kingdoms Royal Mint thinks that the county’s retirees might like to have exposure to the yellow metal for their own golden retirement parachutes.

Therefore, the mint is now offering gold bars for sale that can fund tax-efficient self-invested personal pension (SIPP) schemes, Business Insider reported. These bars will be stored in the Royal Mints vault, with prices fluctuating according to the live gold price.

The move follows the decision by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2014 to make gold Bullion a standard asset, which means financial advisors are now allowed to advise clients to invest in gold.

(American investors planning for their retirements also have gold and silver as options. Blanchard and Company has a three-step method for clients to add precious metals to their individual retirement accounts, or IRAs. Visit the preceding link, or call our investment professionals at 1-800-880-4653 to learn more.)

If the Brexit proposal passes on June 23, look for more Brits, as well as other Europeans, to seek safety in the yellow metal. And with the European Central Bank continuing its negative-interest-rate and quantitative-easing policies (including now purchasing corporate bonds), gold will maintain its allure even if voters reject the Brexit agenda.

Gold topped $1,260 to hit three-week highs Wednesday, rising more than 1% just one week away from the Federal Reserves June 14-15 meeting. Meanwhile, silver broke through the $17 level for the first time in three weeks.

Gold could easily see a further $20 an increase, given favorable macroeconomic news, MKS trader Afshin Nabavi told Reuters. I’m thinking we could see $1,290-$1,300 in the short term, trader Eric Zuccarelli said in a CNBC appearance.

The shockingly bad May jobs report issued last week, along with Fed chief Janet Yellens wishy-washy speech Monday, remains fresh in investors minds. And certainly, fading expectations of a Fed interest-rate hike helped fuel the metals higher, but thats not all.

New monetary amphetamine unveiled: The European Central Bank has picked up where the Fed left off, delving into negative rates and launching its own quantitative-easing program. ECB buying of government bonds has pushed yields down to records, with more than40% of securities in the Bloomberg Eurozone Sovereign Bond Index offering negative yields, Bloomberg reported.

But the ECBs QE program went a step further Wednesday as the central bank for the first time purchased corporate bonds issued by some of Europes largest companies in a desperate attempt to stimulate the EU economy.

The ECBs monetary amphetamine has driven gold above the key $1,250 level, Tai Wong of BMO Capital Markets wrote. ECB chief Mario Draghis determination to drive rates ever lower fires up investors appetite for gold.

Brexit is another reason for gold: And, of course, concerns about the looming June 23 Brexit referendum on whether the United Kingdom should quit the European Union also is helping gold. If there was going to be a vote to leave, it would boost gold, if only because it pushes the Fed back again, Macquarie analyst Matthew Turner said. And CNBC contributor and trader Jim Iuorio noted, I like the gold trade and Im going to stay with it because I think the euros going higher. And if the euro starts to go lower, that might mean because were worried about the Brexit, and that might be another reason to buy gold.

But gold had another catalyst to run higher Wednesday. The World Bank became the latest global economic agency to downgrade its global growth forecast, slashing its 2016 target to 2.4% from its January estimate of 2.9%, citing stubbornly low commodity prices, sluggish demand in advanced economies, weak trade and diminishing capital flows, Reuters reported.

The World Bank also followed the lead of other organizations in cutting its U.S. growth forecast by eight-tenths of a percent, to 1.9%.

So, clearly, its not the Fed alone thats increasing golds allure. We believe focusing on the Fed alone is simplistic and only drives very near-term sentiment and volatility, argued Jessica Fung at BMO Capital Markets. The potential impact of sluggish global growth on the U.S. economy should not be ignored.