Lobo Tiggre Reveals What Happens Next for Gold & Silver
Summary
Macro Outlook: The guest expects stagflation with softer growth and persistent inflation, implying a supportive backdrop for real assets.
Monetary Policy: QT is nearing an end with a setup for potential quantitative easing, which would be inflationary and bullish for commodities.
Gold: Bullish but prefers consolidation around $4,000 to sustain the cycle; central bank buying and broadening participation support the thesis.
Silver: More volatile than gold with strong industrial pull; recent London physical squeeze resolved, bringing price action back to a healthier trend.
Copper: Highest-conviction trade due to strong structural demand (beyond EVs) and constrained supply; AI/data center buildout and broader infrastructure amplify upside.
Uranium: Positive but less favored than copper due to potential event risk and proximity to incentive prices; copper seen with greater asymmetric upside.
AI Theme: An AI arms race is driving massive investment in fabs and data centers, indirectly boosting demand for critical minerals like copper.
Risk Management: Emphasis on taking profits in mining equities during sharp rallies while maintaining core bullion holdings; no single-stock tickers were pitched, with ETFs like GDX/GDXJ only referenced in passing.
Transcript
Special coverage from the New Orleans Investment Conference is brought to you by First Majestic Silver Corp. There's no substitute for silver. Hello and welcome back to New Orleans and welcome back to the New Orleans Investment Conference. My name is Kai Hoffen. I'm the Edging guy over on X and of course the host of this channel and I'm looking forward to bringing back our Fed res or resident Fed commentator Lobo Tigra. Um just just egging him on a little bit, but it's great to have you here in person with us in in New Orleans. Lobo, it's good to see you. Always a pleasure, Kai. >> Yeah, really looking forward to this. Um, as I said, it's like teasing me a little bit because we we always make the joke you're not an economist, but you keep saying, well, everybody's somewhat of an economist, right? Um, >> in self-defense, we have to be because the profession lets us down so thoroughly. >> Well, we got to understand what is driving our markets. That was sort of the idea behind the sore financially channel. We discussed the macro to understand the micro because we were wondering for the longest time, why aren't the mining stocks moving? >> Catching phrase. Yes. >> Right. Um, so but let's come back to the Fed. We had a Fed meeting last week. We had haven't had a chance to talk about it yet. Maybe on a high level like >> sure >> like what was your takeaway? >> Number one takeaway is you know set aside what they say >> is remember these are the captains of the ship of state. They have to sail the economy the best they can through uncharted waters right there's nothing in that job description that says they have to tell the truth. And we know that they regard Powell's jawbone and all the other ones as policy tools. it's part of their toolkit, you know, to say things that will make people act in certain ways that they think are good economically. Um, I don't think that's actually very controversial thing for me to say, though it may not sound very nice. I but I think it's it's important to keep in mind it is not their job to speak the unvarnished truth. You know, at best they they spin it, massage it to try to push things in the right direction. So whatever they say, the fact is inflation has been going the wrong way for 6 months. It's 50% above target whereas unemployment is supposedly at record lows or near record lows. Um and they're cutting. So if of the dual mandates, if one is 50% above target and one is not a problem, why are they cutting? What are they not telling us? I think that is that's not a conspiracy theory. I think that's a reasonable question to ask. >> Pragmatic thinking. >> Clearly there's more weakness there than they're willing to let on. Um, and another thing that they're not saying is transitory, but clearly they either think the inflation is transitory because they're not acting on it. Um, or they know it's not, but maybe they're not worried about it going too much higher. They know it's not going away, but it's they don't basically 3% is a new 2%, right? You know, they know it's not going away, but they don't think it's going to get much worse. So, they're airing on the side. But either way, what we end up with is weaker economy, high inflation, above target stagflation, and we all know, you know, what you know happened the last time we had a serious bout of interactable stamp inflation in the US. Um, and by the way, sorry to interrupt myself here, but people often say, "Lo, but you talk about the US, the Fed, you know, so much. You know, the world is global. Gold is a global market." Well, but we tend to quote the price of it or the in dollars, the gold dollar exchange rate, I like to call it. So, what happens with US policy to the US economy, the US dollar is relevant not just to gold, but to all commodities. And so, and it's also the world's largest economy. So it's it's not irrelevant even if you live in Switzerland or Shanghai to pay attention to what's going on in the US. So anyway, my my key takeaway is what the Fed is saying without saying is that we're in for stagflation and um you know makes me nervous because to say we're in for stagflation the obvious corlary is so that's good for gold and silver but with gold over $4,000 and silver close to 50 you know >> how much better can it get >> right and I'm sure you have plenty of guests who will argue why it has to go to 6,000 or10,000 or whatever. And I'm not saying they're wrong. It just makes me a little nervous cuz we had a hockey stick from 2500 up to 3,000. We wafted a bit and then we got another hockey stick. So, hey, hockey sticks again. That's three in a row. That's a pretty tall ask. Not saying it can't happen. Could be the stagflation story kicks in and we end up with um you know, Goldbug's dream come true, right? the next the blowoff top though honestly and I'll let you go with the next question here. I would much rather see actually a period of consolidation. I think that would be healthy and I'd be it would give me greater confidence in the longevity of this gold bowl. Whereas if we go right away into that blowoff top, we all know what happens after the blowoff top and >> so don't forget to take profits. >> Really good point. Absolutely. Take some money off the table if you can. Um, just staying on the Fed for a second. QT is an interesting topic. I know we talked about, we laughed about the five billion dollars in QT every month. >> No, not even that. >> No, no, they're taking that off, but they're giving us enough warning. They're giving us four or five weeks to sort of adjust to the new new QT, no QT. Um, but what do you make of that in terms of that? Like maybe as of on on the liquidity side, is is that even um relevant or is that like signal like what you call virtual signaling a bit? >> Yeah. No, and obviously from 5 billion to I mean that's not even a rounding error in the big picture of things for policy. I think the bigger signal if you will is that if you're going to go from QT to QE again at some point you have to go to zero. The rate of change you know at that inflection point has to go to zero. So the takeaway from here might be that what the Fed is actually signaling is that they're worried enough about the weakness they're not acknowledging um that they're setting the table priming the pump for QE which would again that's inflationary would be obviously bullish for anything real uh including monetary metals >> 100%. Then do do you see that happening though Kiwi? Like if you were read to to read the tea leaves, is it really upon us again? >> Yes. See, one of one of the issues that we have is like we're looking at things and and the bulls economic bulls, they're saying, well, gee, you know, the economy is not so bad. Look, you know, unemployment near record lows and so on. But if you've got this K-shaped economy and you look at, you know, like spending, everybody's keep scratching their head. Well, gee, if there's weakness in the economy, how come spending keeps holding up? Well, it's not that big a mystery. you even on mainstream financial media, you'll have people admit periodically, well, yeah, it's the top 10% that are doing the top 50% or, you know, right? So, if you net that out, you know, the people on the bottom rung of the K, they're not doing so great. Um, and that matters because you could say, oh, well, it well, it averages out. Like for example, one of the one of the interesting numbers going around right now is that if you took out all the data center builds, >> this last quarter of growth was basically zero, like 0.1%. >> Um, but it averages with with the data center builds, it averages into looks like a, you know, a fairly healthy amount of growth for the US. The the GDP now forecast is currently like 3.9%. >> Which is like, wow, >> for an economy as large as the US to be. Um, but if that's mostly data center bills, what does that imply about the bottom rung of the K, right? And and this matters because A, it's real. There's people who are suffering, and B, there's more of them. Okay, maybe the billionaires spend as much as the people on the lowest rung of the ladder, but there's more of them and they vote. So, if you're asking me what's the Fed going to do, you could look at the average statistic and say, oh, gee, things aren't so bad. But their political masters understand that voters will be very unhappy in large numbers if they don't address the bottom rung of the K. So, you know, could could there be QE despite inflation? Like, imagine that we don't just stop the QT, but we're actually doing QE and cutting rates. Well, if and inflation continues higher. I mean, obviously, if it goes screaming back up to double digits or something, they'll change course. But if it's just, you know, waffling around three, maybe heading up towards three and a half, they could still do that. And if you're talking three and a half% inflation, uh, and, you know, job destruction for the larger number of people at the bottom part of the K, that's very much like the 1970s. People talk about Vulker raising rates to 20% or whatever, but the inflation, you know, it spiked high, but the average and when people were getting upset like it was it was around the levels that we're talking about now, >> right? >> Right. I mean, it zero inflation was the aberration, you know? So, it's really interesting to me, >> and you're asking, so I'm answering the questions with what I think because I just want to make clear that I'm not predicting like gold's going to the moon, but it's striking to me that we're heading into an environment that should be bullish from gold and we're heading into it from a level from 4,000. You know, that's kind of exciting. This is the equivalent of me pounding the table. I guess I try not to do that, right? Uh but one more thing on this. Yeah, >> it's really interesting to me that uh gold is doing that beach ball thing like it's gone under 4,000 and it just keeps coming back up again. >> And when gold hit almost 44 400, right? And then rolled over and it started going down, it was reasonable to say, where's the floor, right? And and a and a reasonable at least psychological if not technical level would have been 4,000. Does it hold 4,000? Because if it kept going down through that I you know the technical guys would say your next Fibonacci is like 37 and change or something you know that would be a significant pullback or a much bigger one than we've got now almost officially a bare market right so so the fact that it doesn't seem to be going there that it's catching a bit that's really telling to me uh if this continues it the longer this 4000 consolidation goes like if did the same thing at at 3,000 did the same thing at 2,000 like and then what happened? It went up to the next big leg up. So the longer this consolidation goes, the more confidence I will have that the next big move will be up, not down. >> Right now, honestly, the next big move could still be down. >> Yeah. So usually that bullish flag pattern that we're seeing or >> I'm not a TA. I'm not a TA, but but yes, actually. So I think um Christopher Muan who is I think his morning talk this morning was actually pretty bullish on that basis and I can't say more like he's he's the expert not me >> um but but I'm more just looking at like how long we you know we consolidated for a couple years over 2000 and it dropped pretty low like 1700 what was it I forget what the low was after 2000 >> lower than 17 anyway consolidated for years but waffled around that range and then it did the same thing for less time over And if it does the same thing now, I don't think we'd have to wait that long because you've got the central bank buying. You've got mainstream waking up to gold. Uh gold being a crowded trade this year on Main Street at least. Sorry, not Main Street, on Wall Street at least, a crowded trade. So, the ingredients are there for a real flavor of the day. like the kind of market mania that happened in the late 1970s and 1980 which didn't really happen in 2011 like you know the shoe shine boy giving you gold stock tips and stuff that didn't happen in 2011. >> Talk to this guy sitting over there. >> Yeah, we Yeah, we should. Yeah, >> see what he what he recommends these days. >> But that's that's not just allegorical like I was the shoe shine boy in 1979 in 1980 and I was you I wasn't buying gold because I was shoe shine boy but I was buying silver. I was buying Morgan dollars. >> Every, you know, babysitting job or lawn I mowed, you know, I caught the fever. I put every penny I could into silver dollars. >> Let's talk about silver since you opened that can there. Like same same move. Um, of course higher. We're at $48 right now, but it acts differently. It acts more violently for a lack of better term. Like the volatility is much higher. Gold is down 3%. Silver's down seven or eight%. Right. >> Well, that's always been the case. Silver's always been more volatile than gold. Um, it also though has I think undeniably people call me Darth because of my my my saying though, but I think it undeniably has a much stronger um response in price to its industrial side. It's always had an industrial side. Like it was photography before, now it's electronics and solar panels, but it's always had an industrial side, but that is clearly a stronger variable now. like it it really affects the the above ground available stock in a way that doesn't matter for gold. Um so that's that's interesting to me. But I'm I'm actually not not even that's not even where my head is on that. I I do I do think that the the thing I'm watching is that even your most diehard silver uber bulls will tell you that yeah, silver lags at first, but it's okay. Don't worry because silver always catches up in the end. more than catches up at the end. Fine. I agree. Historically, that's happened nine out of 10 times. >> Um, but if we're in the catching up at the end phase, that implies that the end, we're in the end phase, right? And I don't think that's true. >> So, it was concerning me that silver recently was screaming north faster than gold was. Um, but we have a proximal cause for this. the squeeze, the physical squeeze in London, you know, um the the price to borrow silver in London to meet physical demand, uh you know, skyrocketed. So, enough to to fly some silver from New York back to London and and apparently more of it came from China to help resolve this. Um, but I like this because, you know, silver's kind of reverted to trend. Like, it started more than catching up with gold and now it's reverted to trend. And that's good for the longevity of this market. More time for all of us to make money here. And I, this is an important point. My job, what my clients pay me for is to help them make money, not to be ideological or religious about defending silver or gold or uranium or whatever it is. Um, so don't get mad at me if I talk about taking profits or markets going up and down. The purpose is not to be uh a cheerleader for your favorite commodity. The purpose is to make money. Um, and we make more money, I think, if we have years to go in this bull market, which ultimately takes us higher than if we get a blowoff top now and then we have a bare market for years, right? So silver accelerating was worrisome because it might have signaled the end of the market and s silver correcting more right now brings it back to trend and breathe for me that's a sigh of relief the the the bull in monetary metals is stronger this way I want to talk a little market sentiment as well because we've both been in the mining space for a long time and I'm still nervous when I see like down days you know it's like oh is this the end right is this the end of the rally that's sort of what gave me the idea for that question here cuz the GDX GXJ corrected quite a bit as well. Overcorrected in my opinion a little bit. Um is it based on that nervousness that we've seen? Did it overcorrect or does it? >> It depends on what you mean by nervousness. >> I don't always like the whack-a-ole game, right? Like when we ever get excited, >> you know, I I what I'm saying is there's nervousness and there's nervousness. One kind of nervousness is this is it, the market is done, we got to get out. And there's nervousness of oh, it's gone really high and and maybe it's time to lock in some gains and things. And it's quite different. >> And and this is why I think the beachball thing with $4,000 gold is so important because if it was the nervousness that oh like this is a nosebleleed valuation, it's irrational, it's got to pop and then go into a bust mode, which we could say about other markets today maybe. Um >> you know, if that's the nervousness that we had, I don't think gold would have stopped at 4,000. I mean, I think it would have gone I think it would have blown through the Fibonacci and easily gone back to 3,000. um maybe even lower. >> That didn't happen or at least hasn't yet. That's that's why I say the longer we consolidate here, the less I worry about that. Um whereas the nervousness that oh gee, this is faster than we expected. Clearly that there was a yes there. There were people who were ready to lock in gains the moment it seemed like things rolled over. And by the way, I was one of those. >> Fair enough. Uh, and you can hate me if you want, but it wasn't just me. You know, our good friend Rick Rule on recent interviews, he's mentioned reaching the point of no concern, as he calls it. And by, and this is actually an important point. It's not like Rick is now bearish on gold and silver, nor am I. And it's not like he's completely out of the markets. He's just sold enough that he has no risk. Like, he can't lose. I've sold enough that I've actually locked in gains. So, so I can't not only can I not lose, I can't not make money. And I've made enough that I actually still have enough left on the table that if the next big move is up, I still make even more money. And by the way, I paid down my mortgage. Like, so I mentioned that in terms of keeping things real, I'm not betraying the cause of silver or gold or something. I'm just saying it went way up. I had a lot of money unrealized >> and I have >> a risk management move. >> You're really taking me on with this with this Fed stuff. No, but I'm >> I >> No, I know. I I hear I >> I don't want to to repeat myself, but but again, the object is to make money. And if you've only made money on paper, you haven't made any money, right? If you don't realize the gains, they're they're not real. Like literally. Um, >> no. >> Excellent point. Excellent point. Um, >> and how bad would it be to be a long-suffering silver bull finally be right, see silver top $50, but not make any money? >> Yeah. >> Like >> that's >> Yeah. >> Wrong. >> That just sounds doesn't sound right. >> But but I still have I still have more money on the table now after taking profits than when I started. >> There you go. >> Right. Oh, and sorry, one more thing. Silver bulls especially, but go bulls too. When I talk about taking profits, I'm talking about the stocks. I make money speculating on the stocks. Gold and silver bullion. I I don't say basically unless the house is on fire and I need to cash in on insurance or something like that. I only accumulate. So So don't accuse me of betraying the metal here, right? I'm talking about locking in gains on these highly volatile securities, which as you just said, you know, the metal's correct a bit. The the stairs up, elevator down absolutely applies to the stocks. And that's why everybody should have a strategy for locking in gains. >> No, well said. Um, Lobo, one other commodity you're quite bullish on, it's your number one trade you call is copper. >> Um, run us a bit through the fundamentals behind it. Have they changed recently? Um, I know we haven't used the R word in a long time here on this channel, meaning recession. So, I'm really curious what your thoughts are. Okay, so the demand case is uber bullish and the key points here. We don't need to rehash the whole thing, but key points are like the EV thing. That's not why copper is up. I mean, that has helped, but it's not the base case. The base case is we call it Dr. Copper. It's because it's a fundamental metal that's needed like steel or aluminum for many many things. So the the electric car thing is a tailwind on top of that demand. So is the AI thing. It's like even if the AI turns out to be completely overblown and the whole thing, you know, simmers down, that doesn't hurt the copper demand scenario. Like the actual copper demand scenario. Um, but by the way, I think even if the companies are overhyped and the share prices are overhyped, um, the reality is those fabs are being built, right? And the data centers are being built and a lot of other infrastructure around this whole thing are being built. And I'm just a a mining stock analyst, but for whatever it's worth, I think the United States, Russia, and China, maybe Europe, too, but at the least those three are in an arms race over AI. I think, and Putin has said that whoever gets to super AGI first wins World War II. So, for whatever it's worth, I think the powers that be get that, it seems pretty clear to me if you look at what Trump is doing, he gets it, too. Nobody wants to be last on this. This implies a massive investment which is extremely bullish. Really all critical minerals including copper. So the demand case I think is spectacular. Like the the worst case is growth and then you add the EVs or the AI on top of that and you get super growth. Meanwhile the supply side is extremely constrained. It takes forever to permit these things and build the minds and finding them, you know, those are very very few and far between like worldclass discoveries. It's been maybe two in the last decade and both of those were sort of already known assets that just turned out to be much bigger and better than we thought. Um, and meanwhile, you know, you keep having problems on the ground and I don't just mean like Cobra Panama, but just Mayan accidents. Unfortunately, this year we've had four major mine accidents, including with fatalities, you know, and um that's not good, but it just shows you how difficult it is to ramp up supply. So, extremely bullish and uh I like uranium for silver reasons. I don't know if you're going to ask about that, but the thing about uranium is that it is possible. I think it's very unlikely. I don't worry about it, but it is always possible for there to be a nuclear accident that tanks the stocks. That's not possible in the copper space. There is no copper reactor that's going to cause a global scare. So, I like them both. Um, but I there's a there's a meltdown scenario in one and not the other and that predisposes me to the other. Also, uranium at 80 bucks plus arguably is near the incentive price. So, there's there's less of a squeeze I feel there whereas I feel more upside on the copper space. Um, and one more thing, when I say my highest conviction trade is X, that doesn't mean I think X is going to be the metal that goes up the most. You know, you you get rodium or something like that, you know, can suddenly just whatever. Um, by highest confidence, I mean that it's I see significant upside and I see it as as most likely, right? So, it's it's that combination. Um, so arguably you could say, "Oh, gee, Lobo, copper was your top pick for 25 and and platinum was up more, gold was up more, silver was up more. You that was terrible call." Well, you know, copper that slouch is up 25%. That's not bad, >> right? And u I won't rehash everything. There are reasons for that, but but most of the reasons why I'm bullish on copper are still actually in front of us. Copper was up this year, and a lot of that had to do with Trump shenanigans, right? Tariffs, no tariffs. Yes, you're right. Copper on, you know, screeching north and then south again. Um, so all of my reasons for bullishness are still largely in front of us. So I'm I'm very keen on that space. >> Cool. No, I appreciate that. Really insightful there. And if you shared a lot of actionable advice with our audience already, but maybe one last question in that regard. Um, you're on stage here a couple of times this week. Um, what is something you want the investors to leave with? >> Well, the the nobody goes broke taking profits is absolutely the number one theme I've had now like I had I I've said this before, but just real quick, the simple example, simple math. I put 10 grand almost exactly into one stock. >> When my upside maximizer trigger, that's my strategy for for when I take profits. It's a free download on the website. My upside maximizer was triggered, it was the position was just over 35K. >> So, I decided, given the risk in the play, blah blah blah, I took 20,000 back off the table and I left 15. So I started with 10. So I have 150% of the money that I started with still on at play if if things go north again. But I've guaranteed a double. I haven't just gone risk-f free. I have a guaranteed double. Like the remaining money could go boom absolutely to zero tomorrow and I would still have a double including fees, right? So do I lack conviction? Do I do I hate silver? This was a silver play. No. I just I just made real a substantial win and I still have exposure to the upside. So that's what I mean. I don't I don't You're not a trader if you lock in and realize some of your gains. I think people should have this clear in their mind. >> No, absolutely. Really appreciate it, Lobo. Always love catching up with you. In person's even better than uh virtual. Much appreciate you coming down here. Um where can we send our audience? Where can they follow you? >> independentspeculator.com. I always like to say easiest thing to do is sign up for our free weekly letter. Uh, you may or may not like it, but I can promise that we won't spam you with the flood of daily advertisements. I hate that. >> Fantastic. Awesome. Lobo, thank you so much. Everybody else, thanks so much for tuning in here from the floor of the New Orleans Investment Conference. If you haven't done so, hit that like and subscribe button and let us know down below, what's your favorite commodity right now? What's your highest convection play? Is it gold, silver, copper, uranium? Let us know. Thanks so much for tuning in and we'll be back with lots more.
Lobo Tiggre Reveals What Happens Next for Gold & Silver
Summary
Transcript
Special coverage from the New Orleans Investment Conference is brought to you by First Majestic Silver Corp. There's no substitute for silver. Hello and welcome back to New Orleans and welcome back to the New Orleans Investment Conference. My name is Kai Hoffen. I'm the Edging guy over on X and of course the host of this channel and I'm looking forward to bringing back our Fed res or resident Fed commentator Lobo Tigra. Um just just egging him on a little bit, but it's great to have you here in person with us in in New Orleans. Lobo, it's good to see you. Always a pleasure, Kai. >> Yeah, really looking forward to this. Um, as I said, it's like teasing me a little bit because we we always make the joke you're not an economist, but you keep saying, well, everybody's somewhat of an economist, right? Um, >> in self-defense, we have to be because the profession lets us down so thoroughly. >> Well, we got to understand what is driving our markets. That was sort of the idea behind the sore financially channel. We discussed the macro to understand the micro because we were wondering for the longest time, why aren't the mining stocks moving? >> Catching phrase. Yes. >> Right. Um, so but let's come back to the Fed. We had a Fed meeting last week. We had haven't had a chance to talk about it yet. Maybe on a high level like >> sure >> like what was your takeaway? >> Number one takeaway is you know set aside what they say >> is remember these are the captains of the ship of state. They have to sail the economy the best they can through uncharted waters right there's nothing in that job description that says they have to tell the truth. And we know that they regard Powell's jawbone and all the other ones as policy tools. it's part of their toolkit, you know, to say things that will make people act in certain ways that they think are good economically. Um, I don't think that's actually very controversial thing for me to say, though it may not sound very nice. I but I think it's it's important to keep in mind it is not their job to speak the unvarnished truth. You know, at best they they spin it, massage it to try to push things in the right direction. So whatever they say, the fact is inflation has been going the wrong way for 6 months. It's 50% above target whereas unemployment is supposedly at record lows or near record lows. Um and they're cutting. So if of the dual mandates, if one is 50% above target and one is not a problem, why are they cutting? What are they not telling us? I think that is that's not a conspiracy theory. I think that's a reasonable question to ask. >> Pragmatic thinking. >> Clearly there's more weakness there than they're willing to let on. Um, and another thing that they're not saying is transitory, but clearly they either think the inflation is transitory because they're not acting on it. Um, or they know it's not, but maybe they're not worried about it going too much higher. They know it's not going away, but it's they don't basically 3% is a new 2%, right? You know, they know it's not going away, but they don't think it's going to get much worse. So, they're airing on the side. But either way, what we end up with is weaker economy, high inflation, above target stagflation, and we all know, you know, what you know happened the last time we had a serious bout of interactable stamp inflation in the US. Um, and by the way, sorry to interrupt myself here, but people often say, "Lo, but you talk about the US, the Fed, you know, so much. You know, the world is global. Gold is a global market." Well, but we tend to quote the price of it or the in dollars, the gold dollar exchange rate, I like to call it. So, what happens with US policy to the US economy, the US dollar is relevant not just to gold, but to all commodities. And so, and it's also the world's largest economy. So it's it's not irrelevant even if you live in Switzerland or Shanghai to pay attention to what's going on in the US. So anyway, my my key takeaway is what the Fed is saying without saying is that we're in for stagflation and um you know makes me nervous because to say we're in for stagflation the obvious corlary is so that's good for gold and silver but with gold over $4,000 and silver close to 50 you know >> how much better can it get >> right and I'm sure you have plenty of guests who will argue why it has to go to 6,000 or10,000 or whatever. And I'm not saying they're wrong. It just makes me a little nervous cuz we had a hockey stick from 2500 up to 3,000. We wafted a bit and then we got another hockey stick. So, hey, hockey sticks again. That's three in a row. That's a pretty tall ask. Not saying it can't happen. Could be the stagflation story kicks in and we end up with um you know, Goldbug's dream come true, right? the next the blowoff top though honestly and I'll let you go with the next question here. I would much rather see actually a period of consolidation. I think that would be healthy and I'd be it would give me greater confidence in the longevity of this gold bowl. Whereas if we go right away into that blowoff top, we all know what happens after the blowoff top and >> so don't forget to take profits. >> Really good point. Absolutely. Take some money off the table if you can. Um, just staying on the Fed for a second. QT is an interesting topic. I know we talked about, we laughed about the five billion dollars in QT every month. >> No, not even that. >> No, no, they're taking that off, but they're giving us enough warning. They're giving us four or five weeks to sort of adjust to the new new QT, no QT. Um, but what do you make of that in terms of that? Like maybe as of on on the liquidity side, is is that even um relevant or is that like signal like what you call virtual signaling a bit? >> Yeah. No, and obviously from 5 billion to I mean that's not even a rounding error in the big picture of things for policy. I think the bigger signal if you will is that if you're going to go from QT to QE again at some point you have to go to zero. The rate of change you know at that inflection point has to go to zero. So the takeaway from here might be that what the Fed is actually signaling is that they're worried enough about the weakness they're not acknowledging um that they're setting the table priming the pump for QE which would again that's inflationary would be obviously bullish for anything real uh including monetary metals >> 100%. Then do do you see that happening though Kiwi? Like if you were read to to read the tea leaves, is it really upon us again? >> Yes. See, one of one of the issues that we have is like we're looking at things and and the bulls economic bulls, they're saying, well, gee, you know, the economy is not so bad. Look, you know, unemployment near record lows and so on. But if you've got this K-shaped economy and you look at, you know, like spending, everybody's keep scratching their head. Well, gee, if there's weakness in the economy, how come spending keeps holding up? Well, it's not that big a mystery. you even on mainstream financial media, you'll have people admit periodically, well, yeah, it's the top 10% that are doing the top 50% or, you know, right? So, if you net that out, you know, the people on the bottom rung of the K, they're not doing so great. Um, and that matters because you could say, oh, well, it well, it averages out. Like for example, one of the one of the interesting numbers going around right now is that if you took out all the data center builds, >> this last quarter of growth was basically zero, like 0.1%. >> Um, but it averages with with the data center builds, it averages into looks like a, you know, a fairly healthy amount of growth for the US. The the GDP now forecast is currently like 3.9%. >> Which is like, wow, >> for an economy as large as the US to be. Um, but if that's mostly data center bills, what does that imply about the bottom rung of the K, right? And and this matters because A, it's real. There's people who are suffering, and B, there's more of them. Okay, maybe the billionaires spend as much as the people on the lowest rung of the ladder, but there's more of them and they vote. So, if you're asking me what's the Fed going to do, you could look at the average statistic and say, oh, gee, things aren't so bad. But their political masters understand that voters will be very unhappy in large numbers if they don't address the bottom rung of the K. So, you know, could could there be QE despite inflation? Like, imagine that we don't just stop the QT, but we're actually doing QE and cutting rates. Well, if and inflation continues higher. I mean, obviously, if it goes screaming back up to double digits or something, they'll change course. But if it's just, you know, waffling around three, maybe heading up towards three and a half, they could still do that. And if you're talking three and a half% inflation, uh, and, you know, job destruction for the larger number of people at the bottom part of the K, that's very much like the 1970s. People talk about Vulker raising rates to 20% or whatever, but the inflation, you know, it spiked high, but the average and when people were getting upset like it was it was around the levels that we're talking about now, >> right? >> Right. I mean, it zero inflation was the aberration, you know? So, it's really interesting to me, >> and you're asking, so I'm answering the questions with what I think because I just want to make clear that I'm not predicting like gold's going to the moon, but it's striking to me that we're heading into an environment that should be bullish from gold and we're heading into it from a level from 4,000. You know, that's kind of exciting. This is the equivalent of me pounding the table. I guess I try not to do that, right? Uh but one more thing on this. Yeah, >> it's really interesting to me that uh gold is doing that beach ball thing like it's gone under 4,000 and it just keeps coming back up again. >> And when gold hit almost 44 400, right? And then rolled over and it started going down, it was reasonable to say, where's the floor, right? And and a and a reasonable at least psychological if not technical level would have been 4,000. Does it hold 4,000? Because if it kept going down through that I you know the technical guys would say your next Fibonacci is like 37 and change or something you know that would be a significant pullback or a much bigger one than we've got now almost officially a bare market right so so the fact that it doesn't seem to be going there that it's catching a bit that's really telling to me uh if this continues it the longer this 4000 consolidation goes like if did the same thing at at 3,000 did the same thing at 2,000 like and then what happened? It went up to the next big leg up. So the longer this consolidation goes, the more confidence I will have that the next big move will be up, not down. >> Right now, honestly, the next big move could still be down. >> Yeah. So usually that bullish flag pattern that we're seeing or >> I'm not a TA. I'm not a TA, but but yes, actually. So I think um Christopher Muan who is I think his morning talk this morning was actually pretty bullish on that basis and I can't say more like he's he's the expert not me >> um but but I'm more just looking at like how long we you know we consolidated for a couple years over 2000 and it dropped pretty low like 1700 what was it I forget what the low was after 2000 >> lower than 17 anyway consolidated for years but waffled around that range and then it did the same thing for less time over And if it does the same thing now, I don't think we'd have to wait that long because you've got the central bank buying. You've got mainstream waking up to gold. Uh gold being a crowded trade this year on Main Street at least. Sorry, not Main Street, on Wall Street at least, a crowded trade. So, the ingredients are there for a real flavor of the day. like the kind of market mania that happened in the late 1970s and 1980 which didn't really happen in 2011 like you know the shoe shine boy giving you gold stock tips and stuff that didn't happen in 2011. >> Talk to this guy sitting over there. >> Yeah, we Yeah, we should. Yeah, >> see what he what he recommends these days. >> But that's that's not just allegorical like I was the shoe shine boy in 1979 in 1980 and I was you I wasn't buying gold because I was shoe shine boy but I was buying silver. I was buying Morgan dollars. >> Every, you know, babysitting job or lawn I mowed, you know, I caught the fever. I put every penny I could into silver dollars. >> Let's talk about silver since you opened that can there. Like same same move. Um, of course higher. We're at $48 right now, but it acts differently. It acts more violently for a lack of better term. Like the volatility is much higher. Gold is down 3%. Silver's down seven or eight%. Right. >> Well, that's always been the case. Silver's always been more volatile than gold. Um, it also though has I think undeniably people call me Darth because of my my my saying though, but I think it undeniably has a much stronger um response in price to its industrial side. It's always had an industrial side. Like it was photography before, now it's electronics and solar panels, but it's always had an industrial side, but that is clearly a stronger variable now. like it it really affects the the above ground available stock in a way that doesn't matter for gold. Um so that's that's interesting to me. But I'm I'm actually not not even that's not even where my head is on that. I I do I do think that the the thing I'm watching is that even your most diehard silver uber bulls will tell you that yeah, silver lags at first, but it's okay. Don't worry because silver always catches up in the end. more than catches up at the end. Fine. I agree. Historically, that's happened nine out of 10 times. >> Um, but if we're in the catching up at the end phase, that implies that the end, we're in the end phase, right? And I don't think that's true. >> So, it was concerning me that silver recently was screaming north faster than gold was. Um, but we have a proximal cause for this. the squeeze, the physical squeeze in London, you know, um the the price to borrow silver in London to meet physical demand, uh you know, skyrocketed. So, enough to to fly some silver from New York back to London and and apparently more of it came from China to help resolve this. Um, but I like this because, you know, silver's kind of reverted to trend. Like, it started more than catching up with gold and now it's reverted to trend. And that's good for the longevity of this market. More time for all of us to make money here. And I, this is an important point. My job, what my clients pay me for is to help them make money, not to be ideological or religious about defending silver or gold or uranium or whatever it is. Um, so don't get mad at me if I talk about taking profits or markets going up and down. The purpose is not to be uh a cheerleader for your favorite commodity. The purpose is to make money. Um, and we make more money, I think, if we have years to go in this bull market, which ultimately takes us higher than if we get a blowoff top now and then we have a bare market for years, right? So silver accelerating was worrisome because it might have signaled the end of the market and s silver correcting more right now brings it back to trend and breathe for me that's a sigh of relief the the the bull in monetary metals is stronger this way I want to talk a little market sentiment as well because we've both been in the mining space for a long time and I'm still nervous when I see like down days you know it's like oh is this the end right is this the end of the rally that's sort of what gave me the idea for that question here cuz the GDX GXJ corrected quite a bit as well. Overcorrected in my opinion a little bit. Um is it based on that nervousness that we've seen? Did it overcorrect or does it? >> It depends on what you mean by nervousness. >> I don't always like the whack-a-ole game, right? Like when we ever get excited, >> you know, I I what I'm saying is there's nervousness and there's nervousness. One kind of nervousness is this is it, the market is done, we got to get out. And there's nervousness of oh, it's gone really high and and maybe it's time to lock in some gains and things. And it's quite different. >> And and this is why I think the beachball thing with $4,000 gold is so important because if it was the nervousness that oh like this is a nosebleleed valuation, it's irrational, it's got to pop and then go into a bust mode, which we could say about other markets today maybe. Um >> you know, if that's the nervousness that we had, I don't think gold would have stopped at 4,000. I mean, I think it would have gone I think it would have blown through the Fibonacci and easily gone back to 3,000. um maybe even lower. >> That didn't happen or at least hasn't yet. That's that's why I say the longer we consolidate here, the less I worry about that. Um whereas the nervousness that oh gee, this is faster than we expected. Clearly that there was a yes there. There were people who were ready to lock in gains the moment it seemed like things rolled over. And by the way, I was one of those. >> Fair enough. Uh, and you can hate me if you want, but it wasn't just me. You know, our good friend Rick Rule on recent interviews, he's mentioned reaching the point of no concern, as he calls it. And by, and this is actually an important point. It's not like Rick is now bearish on gold and silver, nor am I. And it's not like he's completely out of the markets. He's just sold enough that he has no risk. Like, he can't lose. I've sold enough that I've actually locked in gains. So, so I can't not only can I not lose, I can't not make money. And I've made enough that I actually still have enough left on the table that if the next big move is up, I still make even more money. And by the way, I paid down my mortgage. Like, so I mentioned that in terms of keeping things real, I'm not betraying the cause of silver or gold or something. I'm just saying it went way up. I had a lot of money unrealized >> and I have >> a risk management move. >> You're really taking me on with this with this Fed stuff. No, but I'm >> I >> No, I know. I I hear I >> I don't want to to repeat myself, but but again, the object is to make money. And if you've only made money on paper, you haven't made any money, right? If you don't realize the gains, they're they're not real. Like literally. Um, >> no. >> Excellent point. Excellent point. Um, >> and how bad would it be to be a long-suffering silver bull finally be right, see silver top $50, but not make any money? >> Yeah. >> Like >> that's >> Yeah. >> Wrong. >> That just sounds doesn't sound right. >> But but I still have I still have more money on the table now after taking profits than when I started. >> There you go. >> Right. Oh, and sorry, one more thing. Silver bulls especially, but go bulls too. When I talk about taking profits, I'm talking about the stocks. I make money speculating on the stocks. Gold and silver bullion. I I don't say basically unless the house is on fire and I need to cash in on insurance or something like that. I only accumulate. So So don't accuse me of betraying the metal here, right? I'm talking about locking in gains on these highly volatile securities, which as you just said, you know, the metal's correct a bit. The the stairs up, elevator down absolutely applies to the stocks. And that's why everybody should have a strategy for locking in gains. >> No, well said. Um, Lobo, one other commodity you're quite bullish on, it's your number one trade you call is copper. >> Um, run us a bit through the fundamentals behind it. Have they changed recently? Um, I know we haven't used the R word in a long time here on this channel, meaning recession. So, I'm really curious what your thoughts are. Okay, so the demand case is uber bullish and the key points here. We don't need to rehash the whole thing, but key points are like the EV thing. That's not why copper is up. I mean, that has helped, but it's not the base case. The base case is we call it Dr. Copper. It's because it's a fundamental metal that's needed like steel or aluminum for many many things. So the the electric car thing is a tailwind on top of that demand. So is the AI thing. It's like even if the AI turns out to be completely overblown and the whole thing, you know, simmers down, that doesn't hurt the copper demand scenario. Like the actual copper demand scenario. Um, but by the way, I think even if the companies are overhyped and the share prices are overhyped, um, the reality is those fabs are being built, right? And the data centers are being built and a lot of other infrastructure around this whole thing are being built. And I'm just a a mining stock analyst, but for whatever it's worth, I think the United States, Russia, and China, maybe Europe, too, but at the least those three are in an arms race over AI. I think, and Putin has said that whoever gets to super AGI first wins World War II. So, for whatever it's worth, I think the powers that be get that, it seems pretty clear to me if you look at what Trump is doing, he gets it, too. Nobody wants to be last on this. This implies a massive investment which is extremely bullish. Really all critical minerals including copper. So the demand case I think is spectacular. Like the the worst case is growth and then you add the EVs or the AI on top of that and you get super growth. Meanwhile the supply side is extremely constrained. It takes forever to permit these things and build the minds and finding them, you know, those are very very few and far between like worldclass discoveries. It's been maybe two in the last decade and both of those were sort of already known assets that just turned out to be much bigger and better than we thought. Um, and meanwhile, you know, you keep having problems on the ground and I don't just mean like Cobra Panama, but just Mayan accidents. Unfortunately, this year we've had four major mine accidents, including with fatalities, you know, and um that's not good, but it just shows you how difficult it is to ramp up supply. So, extremely bullish and uh I like uranium for silver reasons. I don't know if you're going to ask about that, but the thing about uranium is that it is possible. I think it's very unlikely. I don't worry about it, but it is always possible for there to be a nuclear accident that tanks the stocks. That's not possible in the copper space. There is no copper reactor that's going to cause a global scare. So, I like them both. Um, but I there's a there's a meltdown scenario in one and not the other and that predisposes me to the other. Also, uranium at 80 bucks plus arguably is near the incentive price. So, there's there's less of a squeeze I feel there whereas I feel more upside on the copper space. Um, and one more thing, when I say my highest conviction trade is X, that doesn't mean I think X is going to be the metal that goes up the most. You know, you you get rodium or something like that, you know, can suddenly just whatever. Um, by highest confidence, I mean that it's I see significant upside and I see it as as most likely, right? So, it's it's that combination. Um, so arguably you could say, "Oh, gee, Lobo, copper was your top pick for 25 and and platinum was up more, gold was up more, silver was up more. You that was terrible call." Well, you know, copper that slouch is up 25%. That's not bad, >> right? And u I won't rehash everything. There are reasons for that, but but most of the reasons why I'm bullish on copper are still actually in front of us. Copper was up this year, and a lot of that had to do with Trump shenanigans, right? Tariffs, no tariffs. Yes, you're right. Copper on, you know, screeching north and then south again. Um, so all of my reasons for bullishness are still largely in front of us. So I'm I'm very keen on that space. >> Cool. No, I appreciate that. Really insightful there. And if you shared a lot of actionable advice with our audience already, but maybe one last question in that regard. Um, you're on stage here a couple of times this week. Um, what is something you want the investors to leave with? >> Well, the the nobody goes broke taking profits is absolutely the number one theme I've had now like I had I I've said this before, but just real quick, the simple example, simple math. I put 10 grand almost exactly into one stock. >> When my upside maximizer trigger, that's my strategy for for when I take profits. It's a free download on the website. My upside maximizer was triggered, it was the position was just over 35K. >> So, I decided, given the risk in the play, blah blah blah, I took 20,000 back off the table and I left 15. So I started with 10. So I have 150% of the money that I started with still on at play if if things go north again. But I've guaranteed a double. I haven't just gone risk-f free. I have a guaranteed double. Like the remaining money could go boom absolutely to zero tomorrow and I would still have a double including fees, right? So do I lack conviction? Do I do I hate silver? This was a silver play. No. I just I just made real a substantial win and I still have exposure to the upside. So that's what I mean. I don't I don't You're not a trader if you lock in and realize some of your gains. I think people should have this clear in their mind. >> No, absolutely. Really appreciate it, Lobo. Always love catching up with you. In person's even better than uh virtual. Much appreciate you coming down here. Um where can we send our audience? Where can they follow you? >> independentspeculator.com. I always like to say easiest thing to do is sign up for our free weekly letter. Uh, you may or may not like it, but I can promise that we won't spam you with the flood of daily advertisements. I hate that. >> Fantastic. Awesome. Lobo, thank you so much. Everybody else, thanks so much for tuning in here from the floor of the New Orleans Investment Conference. If you haven't done so, hit that like and subscribe button and let us know down below, what's your favorite commodity right now? What's your highest convection play? Is it gold, silver, copper, uranium? Let us know. Thanks so much for tuning in and we'll be back with lots more.