Raphael Stevens

Gold prices are up about 25% this year as investors seek a safe haven from trade war anxieties and geopolitical tensions.
High-net-worth Americans are increasingly turning to physical gold to diversify from the depreciating U.S. dollar, according to Stephen Jury of J.P. Morgan Private Bank.
While paranoid gold investors may be tempted to keep their bullions at home, there are more secure — and pricier — options, such as vaults in the Swiss Alps.

An employee handles one kilogram gold bullions at the YLG Bullion International Co. headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, Dec. 22, 2023.
Chalinee Thirasupa | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
With gold prices up roughly 25% this year, the precious metal is in such demand that Costco has capped how many gold bars shoppers can buy in a day. A recent HSBC survey of affluent investors found that gold allocations had more than doubled this year from 5% to 11%.

High-net-worth individuals are getting in on the action too, bankers to the wealthy told CNBC, even if they aren’t buying gold bars along with rotisserie chickens. HSBC’s James Steel said the asset’s safe-haven appeal has been bolstered by trade war anxieties and geopolitical tensions. 
“Gold is a friend of uncertainty,” said the chief precious metals analyst.
Investors in Asia and the Middle East have long invested in physical gold due to currency fluctuations, high inflation and cultural affinities. Edmund Shing, global chief investment officer at BNP Paribas Wealth Management, said overseas family offices have allocations as high as 5% to 10% in physical gold or gold-backed investments. 
However, J.P. Morgan Private Bank’s Stephen Jury said there has been a noticeable uptick among high-net-worth U.S. clients who want to diversify from the depreciating U.S. dollar.
“If you’re buying euros or yen and you need to buy an underlying security with that currency, that starts to get a little bit more complex for most clients,”  said Jury, the private bank’s global commodity strategist.  On the other hand, investing in gold is “easier to get their head around,” he said.

For short-term gold trading, futures are a popular option, according to Steel. Investing in physical gold or ETFs is more attractive to investors who plan to buy and hold, he said. Since investing in bars and bullions usually comes with insurance and storage fees, it takes a higher allocation to make it worth your while, he added.
There are a slew of options, some more expensive than others. Jury recommended private bank clients invest in unallocated gold held in a J.P. Morgan vault, meaning they have a claim to the gold’s value but do not own a specific bar and can’t take it. It comes with lower fees than ETFs or allocated bars. Clients can buy a fraction of an unallocated bar for $250,000, whereas buying an allocated bar of 400 ounces costs about $1 million and incurs insurance and storage fees.
However, the more paranoid gold investors aren’t deterred by fees and higher minimums, according to Jury.
“Some clients don’t like to do that because they think the world’s coming to an end, and they want to hold the gold and know that it’s their bar that belongs to them, and they can take delivery of that bar at any time,” he said. “As people get wealthier and get older, they get a little more cautious, and that’s putting it diplomatically.”
Some clients want to keep their gold bars with them, with one telling Jury that she planned to bury it in her garden.
“I said, ‘Please don’t tell me that, and please don’t tell anyone else that,'” he recalled.

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Banks advise against keeping gold at home due to security risks and the difficulty of selling gold on the open market. They take numerous precautions, such as not disclosing vault locations and running background checks on clients who request to visit, Steel said.
Jury said only clients with very large gold holdings, likely in the range of $100 million, can tour J.P. Morgan’s vault in London.
“It would have to be a good reason for us to stop and show somebody their metal,” he said. “But it can be done, as in all things, if the amounts are large enough.”
Investors seeking the utmost security can opt for military bunkers turned vaults. Swiss Gold Safe has two such vaults deep in the Swiss Alps, according to COO Ludwig Karl. Many clients choose to diversify their gold holdings across multiple countries, including Singapore. Some go as far as doing their own audits on gold held at Swiss Gold Safe, he said. 
“Most of our clients are from first-world countries,” Karl said. “However, our clients have lower trust in government or financial systems or are trying to build a backup or insurance plan by holding precious metals outside of the banking system in a neutral and safe country.”
Steel said to get more investors to flock to gold as a safe haven they would have to be even more worried. 
“If you look at geopolitics and economic policy uncertainty as being drivers, then we would have to have an even higher geopolitical risk thermometer than we have now,” he said. “It would have to be pretty darn high.” More

Several women who have reported improvements in symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome, a common hormonal disorder, after using GLP-1s such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound.
Patients and some health experts view GLP-1s as a promising potential option for a condition that lacks a standard treatment and affects millions of women in the U.S.
But the drugs are not approved for that purpose, and much more research is needed to understand why they may help alleviate PCOS symptoms, such as irregular and painful periods.

Wegovy injection pens arranged in Waterbury, Vermont, US, on Monday, April 28, 2025.
Shelby Knowles | Bloomberg | Getty Images

For well over a decade, Grace Hamilton, 27, experienced hair loss, heavy periods, infrequent menstrual cycles, mental health issues and difficulty losing weight without knowing why. It wasn’t until 2021 when she was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, a hormonal disorder common among women of reproductive age.
After she saw limited improvements from birth control, diet and exercise, Hamilton joined a trial in 2024 examining a GLP-1 drug in PCOS patients. By October, she received her first weekly dose of semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s obesity injection Wegovy and diabetes shot Ozempic.

She said some results were almost immediate: after months without a cycle, her period resumed within two weeks of starting the drug. After 10 months on the treatment, Hamilton lost 50 pounds, saw hair regrowth and reported significant improvements in depression and anxiety
“I’m so glad that I stuck with it because it was just clear as day that it was the missing link for me,” said Hamilton, who works at a nonprofit in Arvada, Colorado, adding that she maintained diet and exercise while on the drug. 
She is just one of several women who have reported improvements in symptoms of PCOS after using GLP-1s, a growing class of obesity and diabetes treatments that have drawn massive patient demand and investor buzz over the last few years. Treating PCOS is among several new but unapproved potential uses of the blockbuster drugs beyond promoting weight loss and regulating blood sugar.

Grace Hamilton, a patient with PCOS talking GLP-1s in Galway, Ireland.
Courtesy: Addison Peacock

PCOS, which is frequently underdiagnosed, affects an estimated 5 million to 6 million women of reproductive age in the U.S., according to some estimates. 
The condition is typically characterized by higher levels of testosterone and other hormones usually associated with men called androgens, which can leads to symptoms such as irregular and painful periods, excess hair growth and acne. PCOS is the most common cause of infertility. 

The condition is strongly linked to metabolic issues, as an estimated 35% to 80% of patients experience insulin resistance. That means the pancreas pumps out more insulin to keep blood sugar in check, and high insulin levels can promote weight gain and disrupt hormone balance. A significant share of women with PCOS have obesity or Type 2 diabetes. 
Yet there’s no standard PCOS treatment. Current options like birth control, lifestyle changes and the diabetes drug Metformin may only help with certain symptoms, which could differ depending on the patient. 
But some health experts see promise in GLP-1s, particularly given their effect on improving weight loss and insulin sensitivity. 
“The unmet need is massive,” said Dr. Melanie Cree, a pediatric endocrinologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado. “Primary therapies used for PCOS symptoms haven’t changed in nearly 50 years.”
Cree has been studying the effect of GLP-1s in adolescents with PCOS for more than 10 years. She previously studied the oral form of semaglutide and has an ongoing clinical trial on the injectable version, which is what Hamilton participated in for 10 months. 
But her studies are still small in comparison to drugmakers’ previous clinical trials on GLP-1s with thousands of patients. Not all of the women who have so far completed Cree’s ongoing study lost significant weight, demonstrating that not everyone may respond to GLP-1s.
Novo Nordisk and rival Eli Lilly have been studying their GLP-1s as potential treatments for other chronic conditions like fatty liver disease, but not PCOS. Cree said that’s because the Food and Drug Administration has not established specific “endpoints” or goals drugs must meet in clinical trials to demonstrate how effective they are for PCOS. 
In a statement, a Novo Nordisk spokesperson said the company welcomes “independent research investigating the safety, efficacy and clinical utility of our products, including semaglutide.” Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
Conducting longer and larger trials to better understand the effect of GLP-1s on PCOS symptoms is crucial, said Sasha Ottey, executive director of the advocacy group PCOS Challenge. It is still unclear if GLP-1s can help address or resolve all PCOS symptoms, or whether the effect differs depending on a patient’s age or the specific drug, Ottey said. 
She added that certain patients may not lose weight on GLP-1s, and others may not need to shed pounds.
Meanwhile, insurance coverage for GLP-1s is a barrier for some PCOS patients, who are often eligible for approved uses of the drugs. Most plans cover GLP-1s for diabetes, but not for obesity or unapproved uses. The drugs can cost roughly $1,000 per month before insurance. Still, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk offer significant discounts on their drugs to some patients who pay for it out-of-pocket.

Why GLP-1s may address PCOS symptoms 

More research is needed to fully understand why GLP-1s may help some PCOS patients, but Cree said their effect on symptoms appears to be largely indirect. 
She said a key finding in several previous studies motivated her to start studying GLP-1s: In adults with PCOS, losing as little as 5% of body weight can improve insulin sensitivity.
That makes the body respond better to insulin, so it doesn’t need to produce as much of it to manage blood sugar. That lowers insulin levels, which Cree and some researchers believe causes the ovaries to produce less testosterone and, as a result, can help reduce symptoms such as irregular periods, acne and excess hair growth. 
“One of the questions was, what other methods do we have to improve insulin sensitivity?” Cree said. She noted that other recommended treatments for PCOS symptoms, such as food changes, increasing exercise and the diabetes drug Metformin, are based on that goal.
GLP-1s such as semaglutide improve insulin sensitivity and reduce appetite through several mechanisms. That includes slowing how quickly food leaves the stomach, prompting the pancreas to release insulin when blood sugar is high and suppressing the release of a hormone that raises blood sugar.
The weight loss caused by GLP-1s further helps improve insulin sensitivity. 

Daniel Grill | Tetra Images | Getty Images

Early results from Cree’s ongoing study support the idea that GLP-1s may lower testosterone. 
The trial, which began in 2023, follows girls and women ages 12 to 35 with obesity and PCOS who are on or off Metformin. The study is designed to administer semaglutide to patients for 10 months, and examine their weight loss, metabolic changes and improvements in reproductive function. 
Cree hopes the trial will answer whether GLP-1s can improve ovulation in women with PCOS. Many women with PCOS don’t ovulate regularly, which can lead to irregular periods and difficulty getting pregnant.
Cree has initial data on 11 women who completed the 10 months on semaglutide and were not on Metformin. She said eight of them lost more than 10% of their body weight and saw a reduction in their testosterone levels. 
Five out of the eight patients had their testosterone levels reach “normal ranges,” Cree said. Meanwhile, six out of the eight patients reported more regular periods. 
Cree said her trial will eventually have data from 40 women, but she is still enrolling patients in the group that takes Metformin. She said it will likely take two years before she publishes the first results from the study, which will focus on the differences in outcomes between kids and adults who only received semaglutide. 
She said comparing the groups is crucial because hormones that control growth are released during puberty, which could change how kids respond to GLP-1s. 
Not all women with PCOS will benefit from taking a GLP-1. Cree said in her trial, three patients who completed 10 months on semaglutide did not lose at least 10% of their body weight. One of those women did not lose weight at all, she said. 
Cree said that’s consistent with previous studies on GLP-1s in adults with obesity. 
Despite the promise of GLP-1s in improving symptoms, more research is also needed on PCOS itself, said Dr. Karen Tang, an OB-GYN and founder of Thrive Gynecology. She said some people can experience hallmark symptoms of the condition, such as facial hair and acne, even though they have normal levels of testosterone. 
“There’s still a lot that’s very much unknown about PCOS and exactly how the disease kind of works,” Tang told CNBC. 

GLP-1s give some patients a big boost

Anecdotal evidence suggests GLP-1s may address more than just weight issues for people with PCOS. In a recent survey of 1,700 people by the birth control app Natural Cycles, 64% of women with PCOS who took a GLP-1 reported more predictable periods, and 20% said their bleeding days were shorter.
Some patients with PCOS may also lose more weight on GLP-1s than those without the condition, said Dr. Kerry Krauss, an OB/GYN and medical director at Natural Cycles, who has PCOS herself.
Research needs to confirm those benefits, but she said it gives hope to many PCOS patients who are frustrated with common treatments for the condition. Those options typically target just one aspect of PCOS, such as reducing androgen levels with certain types of birth control. 
Tang added that diet and exercise alone often fall short of addressing symptoms: “A lot of people can exercise very aggressively and regularly or watch what they eat and still struggle with hormone imbalances, weight, and blood sugar.”

Haley Sipes a patient with PCOS taking GLP-1s.
Courtesy: Haley Sipes

That was the case for Haley Sipes, a 31-year-old mother of three based in Western Kentucky who experienced PCOS symptoms for years without a diagnosis. In 2022, before being diagnosed, she lost 75 pounds over 10 months through diet and exercise alone. 
Her progress stalled in late 2022 despite an intense diet and exercise regimen, and her weight began to fluctuate in 2023. By mid-2024, she had regained about 30 pounds. 
Sipes sought help from her primary care provider and underwent blood work, which revealed she had a hormonal imbalance. Initial efforts to regulate her hormones with progesterone and testosterone had a limited effect.
Further bloodwork diagnosed Sipes with PCOS and insulin resistance, which she views as the root cause of her weight loss struggles. She recalled bloating, fatigue, low energy, and water retention during earlier efforts to lose weight.
Despite her history of painful, irregular periods and ovarian cysts since age 10, her providers never mentioned PCOS as a possible diagnosis.
In September 2024, her doctor prescribed Zepbound. Her insurance covered it due to her BMI and prediabetes status.
Sipes said she noticed changes within the first month: her food cravings quieted, her inflammation decreased, she experienced less joint pain, and her period became less painful and occurred more regularly. Sipes added that she has not had ovarian cysts since starting Zepbound. 
After around eight months on the medication, she lost more than 60 pounds. Sipes said those results significantly improved her emotional health.
“All the symptoms and being overweight might not seem like big things, but when you have 20 little things that are constantly nagging you, then you’re going to be in a bad mood sometimes,” Sipes said. 
“I’m just a better version of myself when I’m not controlled by food thoughts and hormonal issues that cause mood swings,” she continued. “My life does feel so much more enjoyable.”
Sipes plans to continue taking Zepbound to maintain her results, possibly at lower doses. She noted that more research is needed on whether PCOS symptoms can fully resolve.

Insurance coverage is a challenge

Insurance coverage is currently the biggest hurdle preventing PCOS patients from accessing GLP-1s, said Dr. Alyssa Dominguez, an endocrinologist with Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. She said many PCOS patients are eligible to use GLP-1s for their approved uses based on BMI or related conditions, but may not have coverage. 
More than one-third of employers now cover GLP-1s for both weight loss and diabetes, while 55% only cover them for diabetes, according to a recent survey from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans. 
In April, President Donald Trump rejected a Biden administration plan that would have required Medicare and Medicaid to cover obesity drugs.

Nabeelah Karim is a patient with PCOS who took GLP-1s to manage her symptoms.
Courtesy: Nabeelah Karim

Some patients, like 34-year-old California mom Nabeelah Karim, have turned to other options. 
Karim was diagnosed with PCOS at 19 and took birth control on and off until giving birth in 2021. She said she struggled with hair loss, irregular periods, debilitating cramps, facial hair growth, severe water retention and mood swings. 
Karim said her period symptoms worsened after she gave birth, and in late 2023, she began what would be a painful five-month-long period. Doctors suggested that she lose weight, take painkillers or return to birth control. 
While Karim lost some weight through diet and exercise, she was eventually prescribed Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug Mounjaro through the digital health startup Noom in April 2024. 
Her long period stopped and symptoms eased within days, and she began to lose more weight over time. 
“It had solved all the problems that I had experienced for years up until that point,” Karim said. 
But her insurance plan never formally approved or denied coverage of Mounjaro, forcing her to pay its more than $1,000 per month out-of-pocket price. She eventually found a third-party compounding pharmacy that accepted her prescription, allowing her to buy a cheaper but unapproved version of the drug. 
Karim used that compounded version for six months and continued to experience weight loss and improvements to her PCOS symptoms. 
During FDA-declared shortages, pharmacists can legally make compounded versions of brand-name medications. They can also be produced on a case-by-case basis when it’s medically necessary for a patient, such as when they can’t swallow a pill or are allergic to a specific ingredient.
But Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly and some health experts have pushed back – and in some cases, taken legal action – against the practice, largely because the FDA does not approve compounded drugs. The FDA has declared U.S. shortages of both companies’ drugs over. 
“When people ask about how safe compounded drugs are, the answer I typically give is I don’t know,” said Dominguez from USC’s School of Medicine. She said that’s unlike branded drugs, which have clearly defined risks and benefits proven in clinical trials.
Hamilton, the 27-year-old patient who took a GLP-1 for PCOS symptoms, has never taken a compounded GLP-1. She is currently appealing her insurer’s denial of semaglutide now that she has completed Cree’s trial. 
“My whole life has been an inability to access care for my medical condition, and I’m tired of that,” she said. “If somebody would have been able to provide 11-year-old Grace with this drug, that would have saved me.” More

Canadian travel dropped sharply in the first half of 2025, according to numbers by U.S. Travel Association.
But at the same time, there was a noticeable increase in visitors from Mexico.

A passenger passes a giant American flag as they make their way to and from their gates during the Memorial Day weekend getaway at John Wayne Airport Orange County in John Wayne Airport, Santa Ana, CA on Thursday, May 26, 2022.
Allen J. Schaben | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Canadian travel dropped sharply in the first half of 2025, according to numbers by U.S. Travel Association.
Visits from Canada dropped by nearly 19% over the same time period last year, dragging overall international visits lower by 3.4%.

That equates to a decline of $1.9 billion in travel spending. June was especially rough, with Canadian visitation down more than 26%, the association said. 
The punch to the travel and tourism industry was mitigated by a noticeable increase in visitors from Mexico. The month of June and the first half of the year saw notable increases of 14.8% and 12.5%, respectively, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Those 940,000 visits from Mexican travelers equated to just shy of half a billion in travel spending. 
“This initial look at first-half 2025 data shows that while travel continues to be a priority, broader economic concerns remain on consumers’ minds. Amid a rapidly evolving global environment, international visits to the U.S. have been resilient across most markets—with the notable exception of Canada, our largest inbound source,” the U.S. Travel Association said in an email to CNBC.
Major travel companies Hilton, Wyndham and Travel and Leisure, which have been closely watching the change in visitors, are all reporting earnings next week.
Las Vegas is also reporting a decline in international visitors from Mexico and Canada, which may show up in results for casinos like Caesars, MGM, Boyd and Red Rock Resorts.

The travel industry has been concerned about a big cut in President Donald Trump’s tax-and-spending law that slashes spending on marketing and promotion of U.S. destinations overseas, and increases fees for travel visas, which may be especially problematic ahead of the World Cup next year.
— CNBC’s Dawn Giel contributed to this report. More

Shares of Sarepta Therapeutics plunged more than 30% on Friday as the future of its approved gene therapy appeared at risk.
Sarepta has reported three patient deaths related to its gene therapies.
The Food and Drug Administration will request that the company voluntarily stop all shipments of the treatment, Elevidys, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

Douglas Ingram, president and chief executive officer of Sarepta Therapeutics Inc., during the Forbes Healthcare Summit in New York, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares of Sarepta Therapeutics plunged more than 30% on Friday as the future of its approved gene therapy treatment appeared at risk.
The Food and Drug Administration will request that the company voluntarily stop all shipments of the treatment, Elevidys, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.

Sarepta told CNBC it had not heard from the FDA.
Separately, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said in an interview with Bloomberg News that the agency is considering whether the company’s gene therapy should stay on the market.
The FDA has been investigating two patient deaths tied to Elevidys, which accounts for more than half of Sarepta’s total net product revenue. The company also reported a third death tied to a separate experimental gene therapy.
Elevidys has been mired in controversy even since before it was approved. The gene therapy has yet to clearly prove it can benefit people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a condition that erodes muscle function over time.
People with the disease eventually lose the ability to walk, and most die by their early 20s, meaning there’s a huge unmet need for treatment. The FDA in 2023 originally granted Elevidys a conditional approval for patients only between the ages of 4 and 5, the group that saw the most benefit in clinical trials.

The following year, the agency granted the treatment full approval for patients 4 and older who could still walk and accelerated approval for patients 4 and up who could no longer walk. The latter decision was especially contentious because there was less evidence that Elevidys could help people whose disease had already progressed so much.
Plus, Elevidys failed to meet its goal in a Phase 3 trial, though the company contended that the drug showed promise on other metrics in the study. Then head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Peter Marks, agreed with Sarepta’s assessment and overruled FDA staff to expand approval of Elevidys.
Earlier this year, Sarepta disclosed that two teenage boys died from liver failure after receiving Elevidys. Then this week, reports emerged that another person died during a Phase 1 trial investigating another one of Sarepta’s gene therapies for a different disease.
The two therapies are different, though they share the same method of delivery, heightening the safety concerns around Elevidys. The safety risks of Elevidys are especially important given the uncertain benefit, said BMO analyst Kostas Biliouris.
For example, Novartis’ gene therapy Zolgensma for spinal muscular atrophy has also caused liver toxicity and death, but the benefit of that treatment is clear.
“That’s why deaths here matter so much versus Zolgensma, for example,” Biliouris said.
And Zolgensma is just one drug of many for a large company like Novartis. For Sarepta, Elevidys is everything.
Executives this week tried to reassure investors that even if it can only treat patients who can still walk, where deaths haven’t been reported, the therapy should bring in at least $500 million a year. Sarepta last month stopped shipping Elevidys to patients who can no longer walk while it explores a safer way to administer the treatment.
The top concern for investors at this point is whether the FDA pulls the drug, Biliouris said. The company’s stock has now fallen more than 87% this year.
“If the FDA pulls Elevidys from the market,” he says, “Sarepta is done.”

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Jennifer Handt, whose son was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy in late 2020, said it was “heartbreaking” that other patients won’t have a treatment option to turn to if shipments of Elevidys are paused. 
Her son, Charlie, was dosed with Elevidys in 2022 as part of Sarepta’s late-stage trial and noticed improvements in six to 12 months, including increased stamina and more fluid motions. The drug also eased a telltale symptom of the condition called Gowers’ sign, which causes children difficulty when getting up from a sitting or lying position. 
She said her son is “completely stable” three years out from his dose. Handt said she was aware of the liver toxicity risks before Charlie enrolled in the trial.
“We don’t have the luxury of not taking the risk,” Handt said. “There are families that dealt with this disease before that would have done anything to have an option, even if there are risks.” 
“Every family should have the choice to take this leap with this drug and potentially see benefits,” she added. 

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