The dollar is a weapon. Cheah Cheng Hye knows this. The co-founder of Value Partners is moving 25% of his personal fortune into physical gold. This is not a speculative trade. It is a structural exit from the digital financial grid. As of late January, the shift marks one of the most significant individual reallocations of wealth in the Hong Kong market. It signals a profound distrust in the safety of paper assets and the institutions that custody them.
The Weaponization of the Global Ledger
Sanctions are the new artillery. When the G7 nations froze Russian sovereign reserves, the message to the global elite was clear. No asset is truly yours if it exists as a line of code in a Western bank. Cheah is reacting to this reality. He is betting that in an era of seizures and geopolitical shocks, nothing beats metal you can touch. This is a return to the fundamentals of sovereignty. Physical bullion carries no counterparty risk. It cannot be deleted by a keystroke in Washington or Brussels.
The technical mechanism of this move is critical. Unlike gold ETFs or unallocated accounts, physical delivery requires massive logistical coordination. We are seeing a surge in demand for high-security private vaults in non-aligned jurisdictions. According to recent data from the World Gold Council, central banks have been front-running this trend for three years. Private billionaires are finally catching up. They are moving away from the ‘just-in-time’ liquidity of the markets toward the ‘just-in-case’ security of the vault.
Institutional Gold Allocation Trends leading to January 2026
The Death of the Risk-Free Asset
Treasuries are no longer a haven. For decades, the US 10-year note was the bedrock of global portfolios. That era ended when inflation became structural and the rule of law became selective. Cheah’s move highlights a growing consensus among Asian high-net-worth individuals. They see the current trajectory of US debt as unsustainable. Per reports from Bloomberg, the volatility in sovereign bond markets has made traditional 60/40 portfolios obsolete. Gold has stepped in to fill the vacuum.
The following table illustrates the performance of traditional havens versus physical gold over the 12 months leading into late January.
| Asset Class | 12-Month Performance | Primary Risk Factor |
|---|---|---|
| Physical Gold | +24.2% | Storage/Insurance Costs |
| US 10-Year Treasury | -3.8% | Inflation/Interest Rates |
| S&P 500 | +7.4% | Valuation Compression |
| Cash (USD) | -4.1% | Purchasing Power Erosion |
The Liquidity Trap
Market depth is an illusion. In a crisis, the exit door is small. Cheah is buying gold now because he knows that when the next shock hits, the price will not just rise, it will gap. We have seen this pattern in the London Bullion Market Association data throughout the previous quarter. Physical premiums are rising even when spot prices remain flat. This divergence suggests that the big money is no longer interested in the paper price. They want the bars.
Value Partners has always focused on identifying underpriced assets with strong defensive characteristics. By turning a quarter of his wealth into gold, Cheah is applying that same rigor to his personal balance sheet. He is hedging against the collapse of the rules-based order. If the system breaks, the digital ledger will be contested. The physical bar will not be.
The next data point to watch is the February 15 Treasury International Capital (TIC) report. This will reveal if other major Asian holders are following Cheah’s lead and liquidating their US debt positions in favor of hard assets.
