Stock Bubble To Pop In 2026, Will It Drag Gold & Silver Down With It? | Lobo Tiggre
Summary
AI Unwind Risk: Guest expects a significant AI trade unwind in 2026, citing limited enterprise productivity from LLMs and potential misallocation of massive data-center capex.
Data Centers: Heavy spending on data centers could be barking up the wrong tree; if AI deflates, the concentrated market exposure poses systemic downside risk.
Metals Linkages: AI/data centers have tied uranium, copper, and even silver to the AI narrative via power and electronics demand, making these assets vulnerable if AI sentiment reverses.
Copper Thesis: Top pick for 2026 due to constrained supply, major mine incidents, and sustained demand from electrification/hybrids; viewed as lower risk versus uranium.
Uranium Outlook: Constructive long term with rising contract prices; spot volatility offers entries, though an AI unwind could create near-term headwinds and buying opportunities.
Gold & Silver: Bullish long term on monetary metals; silver’s spike seen as idiosyncratic with likely consolidation, while gold benefits from central bank buying and rising portfolio allocations.
Companies Mentioned: JPMorgan (JPM) projects $5,000 gold by late 2026; Ford (F) takes EV write-down and shifts to hybrids; Nvidia (NVDA) and Exxon (XOM) cited in broader allocation context; Morgan Stanley referenced on gold allocation.
Strategy & Risk: Emphasis on buying dips, avoiding chasing highs, and using volatility to accumulate quality metals exposure while preparing for potential AI-driven market turbulence.
Transcript
You're spending, you know, what is it? Uh, OpenAI wants to spend a trillion half dollars building these data centers and that's for this large brute force large language model approach. If that's barking up the wrong tree, there's a huge misallocation of capital underfoot. And again, you know, that could lead to a market crash if people have this oh my gosh moment. If you're feeling that you missed silver or you missed gold or you buy the idea but you don't want to chase them at at at least nominal all-time highs, if this thing happens in a big way, it creates an opportunity for for people to buy at more reasonable prices. Loel Trey is back, fan favorite in the commodity space. He is the independent speculator founder. You check him out on uh X and also his website down below. Lobo's been uh sounding the alarm bell for the uh economy for quite some time. Let's see what he has in store for us in terms of his outlook for 2026. He said something big is happening. He's also correctly called gold and copper and silver to go up. All these metals have performed spectacularly this year per Lobo's calls. So, we'll see what he has to say for 2026. Welcome back to the show. Good to see you. >> Thank you very much. Uranium has also had a good year. Uh not quite as spectacularly, but that was one of my favorites. But sorry Dave, I gota push or maybe not push back, ask. Really fan favorite to look at the comments on YouTube. I'm, you know, I'm Darth Silver. I'm one of your most stupid uh misinformed, wrongheaded, hates everything good in the world. Somebody actually said that you hate everything good in the world because silver's not going to the moon tomorrow. If somebody has this much emotion, let's put it that way, that he has to expend on an internet personality such as yourself, then you've done something right. [laughter] Maybe something wrong according to some people, but something right. Since you brought up silver, we can start with silver. So, we're going to talk about copper, silver, gold, and the economy today. Silver at $63. It was at 68 not too long ago, last week, I believe, almost at 70. This is a surreal moment to be talking about. very casually in a blasé manner tone that you can tell that I have. Oh, it's almost 70 and this was not a conversation or a sentence that I put together many years ago that I would think I would put together this soon. Did it go up a little bit too far too soon for you Lobo? >> Darth Bulls >> silver bulls. You know, I I should I should get my my Darth silver mask here. Except I'm I'm not going to say that. I'm going to say actually no. Um, it has gone up faster than I would have thought right now because I'm actually a long-term bull on both monetary metals. I think this bull market has years to run. So, I don't think we should be in that blowoff top. You know, even the most diehard silver bulls would tell you silver lags at first and then more than catches up at the end, right? We all know that. So, if we're in the silver catches up part, that implies we're towards the end of this bull market and that's not my outlook at all. So to the degree that I had anything negative to say and deserve the Darth moniker this year, it would be that, you know, I was unhappy that silver looked like it was catching up. And and in fact, if you look at the charts from the bottom, you know, not not the peaks. I don't know why everybody likes to look at past peaks, but gains are calculated from bottoms from toughs to peak. So if you look at the last bottom in 2015, silver has now caught up to gold on a percentage gain basis. If you're a if you're a long-term bull, that should be a concern. We don't want silver to catch up yet. We want, you know, years ahead of bull market to run. So, yes, I have been saying, you know, be careful what you wish for. I don't want silver to to do that, you know, blowoff top catch-up thing yet. And so, it was a concern that it went so high so quickly. But the reasons for that are not because somehow the debasement trade has gone into overdrive or the macro context has you has, you know, monetary metals going vertical. Gold is still sideways. Okay, we've we've come back up from 4,000 when we last spoke, but we haven't hit a new all-time high. Uh whereas silver has, at least nominally. So, it's specific to silver. It's not a monetary metal things. It's a silver thing. And as many of your guests I'm sure have probably told your audience, they don't need to wax raptic about it. There have been supply issues in London and elsewhere. India's been loading up. So it seems to be in my view a a silver specific thing which means it's probably not going to last forever. I expect silver to consolidate again at some point here. Maybe it goes up the the technical guys tell me it goes up to 68 something like that just below 70 and then maybe corrects for a while. I don't know. I don't have a horse in that race. But the bottom line here is I'm not bearish because silver is doing that blowoff top thing. I don't think we're there yet. I'm bullish because silver's gone up for idiosyncratic reasons and if it corrects for a while I think that creates buying opportunities before the next big leg up. So, we we kind of covered a couple things here at once, David, but I'm I'm overall the bottom line is I'm for reasons that your audience is well aware of very bullish on both monetary metals and I'm not concerned about silver outperforming right now. I think that sorts itself out and then we keep going on the on the trend that we've been. >> We'll come back to the metals in which we think is going to be the best performer in 2026. So, stay tuned for that. This is in uh this is just in today data from uh this morning. unemployment rate, the long- aaited delayed unemployment rate in the US up to 4.6%, a 4-year high. And I'll just leave it here. Uh, you mentioned to me offline that something big is coming. I'm not saying it has to do with the labor market. I'm just, you know, putting data together here. What is this big thing that's coming for 2026? >> I think the big thing that's coming is a significant unwind of the AI trade. And whether that's actually the AI bubble popping and a and a waterfall event in the markets or something a little less harmful, I'm not sure. But it is really striking to me. You you put up that chart today that is the news of the day. Um but we also had not just the gap in the information from the from the government shutdown. We also had a bunch of furls of government employees that are now back on again. So that that could reverse like this 4.6 number could be significantly lower next month because those people are back at work again. Um but we also had today I thought something really interesting. I don't normally pay attention to you know big mainstream names. Um but and I'm blanking on the name. Um there was a billionaire hedge fund investor on Bloomberg this morning who talked about Mandami and talked about Europe and competitiveness. But the big thing that he said that really struck me was he was not necessarily bearish on AI but he was saying he was basically deflating the hype and saying look everybody got all excited about AI but I'm talking to big businesses and yeah they're using new technologies they're modernizing they're automating. They're upgrading, but they're not using these. They're not using chat GBT. It's not a large language model that's helping them to reduce payroll actually. Um, and I thought that was insightful and important. Like I've been chomping at the bit to use one of these models to help me in in my research. And it's not just the hallucinations, it's the limitations of what they can do. If if I need something to read everything on the internet and summarize it for me, then great. It can do that in a second faster than humans can do. If I need analysis, if I need understanding, it's just I just don't think this is the right technology. And that's basically what the guy was saying. Um and and I so I I think there's and if that's true and you're building you're spending you know what is it uh OpenAI wants to spend a trillion and a half dollars building these data centers and that's for this large brute force large language model approach if that's barking up the wrong tree which by the way as Deep Seek has suggested repeatedly right you know there's um there's a huge huge misallocation of capital underfoot. And again, you know, that could lead to a market crash if people have this oh my gosh moment or it could just be, you know, a slower deflation of this balloon. But either way, the the market concentration and the amount of money that's riding on this single thesis makes everything vulnerable to any correction in that space. So, I know that we were talking about metals and other things, but you ask what's on my mind. I think this is on my mind. And to connect this to metals, like you say, okay, well, serves those guys right for getting all hyped up about AI and all this bubble and everything. Fine. But the problem is that uranium has become an AI play because of the the power needed for these data centers. Copper has become an AI play. Even silver is I've seen headlines saying that silver is an AI play. >> Yes. So if if this thing unwinds whether catastrophically or more in a in a less malevolent way, it becomes a headwind for everything, including, you know, hard assets that you and I care about. >> Oh, by the way, good for Bitcoin either, which I know you care about more than me. >> You already know why people hold gold. It's because it's real money. But what if your gold could do more than just sit in a vault? Well, that's where our sponsor today, Monetary Metals, comes in. 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Jim Chanos, am I saying his last name right? says money will come from what the chips produce, not where they reside. Um, >> yes, that that one made the waves yesterday. This morning's effort was from uh Ken Griffin from Citadel and you know Jim Chenos, he's a short seller. So, of course, his his uh perspective is considerably glooier. Uh Griffin was trying very hard to be polite, not offend anybody. you know, he was in Europe. He was in Paris giving this talk, so he didn't want to talk about how Europe is in the or something like that. But but basically, he was saying they were really stuck and needed to do something. You know, Draghy gave them a road plan and they're not making progress on it. And on the AI thing, you know, I think he spent more time of that interview on AI than anything else. and he and he just, you know, he told stories and he talked about meeting like he he's a high-powered CEO himself and his buddies, they're all saying, "It's great. We're using new technology. We're we're becoming more efficient." But none of them he said none of them, not one is using, you know, in a large language model, whether it's Chat Gyt or Claude or Gemini or anything, none of their their productivity gains is based on those models. That's a giant red flag. There are writers out there on the internet that believe that one of the reasons silver went up. We talked about silver already, but one of the reasons silver went up is because of the AI trade. AI data centers just sent this other metal to a record high. Spoiler alert, this other metal is silver. I won't read the article, but uh this is what he was talking about. If >> I did read that article, David, and it doesn't say why. [laughter] >> I was annoyed. you know the people >> it just says silver has more indust play and it there's nothing in that article that says how what you know where do the data centers use it now if you know something about it you know that silver is used in in nuclear fuel rods so you know that's associated with AI it is used in various electronics but so are other things you know to to say that it's specifically somehow an AI metal and not say anything about why sorry that really annoyed me and >> sure I I I can understand your annoyance I'm like that too sometimes. But the point is here if the data center or AI trade unwinds for whatever reason we have the markets falling because of uh of tech stocks AI stocks falling in valuations. Wouldn't that bring down the entire meadows complex uranium, copper and silver? Yes, it shouldn't, but it will. I mean and and this is one of those things. So the bad news there's bad news and good news like the doctor tells the patient in the joke, right? You know, the bad news is that to the degree the AI hype has pushed all critical minerals, which includes uranium and silver now officially, not just copper and other oddball metals, and and in Trump's mind, he included gold, by the way, in one of his executive orders, he he called gold a critical mineral as well. To the degree that any or all of these have gotten a tailwind because of the AI narrative, let's just say, um, and to the degree that goes into reverse, then that tailwind becomes a headwind. Now, how bad? I don't know. I mean, I can ask my magic eightball here and give you an answer, but nobody really knows, David. And I wouldn't believe anybody who told you they did for sure. So, what to do with this? I'm not being very helpful here, saying, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know." Uh, but I think that's better than saying they do know and then being wrong. So, >> let me just let me just uh pin >> that was the bad news. Let me just wrap up and say the good news is that to the degree that this happens, I think it creates a fantastic buying opportunity. Like if you're feeling that you missed silver or you missed gold or you buy the idea but you don't want to chase them at at at least nominal all-time highs. If this thing happens in a big way, it creates an opportunity for for people to buy at more reasonable prices. You personally, I'm I think I'm allergic to buying at all-time highs. Uh I much rather look for the next big dip. So that's the good news that I was saying from the doctor joke. The good news is that this thing that I'm concerned about could actually create a spectacular money-making opportunity for anybody who's patient and disciplined enough >> buying. You're you're allergic to buying at an all-time high. Uh okay. So, I have here a chart of silver, gold, and copper. Year to date, silver's up 120%. Gold next at 62%. Copper uh last place at a measly 33%. What are we going to do with that now? uh Lobo, if you were allergic to buying something at all-time highs, you would have one would have missed the rally on gold uh over the last two years because ever since basically $2,000 and change is stop right there. Look at look at that chart because I don't want you Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. Actually, I do mean to interrupt, but but I want you to look at the chart you've got on the screen now. you know, look at the the lines. And yes, we had these big surges in 2000, but then we had years of consolidation and substantial draw downs. >> Yeah. >> Um, sorry, $2,000 for gold. 2020, I think, is I can't see it chart, but I think that's what we're looking at. So, that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying wait for gold to go back to what was the the previous low 1312, 1300 or or or 2001. I'm not saying to wait for it to go down to $258 an ounce. I'm saying that if if uh people can't see what I'm pointing at, but that first surge on the on the left hand side of your screen there, I wouldn't buy that. But months later where it's wiggled down, then yes, I would buy that as long I was still confident in the thesis. And so would you >> from the beginning of our conversation here, I'm confident in the thesis. I just don't want to buy that spike on the right. >> Which of these would you still buy right now given their moves already? >> And you don't have it on there, but uranium too. That's exa this is exactly the thing for people who are frustrated and saying you know low but it's it's going it's going and you're just sitting on your hand. No I'm not. You know if you want to buy high and hope to sell higher well you know knock yourself out. I was taught to buy low and sell high. So when when things even if I like them they're high then I look for something else that isn't. And to go with your chart here copper hased afforded opportunities. There are copper stocks on my shopping list right now for this very reason. You can still find things that are available to buy low. And uranium is even better because the spot price has been highly volatile in the last few months, but the long-term contract price, which is the real uranium market, is actually going up. So, if the real market's going up and the spot price has stocks on sale, that my most recent purchases have all been uranium stocks because of that volatility. This is an old Doug Casey thing. My mentor, he used to say, "Make volatility your friend." That's exactly what I've been doing and I expect to do that in gold and silver going forward. Cop. Well, what is the uh what is the copper trade going into 2026 then? If you think AI is overpriced and perhaps on the on the way to a bubble pop, what's driving copper to higher prices? >> Well, if first off, it's Dr. Copper, right? It's a fundamental industrial mineral. It's like iron. You can't have civilization without it. We can't have modern civilization without copper. Some people like to say copper is the new oil, right? I don't quite agree with that, but it's I understand the sentiment and there is a reason for it. So, it is absolutely fundamental and copper was and would go up even without the electric cars and without the the AI, it was already it's it's essential anyway. And the supply is constrained um even more than uranium actually. But you know the the the kind of mega projects that are needed to continue to fuel the world or or supply the world with copper are few and far between very hard to permit. Even even the Trump administration has struggled to get you know a resolution to a famous copper project in the United States. So I I and sorry one more quick comparison there for the ones that are on sale or relatively on sale. Unlike uranium, there's no nuclear accident that can take copper out and melt our portfolios down. And that can happen in the uranium space. So, the lack of that risk makes me, you know, I like both copper and uranium for being cheaper right now or relatively cheaper. Um, but copper is the lowest risk, which goes to the 2026 outlook question of, you know, why why is copper again my most my my top pick for 2026? It's not because I necessarily think copper will go up more than gold or silver or uranium. It's because I have the highest confidence that it will and that I think it will be substantial. That the the supply side is deeply constrained. And by the way, even if the AI bubble unwinds, it's not like there'll be no AI. And and like another big news headline today is that Ford's taking a $19 billion write down. I'm sorry, it's not funny. Um, but a $19 billion write down on having gotten a little too enthusiastic on the EVs and now it's going with hybrids and and other things. Uh, and and gas guzzlers. Uh, and the stock is up on that. Last I saw you despite the write down, right? So, they're not they're still not going away. And by the way, the hybrids, they use a lot more copper and other critical minerals than the regular gas cars. So what I'm saying is the potential headwinds or corrections that we've talked about, they don't torpedo the underlying thesis. Not for uranium, not for copper, certainly not for gold and silver monetary metals. So I I I don't see those I don't see that volatility as a negative at all. I see it as a as a as a good thing for anybody who's looking to deploy more capital in this space. >> Um >> there's also the supply side of the story. So let me let me just read this article here. So copper continues to hit new highs could hit stratospheric new highs says the CNBC writer. According to city projected copper deficits due to constrained mine supply and continued hoarding of copper in the US due to arbitrage opportunities are expected to contribute to price surges. We expect the US to hoard global copper inventory and in a bull case draw further on depleted ex US stock. What is this hoarding they're referring to? Well, if you make anything a critical mineral, then you want to have a supply. And we see not so much in copper, but in other, you know, oddball metals. You see the US military highly active in this space, uh, you know, the antimony and the galliums and things like that. You know, they they need that stuff and they want to make sure they've got it. So, we haven't gone so far as to establish a strategic copper reserve. Um, but that's the thinking and I I can see that. But actually, let me go a little bit sideways from this question, David. I I you know, that may be a factor, but for right now, for this year, I think a far bigger factor is the fact that we've had um four major accidents or incidents at large copper mines this year. And you know, mining is a dangerous business. There are fatalities every year. There are accidents every year. uh sometimes there's supply taken offline uh for these reasons and that that's that's simply the nature of the business but 2025 we had an unusually large number of them and and accidents affecting big mines you know Grasberg and u Camoa Kakula and you know some of the some of these really big producers and you could say okay well that was a 2025 thing it you know it'll be fine in 207 no the these these things can take years to fix and uh if they and prices are determined at the margin okay it's not like copper supply has been you know decimated or something and I mean that literally in the sense of cut 10%. Um but you know even 2 or 3% is a big deal if prices are determined at the margin. But what I'm saying is that 2025 you know I was bullish anyway but then we got a number of you know not predictable events that really weighed on you know put their finger on the supply side of the scale pushing it down. Um and those are not easily fixed and who knows how many accidents we'll have next year. There's always some accidents, but the ones we had this year, uh, you know, the companies affected, they're talking about 2026, 2027, 2028 when when things might return to normal. So, that's a big deal. Things, and here's the thing, there can be a supply size uh supply side surprise. It's always negative. There's never a supply side surprise that's positive. Somebody doesn't just unveil a you know a billion ton new mine that they that they're producing and sending you know thousands of tons to market on a daily basis. They might make a discovery but then before the mine is built. Can you explain to layman why that why this phenomena that you're describing happens to the metals but it doesn't seem to happen to oil and gas for example there whenever there's a big glut of supply in oil we do see a price move downward but what what you're saying is it it's it's stickier for copper and other critical minerals >> sorry but the answer is going to be a bit complicated and I don't know how far you want to go in there but for one thing >> sure when you drill for oil if you hit it or gas, if you hit it, that exploration well is your mind. It is your production well, >> right? You cap it, you put the stuff on it, you you connect it to the network and so on and then you're good, >> right? Um if if if you make a discovery like if they announce tomorrow we we hear all these crazy announcements and people get carried away. Oh, you know, China discovers, you know, hundred billion dollar gold deposit. Even if that was true, usually it's not, by the way. It's just some guy's estimate of what it might be worth with no economics, no metallergy, no hydrarology, no engineering studies, you know, none of the things at all that that define the economics of a project. It's just some back of the envelope number by some promoter. But even if it was true, it would take years to build that mine. So, so supply is is pretty price incent like it takes years for for high prices to cure high prices and low prices to cure low prices. Well, okay, high prices cure high prices on a high on a higher frequency basis. But even then, if you've got a mine and it's not done, you're not just going to shut it off, you know, you're very reluctant to put it on care and maintenance because that's expensive by itself. and and you can you can kill the mine if you don't adequately put it on care and maintenance. So if you think prices are going to come back, you might continue mining even at a loss because you're you're a you're going to take a loss on care minutes care and maintenance anyway and b if if you shut it down improperly, you can lose the entire mine when it might have future value. So you know high prices don't actually always cure high prices right away in the mining space. It's it's a slower moving thing and sorry I won't go too far but one more complication on the little oddball metals that's much more volatile. You can have a sudden new entrance if you got some tiny thing you know gallium is really important but it's not used in hundreds of thousands of tons. It's used in you know micrograms in your phone or something right? So if some private Chinese company, you know, had a significant new mine and it was private, so we don't know it's coming, they could suddenly hit the market with new supply, assuming the Chinese allowed it to be exported, um that we wouldn't know about. So So the the the the smaller oddball metals are harder to predict. They're more volatile, but the bigger ones, we can generally see what's coming. >> And also the fact that most of the refined copper comes from uh China. Uh, okay. Let's move on to gold. We haven't talked too much about gold so far. We've talked about silver. Does silver and gold do all do these metals have a similar story? In other words, if you're still somewhat positive on silver, I'm assuming you're still somewhat positive on gold or are they completely different narratives as of 2025? No, I just made an argument for silver having got ahead based on idiosyncratic issues including supply, physical supply in the LME and in the comics and that sort of thing. Um, and I made and the reason for that argument was to say that you know don't think that they're diverging permanently like this is I think temporary. It gets resolved and then both metals revert to trend. my base case. And by the way, this fits into why even though I am bullish on both silver and gold, uh why neither is my top pick for 2026, is that it's entirely possible that we could see more consolidation at these levels before the next big move, which I do expect to be upwards. I mean, in in 2020, we had to wait 3 years before the next big move upward happened. And I'm not saying that it has to be the same now, but I'm I am saying that if it took three years last time, there's no reason, you know, to assume that it has to, you know, the next move upward needs to be right away. It could take three years, two years. Even if it takes a year and a half, we still have months to go. So, I'm not bearish on silver or gold. The question is about gold. Um, but I do think that there is a significant chance that both correct and consolidate for a while, possibly even all of 2026. And and that's why and whereas I I'm I'm highly confident that even with the short-term correction, copper goes higher in 26. And that's why copper is my top pick to the answer for gold. You know, central banks are still buying. The debasement trade is there. When people ask me, oh, gold's so high, how high do you think it can go? My answer is always well when do you think governments stop printing money? I don't or how low can the dollar go? I don't think there's a limit to those ladder and therefore I don't think there's a limit to how high the monetary metals can go. Um the difference between me and the in the you know uber bulls who who are just like bye bye bye bye today right now. That's not me because I'm willing to admit that it may be a while before I'm right about where it goes. >> This is from the uh world gold council. They cited a few factors for why gold performed so well in 2025. Geopolitical risks, dollar weakness, and investment flows drove gold higher. Let's just talk about these macro factors. Which of these will remain relevant into 2026 and beyond? All of them will be. I mean, there's optimism about peace in Ukraine. Um, I you know, but we still don't have any word from Moscow that they're actually even interested in the peace deals the Americans and the Europeans and the Ukrainians are are hammering out between themselves without Russian participation. So, we'll see. But the the most interesting of the three that you pointed out there is actually I think the the investment scenario. One of the things that I know you've talked to our friend Rick Rule about is that the long-term average global portfolio allocation to gold has been 2% for decades and recently it's only been around a half a percent. And Rick would say that if all it has to do is revert to mean David and that would that would four that would 4x or produce four times the investment demand for gold. I think that's happening already and I think that thing you just pointed out is evidence of exactly that. I don't know that it goes back to 2%. But even if it just goes to 1%, that's twice the allocation of the past. That's a huge huge input factor. And I think we're seeing that we, you know, it's anecdotal. I can't prove this, but I listen to the talking heads on financial media. Not you and I, of course, those other talking heads, mainstream financial media, which you will be soon, I'm sure, David. But anyway, you hear these guys and instead of, you know, treating gold like a four-letter word, which it is, but you know, before like people would would if they mentioned gold at all, it was to laugh and sneer at the pet rock. Now, um, you see the the the money manager saying, "Oh, we're doing this with Nvidia and that with with Exxon or whatever. Oh, and we're hedging our bets with some gold, too." Like that's coming up frequently in the conversations. And more recently, the even the interviewers have come around to where the interviewers are saying, "Okay, well, that's really interesting. What about gold? You got some of that in there. Oh, yeah. We've got some gold, too." So, I think this is happening. I I think this is something that's been absent for decades. I think it's material. We're talking about not just institutional investors, but you know, family offices and and highly liquid, deep pocketed investors that are that are getting the memo. You think about it, you know, okay, in 2011, gold has this big spike after having been down for decades. It's easy to see why people would dismiss that. Recency bias would say, well, gee, that's that's a spike. It's a fluke. But now it's been two and a half decades of rising gold. And if you pull back and look at the big picture since 1971, um, you know, it's pretty easy to understand the the thesis that gold offers. It's it's volatile. It goes up and down on every year. It can go one way or the other. But if you look at the big picture, it has held wealth. It has held value for the for the entire time that's been free to trade against the dollar which has lost value. That chart, this is my favorite chart. You've seen it before, Dave, is a giant X from 1971 to now. If you look at the the exchange rate between gold and the dollar, and you look at the dollar's purchasing power, even using the BLS's CPI as input, it's a giant X. And and that has lasted decades. And I think people are starting to understand that now. And that is something that's completely I think that's as big a gamecher or a paradigm shift as the central banks deciding to hoard gold. The fact that gold Let me just pull up a very important chart because I don't think a lot of people have this in perspective. The fact that gold has performed almost pretty much everything else. EM stocks in 2025 year-to-day returns for gold and key asset classes in USD DM stocks XUS US stocks for the most part commodities balance portfolio US bonds global treasuries XUS US cash I'm not talking about specific stocks that have gone up 300% I'm not talking about silver that has outperformed we've already talked about that I'm not talking about some certain crypto memes meme stocks that have outperformed I'm talking about these broad basket um large asset classes underperforming gold. First of all, what does that signal to you when it comes to investment investors priorities for this year? And second, does that worry you a little bit as a commodities trader investor? >> Yes. And yes. So, an interesting thing is that you're putting gold on here versus other investments. And in a way, that shouldn't Well, a couple things. One is if you put silver, platinum, or palladium on there, they'd be even bigger than gold. Um, but this isn't your chart. I understand. But I think it's actually comparing apples to oranges here. Gold is not an investment. It is, I think, money. It it it should be compared to the dollar, not to other investment classes. Uh so if you want to compare a gold-based investment to these other investment classes, you should put the gold stocks on there. Put GDX on there. And that's up over 100%. It's like 140% or something last I saw. So it's even better if you if you compare gold investments or speculations versus these other investment classes. I think you see an even bigger outperformance. Um but to the question of what is this signaling? This ties into the earlier conversation that we kind of put the cart before the horse here on in my concerns for 2026. As you may remember from our previous conversations about the Big Mac index and other things, gold does not correlate well with inflation. You know this. I've heard you talk to other guests about this. The correlation is actually not negative, >> but it's basically negligible. >> Yes. >> And the reason for that that we've discussed before is that gold tends to lead, right? Gold went way up in 2020 and it wasn't until a couple years later that inflation went up to 9%. At least as officially admitted by the United States government. So, what does that imply about what gold is doing now? I think that's pretty scary. And I'm not going to, you know, write a science fiction story for the audience in some apocalyptic scenario. But if that if past is prologue, right, that, you know, history doesn't necessarily repeat, but if it rhymes at all, gold going to where it is gone and silver confirming it and the other so-called precious metals tagging along, I mean, that's pretty scary. You know what? We just talked about deep pockets hedging with a bit of gold. What are they hedging? What what not just, you know, when we say what is gold telling us, we're really saying what are the buyers worried about? I think that's significant. I think people should should pay attention to that. I just said, >> sorry, real quick. I just said I'm allergic to buying all-time highs. But I'll tell you, if I had no gold, and I you know, my I just said gold's not an investment. I view gold as money. I view it as savings. I have physical bullion. I won't tell you which palm tree it's buried under, but under my direct control that that is my rainy day fund and I I have lived this in the past. I have used bullion to save my family in times of trouble. So I take this very seriously. Um if I didn't have that, this is what I'm saying. If I didn't have that, you know what? I would be willing to buy gold today, even at these prices. If I had zero physical gold, if I didn't have one, gold or silver I could hold in my hand, I' I'd go on the Costco website today and buy some >> and hold it long term. >> That's my answer to, you know, what is gold telling us? It's telling us I don't know what it's telling us, but it's not good and I want insurance. And that's the direct line of insurance I'd buy. >> That is a perfect segue into my next question is to what exactly are you insuring yourself against? This is from JP Morgan. This is not [laughter] I don't have to remind the audience and yourself. This is not u an insignificant institution um publishing an insignificant post. Uh this is their forecast officially $5,000 by the fourth quarter of 2026 with $6,000 an ounce possibility longer term. Now there was a time when I was working at my last job when you and I first met when we were talking about $5,000 gold is a hypothetical doom scenario. It is now no longer that hypothetical doom scenario. We're not at 5,000. Not saying it's going to happen tomorrow. But here we have a major bank saying it's not going to happen by the end of the decade. It's going to happen by the end of next year. And I'm not going to read the entire article, but spoiler alert, not much has to change. Central banks have to continue buying and the Trump administration has to continue putting pressure on the Federal Reserve. Uh the Federal Reserve losing a dependence is one of their uh criteria. But let's just take this at face value. Gold is going towards $5,000. What has fundamentally changed in the world such that we're talking about this at the end of 2025 and it's just status quo versus 5 years ago this was a hypothetical scenario that was like the end of the world needs to happen for this to happen. Well, let's come back to what's changed. Let's go to the first bit because I think that's really interesting. I've had people say, "Well, gee, Lobo, you said if gold went to 5,000 or 10,000, and those were commonly numbers that were thrown out, 5,000 or 10,000, we'd be looking at a Mad Max scenario or the world would be totally crazy." >> Yes, exactly. >> Okay, we're It's not Mad Max, but the world looks pretty crazy to me, David. I mean, we've got a hot war in in Europe. I mean, that that Okay, it hasn't gone nuclear yet, and there's talk about peace, but no actual peace. the, you know, the bombings and strafings on both sides continue. Uh, we had a hot war in the Middle East, hotter than in decades, and that seems to have simmered down, but you know, you think Iran has given up on their goals or or or perspective or I I think um, you know, and actually we have a we don't actually have a peace deal in the Middle East. We have a ceasefire and it's held, but who knows how long it'll hold. Point is, you know, there's geopolitical not just risk or tension, but there is actual fires burning on the geopolitical front in our world right now. And then you've got this this the trade war, which isn't just a trade war. This is global superpowers, China and the US finally, you know, facing off more directly. the gloves have come off basically and and the you know the hegeimon existent and the hegeimon uprising are are openly jockeying for position here. You know that is a scary world in which that sort of thing is happening and then we've got the you know the debasement trade all these other things going on. So you know it is a pretty different world from where it was when we you know years ago thought that 5,000 would be a crazy number. Well, we live in pretty crazy times. Um, and then as far as what's changed, we've touched on these already. The central bank buying, that's absolutely a gamecher. It's not going away anytime soon. I think this other thing we've just talked about where the reallocation to gold in portfolios where it's not just gold but I mean that Jamie Diamond thing that you or sorry JP Morgan thing you just quoted remember Jamie Diamond a couple weeks ago he said well you know it's not entirely insane to own gold these days and you know it's one thing for for longtime gold bugs like Gunlock who talk about you know 25% is not excessive and even though he walked that back you he did say that a 25% allocation to gold is not excessive. But he's been into gold for many years. for for you know JP Morgan the you know that institution that gold bugs love to hate for that the leader of that institution to come out and say well you know what it's not just you know crazy people who want to own gold these days that is a huge shift and for I forget which there was another one I think it was Morgan Stanley that was al that was recommending a 10% allocation or something like that to gold that's huge and to the degree that any of I mean doesn't happen overnight But to the degree that their clients or anybody listening them starts doing that that this is enormous. Um so under any other circumstances the answer to your question actually David is if we were in that world from before and we were looking at $5,000 or four or $5,000 gold 60 $70 silver I'd be very worried that we just hit a peak and the next big move would be downwards. But for these reasons, the world that we're actually in today, I think we're actually in a consolidation phase before another move higher. How much higher? I don't know. You know, I don't do the crystal ball thing. I'm happy just to get the direction right and it'll do wonders for my portfolio if I do. >> Well, I think that was a very good recap for the year. So, thank you very much for all your contributions this year and we'll have you back on again in 2026 to see what h what has played out and uh what's changed. So, Lobo, where can we follow you for now? independentspeculator.com. I have a free weekly digest that if you sign up for, we won't spam you. Let me just say one more thing. For anybody that's mad at me for not saying silver or gold or uranium is going to the moon tomorrow, remember it's one thing to to make money on a bull market. It's another thing to keep it. And if you listen, not just don't listen to me. You listen to Rick Rule or Doug or these people and they talk about locking in their gains. And if you look at the broader markets, you listen to a Gundlock or a Howard Marx even who's not a gold bug or somebody like that, they talk about discipline. They talk about buying low and selling high and don't forget the sell high part. So just because I don't say your favorite commodity is going to the moon tomorrow doesn't mean I'm a bear. And if I talk about taking some money off the table, it's not that I hate all things good in the world. I'm trying to help people hang on to that money that they work so hard to make. That's my take. >> Follow Lobo and uh hopefully learn more about um about his takes on gold and uh commodities there. We didn't talk too much about miners. We'll continue that conversation another time, but uh do check out Lobo's work. He gives detailed analysis of individual miners. So, uh very very good resource. Thank you very much, Lobo, for coming back on the show and uh have a happy new year and we wish you all the best. Looking forward to seeing you again in 2026. >> Yes. Thank you, David. Happy holidays and a very prosperous new year to you and our audience. >> Thank you and thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe,
Stock Bubble To Pop In 2026, Will It Drag Gold & Silver Down With It? | Lobo Tiggre
Summary
Transcript
You're spending, you know, what is it? Uh, OpenAI wants to spend a trillion half dollars building these data centers and that's for this large brute force large language model approach. If that's barking up the wrong tree, there's a huge misallocation of capital underfoot. And again, you know, that could lead to a market crash if people have this oh my gosh moment. If you're feeling that you missed silver or you missed gold or you buy the idea but you don't want to chase them at at at least nominal all-time highs, if this thing happens in a big way, it creates an opportunity for for people to buy at more reasonable prices. Loel Trey is back, fan favorite in the commodity space. He is the independent speculator founder. You check him out on uh X and also his website down below. Lobo's been uh sounding the alarm bell for the uh economy for quite some time. Let's see what he has in store for us in terms of his outlook for 2026. He said something big is happening. He's also correctly called gold and copper and silver to go up. All these metals have performed spectacularly this year per Lobo's calls. So, we'll see what he has to say for 2026. Welcome back to the show. Good to see you. >> Thank you very much. Uranium has also had a good year. Uh not quite as spectacularly, but that was one of my favorites. But sorry Dave, I gota push or maybe not push back, ask. Really fan favorite to look at the comments on YouTube. I'm, you know, I'm Darth Silver. I'm one of your most stupid uh misinformed, wrongheaded, hates everything good in the world. Somebody actually said that you hate everything good in the world because silver's not going to the moon tomorrow. If somebody has this much emotion, let's put it that way, that he has to expend on an internet personality such as yourself, then you've done something right. [laughter] Maybe something wrong according to some people, but something right. Since you brought up silver, we can start with silver. So, we're going to talk about copper, silver, gold, and the economy today. Silver at $63. It was at 68 not too long ago, last week, I believe, almost at 70. This is a surreal moment to be talking about. very casually in a blasé manner tone that you can tell that I have. Oh, it's almost 70 and this was not a conversation or a sentence that I put together many years ago that I would think I would put together this soon. Did it go up a little bit too far too soon for you Lobo? >> Darth Bulls >> silver bulls. You know, I I should I should get my my Darth silver mask here. Except I'm I'm not going to say that. I'm going to say actually no. Um, it has gone up faster than I would have thought right now because I'm actually a long-term bull on both monetary metals. I think this bull market has years to run. So, I don't think we should be in that blowoff top. You know, even the most diehard silver bulls would tell you silver lags at first and then more than catches up at the end, right? We all know that. So, if we're in the silver catches up part, that implies we're towards the end of this bull market and that's not my outlook at all. So to the degree that I had anything negative to say and deserve the Darth moniker this year, it would be that, you know, I was unhappy that silver looked like it was catching up. And and in fact, if you look at the charts from the bottom, you know, not not the peaks. I don't know why everybody likes to look at past peaks, but gains are calculated from bottoms from toughs to peak. So if you look at the last bottom in 2015, silver has now caught up to gold on a percentage gain basis. If you're a if you're a long-term bull, that should be a concern. We don't want silver to catch up yet. We want, you know, years ahead of bull market to run. So, yes, I have been saying, you know, be careful what you wish for. I don't want silver to to do that, you know, blowoff top catch-up thing yet. And so, it was a concern that it went so high so quickly. But the reasons for that are not because somehow the debasement trade has gone into overdrive or the macro context has you has, you know, monetary metals going vertical. Gold is still sideways. Okay, we've we've come back up from 4,000 when we last spoke, but we haven't hit a new all-time high. Uh whereas silver has, at least nominally. So, it's specific to silver. It's not a monetary metal things. It's a silver thing. And as many of your guests I'm sure have probably told your audience, they don't need to wax raptic about it. There have been supply issues in London and elsewhere. India's been loading up. So it seems to be in my view a a silver specific thing which means it's probably not going to last forever. I expect silver to consolidate again at some point here. Maybe it goes up the the technical guys tell me it goes up to 68 something like that just below 70 and then maybe corrects for a while. I don't know. I don't have a horse in that race. But the bottom line here is I'm not bearish because silver is doing that blowoff top thing. I don't think we're there yet. I'm bullish because silver's gone up for idiosyncratic reasons and if it corrects for a while I think that creates buying opportunities before the next big leg up. So, we we kind of covered a couple things here at once, David, but I'm I'm overall the bottom line is I'm for reasons that your audience is well aware of very bullish on both monetary metals and I'm not concerned about silver outperforming right now. I think that sorts itself out and then we keep going on the on the trend that we've been. >> We'll come back to the metals in which we think is going to be the best performer in 2026. So, stay tuned for that. This is in uh this is just in today data from uh this morning. unemployment rate, the long- aaited delayed unemployment rate in the US up to 4.6%, a 4-year high. And I'll just leave it here. Uh, you mentioned to me offline that something big is coming. I'm not saying it has to do with the labor market. I'm just, you know, putting data together here. What is this big thing that's coming for 2026? >> I think the big thing that's coming is a significant unwind of the AI trade. And whether that's actually the AI bubble popping and a and a waterfall event in the markets or something a little less harmful, I'm not sure. But it is really striking to me. You you put up that chart today that is the news of the day. Um but we also had not just the gap in the information from the from the government shutdown. We also had a bunch of furls of government employees that are now back on again. So that that could reverse like this 4.6 number could be significantly lower next month because those people are back at work again. Um but we also had today I thought something really interesting. I don't normally pay attention to you know big mainstream names. Um but and I'm blanking on the name. Um there was a billionaire hedge fund investor on Bloomberg this morning who talked about Mandami and talked about Europe and competitiveness. But the big thing that he said that really struck me was he was not necessarily bearish on AI but he was saying he was basically deflating the hype and saying look everybody got all excited about AI but I'm talking to big businesses and yeah they're using new technologies they're modernizing they're automating. They're upgrading, but they're not using these. They're not using chat GBT. It's not a large language model that's helping them to reduce payroll actually. Um, and I thought that was insightful and important. Like I've been chomping at the bit to use one of these models to help me in in my research. And it's not just the hallucinations, it's the limitations of what they can do. If if I need something to read everything on the internet and summarize it for me, then great. It can do that in a second faster than humans can do. If I need analysis, if I need understanding, it's just I just don't think this is the right technology. And that's basically what the guy was saying. Um and and I so I I think there's and if that's true and you're building you're spending you know what is it uh OpenAI wants to spend a trillion and a half dollars building these data centers and that's for this large brute force large language model approach if that's barking up the wrong tree which by the way as Deep Seek has suggested repeatedly right you know there's um there's a huge huge misallocation of capital underfoot. And again, you know, that could lead to a market crash if people have this oh my gosh moment or it could just be, you know, a slower deflation of this balloon. But either way, the the market concentration and the amount of money that's riding on this single thesis makes everything vulnerable to any correction in that space. So, I know that we were talking about metals and other things, but you ask what's on my mind. I think this is on my mind. And to connect this to metals, like you say, okay, well, serves those guys right for getting all hyped up about AI and all this bubble and everything. Fine. But the problem is that uranium has become an AI play because of the the power needed for these data centers. Copper has become an AI play. Even silver is I've seen headlines saying that silver is an AI play. >> Yes. So if if this thing unwinds whether catastrophically or more in a in a less malevolent way, it becomes a headwind for everything, including, you know, hard assets that you and I care about. >> Oh, by the way, good for Bitcoin either, which I know you care about more than me. >> You already know why people hold gold. It's because it's real money. But what if your gold could do more than just sit in a vault? Well, that's where our sponsor today, Monetary Metals, comes in. They offer a way for you to earn a yield on your gold paid in physical gold through their leasing marketplace. You can earn up to 4% yield per year in gold. Instead of paying storage fees, your gold actually works for you. And because that yield is paid in gold, not cash, your stack grows no matter what the dollar is doing. Thousands of clients already earn monthly interest in gold and silver through monetary medals. And the numbers just keep climbing. So don't just hold gold, start earning real gold on your gold today. Go to monetary-medals.com/lin link down below or scan the QR code here. Put your gold to work soon. I [laughter] I don't know if we can measure that, but sure, I do care about Bitcoin. Um, we uh we care about Bitcoin on the show as well. So, this fame short seller explains why he's doubling down his bet against data centers. I believe this was your uh one of your tweets from uh earlier. Jim Chanos, am I saying his last name right? says money will come from what the chips produce, not where they reside. Um, >> yes, that that one made the waves yesterday. This morning's effort was from uh Ken Griffin from Citadel and you know Jim Chenos, he's a short seller. So, of course, his his uh perspective is considerably glooier. Uh Griffin was trying very hard to be polite, not offend anybody. you know, he was in Europe. He was in Paris giving this talk, so he didn't want to talk about how Europe is in the or something like that. But but basically, he was saying they were really stuck and needed to do something. You know, Draghy gave them a road plan and they're not making progress on it. And on the AI thing, you know, I think he spent more time of that interview on AI than anything else. and he and he just, you know, he told stories and he talked about meeting like he he's a high-powered CEO himself and his buddies, they're all saying, "It's great. We're using new technology. We're we're becoming more efficient." But none of them he said none of them, not one is using, you know, in a large language model, whether it's Chat Gyt or Claude or Gemini or anything, none of their their productivity gains is based on those models. That's a giant red flag. There are writers out there on the internet that believe that one of the reasons silver went up. We talked about silver already, but one of the reasons silver went up is because of the AI trade. AI data centers just sent this other metal to a record high. Spoiler alert, this other metal is silver. I won't read the article, but uh this is what he was talking about. If >> I did read that article, David, and it doesn't say why. [laughter] >> I was annoyed. you know the people >> it just says silver has more indust play and it there's nothing in that article that says how what you know where do the data centers use it now if you know something about it you know that silver is used in in nuclear fuel rods so you know that's associated with AI it is used in various electronics but so are other things you know to to say that it's specifically somehow an AI metal and not say anything about why sorry that really annoyed me and >> sure I I I can understand your annoyance I'm like that too sometimes. But the point is here if the data center or AI trade unwinds for whatever reason we have the markets falling because of uh of tech stocks AI stocks falling in valuations. Wouldn't that bring down the entire meadows complex uranium, copper and silver? Yes, it shouldn't, but it will. I mean and and this is one of those things. So the bad news there's bad news and good news like the doctor tells the patient in the joke, right? You know, the bad news is that to the degree the AI hype has pushed all critical minerals, which includes uranium and silver now officially, not just copper and other oddball metals, and and in Trump's mind, he included gold, by the way, in one of his executive orders, he he called gold a critical mineral as well. To the degree that any or all of these have gotten a tailwind because of the AI narrative, let's just say, um, and to the degree that goes into reverse, then that tailwind becomes a headwind. Now, how bad? I don't know. I mean, I can ask my magic eightball here and give you an answer, but nobody really knows, David. And I wouldn't believe anybody who told you they did for sure. So, what to do with this? I'm not being very helpful here, saying, "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know." Uh, but I think that's better than saying they do know and then being wrong. So, >> let me just let me just uh pin >> that was the bad news. Let me just wrap up and say the good news is that to the degree that this happens, I think it creates a fantastic buying opportunity. Like if you're feeling that you missed silver or you missed gold or you buy the idea but you don't want to chase them at at at least nominal all-time highs. If this thing happens in a big way, it creates an opportunity for for people to buy at more reasonable prices. You personally, I'm I think I'm allergic to buying at all-time highs. Uh I much rather look for the next big dip. So that's the good news that I was saying from the doctor joke. The good news is that this thing that I'm concerned about could actually create a spectacular money-making opportunity for anybody who's patient and disciplined enough >> buying. You're you're allergic to buying at an all-time high. Uh okay. So, I have here a chart of silver, gold, and copper. Year to date, silver's up 120%. Gold next at 62%. Copper uh last place at a measly 33%. What are we going to do with that now? uh Lobo, if you were allergic to buying something at all-time highs, you would have one would have missed the rally on gold uh over the last two years because ever since basically $2,000 and change is stop right there. Look at look at that chart because I don't want you Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt. Actually, I do mean to interrupt, but but I want you to look at the chart you've got on the screen now. you know, look at the the lines. And yes, we had these big surges in 2000, but then we had years of consolidation and substantial draw downs. >> Yeah. >> Um, sorry, $2,000 for gold. 2020, I think, is I can't see it chart, but I think that's what we're looking at. So, that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying wait for gold to go back to what was the the previous low 1312, 1300 or or or 2001. I'm not saying to wait for it to go down to $258 an ounce. I'm saying that if if uh people can't see what I'm pointing at, but that first surge on the on the left hand side of your screen there, I wouldn't buy that. But months later where it's wiggled down, then yes, I would buy that as long I was still confident in the thesis. And so would you >> from the beginning of our conversation here, I'm confident in the thesis. I just don't want to buy that spike on the right. >> Which of these would you still buy right now given their moves already? >> And you don't have it on there, but uranium too. That's exa this is exactly the thing for people who are frustrated and saying you know low but it's it's going it's going and you're just sitting on your hand. No I'm not. You know if you want to buy high and hope to sell higher well you know knock yourself out. I was taught to buy low and sell high. So when when things even if I like them they're high then I look for something else that isn't. And to go with your chart here copper hased afforded opportunities. There are copper stocks on my shopping list right now for this very reason. You can still find things that are available to buy low. And uranium is even better because the spot price has been highly volatile in the last few months, but the long-term contract price, which is the real uranium market, is actually going up. So, if the real market's going up and the spot price has stocks on sale, that my most recent purchases have all been uranium stocks because of that volatility. This is an old Doug Casey thing. My mentor, he used to say, "Make volatility your friend." That's exactly what I've been doing and I expect to do that in gold and silver going forward. Cop. Well, what is the uh what is the copper trade going into 2026 then? If you think AI is overpriced and perhaps on the on the way to a bubble pop, what's driving copper to higher prices? >> Well, if first off, it's Dr. Copper, right? It's a fundamental industrial mineral. It's like iron. You can't have civilization without it. We can't have modern civilization without copper. Some people like to say copper is the new oil, right? I don't quite agree with that, but it's I understand the sentiment and there is a reason for it. So, it is absolutely fundamental and copper was and would go up even without the electric cars and without the the AI, it was already it's it's essential anyway. And the supply is constrained um even more than uranium actually. But you know the the the kind of mega projects that are needed to continue to fuel the world or or supply the world with copper are few and far between very hard to permit. Even even the Trump administration has struggled to get you know a resolution to a famous copper project in the United States. So I I and sorry one more quick comparison there for the ones that are on sale or relatively on sale. Unlike uranium, there's no nuclear accident that can take copper out and melt our portfolios down. And that can happen in the uranium space. So, the lack of that risk makes me, you know, I like both copper and uranium for being cheaper right now or relatively cheaper. Um, but copper is the lowest risk, which goes to the 2026 outlook question of, you know, why why is copper again my most my my top pick for 2026? It's not because I necessarily think copper will go up more than gold or silver or uranium. It's because I have the highest confidence that it will and that I think it will be substantial. That the the supply side is deeply constrained. And by the way, even if the AI bubble unwinds, it's not like there'll be no AI. And and like another big news headline today is that Ford's taking a $19 billion write down. I'm sorry, it's not funny. Um, but a $19 billion write down on having gotten a little too enthusiastic on the EVs and now it's going with hybrids and and other things. Uh, and and gas guzzlers. Uh, and the stock is up on that. Last I saw you despite the write down, right? So, they're not they're still not going away. And by the way, the hybrids, they use a lot more copper and other critical minerals than the regular gas cars. So what I'm saying is the potential headwinds or corrections that we've talked about, they don't torpedo the underlying thesis. Not for uranium, not for copper, certainly not for gold and silver monetary metals. So I I I don't see those I don't see that volatility as a negative at all. I see it as a as a as a good thing for anybody who's looking to deploy more capital in this space. >> Um >> there's also the supply side of the story. So let me let me just read this article here. So copper continues to hit new highs could hit stratospheric new highs says the CNBC writer. According to city projected copper deficits due to constrained mine supply and continued hoarding of copper in the US due to arbitrage opportunities are expected to contribute to price surges. We expect the US to hoard global copper inventory and in a bull case draw further on depleted ex US stock. What is this hoarding they're referring to? Well, if you make anything a critical mineral, then you want to have a supply. And we see not so much in copper, but in other, you know, oddball metals. You see the US military highly active in this space, uh, you know, the antimony and the galliums and things like that. You know, they they need that stuff and they want to make sure they've got it. So, we haven't gone so far as to establish a strategic copper reserve. Um, but that's the thinking and I I can see that. But actually, let me go a little bit sideways from this question, David. I I you know, that may be a factor, but for right now, for this year, I think a far bigger factor is the fact that we've had um four major accidents or incidents at large copper mines this year. And you know, mining is a dangerous business. There are fatalities every year. There are accidents every year. uh sometimes there's supply taken offline uh for these reasons and that that's that's simply the nature of the business but 2025 we had an unusually large number of them and and accidents affecting big mines you know Grasberg and u Camoa Kakula and you know some of the some of these really big producers and you could say okay well that was a 2025 thing it you know it'll be fine in 207 no the these these things can take years to fix and uh if they and prices are determined at the margin okay it's not like copper supply has been you know decimated or something and I mean that literally in the sense of cut 10%. Um but you know even 2 or 3% is a big deal if prices are determined at the margin. But what I'm saying is that 2025 you know I was bullish anyway but then we got a number of you know not predictable events that really weighed on you know put their finger on the supply side of the scale pushing it down. Um and those are not easily fixed and who knows how many accidents we'll have next year. There's always some accidents, but the ones we had this year, uh, you know, the companies affected, they're talking about 2026, 2027, 2028 when when things might return to normal. So, that's a big deal. Things, and here's the thing, there can be a supply size uh supply side surprise. It's always negative. There's never a supply side surprise that's positive. Somebody doesn't just unveil a you know a billion ton new mine that they that they're producing and sending you know thousands of tons to market on a daily basis. They might make a discovery but then before the mine is built. Can you explain to layman why that why this phenomena that you're describing happens to the metals but it doesn't seem to happen to oil and gas for example there whenever there's a big glut of supply in oil we do see a price move downward but what what you're saying is it it's it's stickier for copper and other critical minerals >> sorry but the answer is going to be a bit complicated and I don't know how far you want to go in there but for one thing >> sure when you drill for oil if you hit it or gas, if you hit it, that exploration well is your mind. It is your production well, >> right? You cap it, you put the stuff on it, you you connect it to the network and so on and then you're good, >> right? Um if if if you make a discovery like if they announce tomorrow we we hear all these crazy announcements and people get carried away. Oh, you know, China discovers, you know, hundred billion dollar gold deposit. Even if that was true, usually it's not, by the way. It's just some guy's estimate of what it might be worth with no economics, no metallergy, no hydrarology, no engineering studies, you know, none of the things at all that that define the economics of a project. It's just some back of the envelope number by some promoter. But even if it was true, it would take years to build that mine. So, so supply is is pretty price incent like it takes years for for high prices to cure high prices and low prices to cure low prices. Well, okay, high prices cure high prices on a high on a higher frequency basis. But even then, if you've got a mine and it's not done, you're not just going to shut it off, you know, you're very reluctant to put it on care and maintenance because that's expensive by itself. and and you can you can kill the mine if you don't adequately put it on care and maintenance. So if you think prices are going to come back, you might continue mining even at a loss because you're you're a you're going to take a loss on care minutes care and maintenance anyway and b if if you shut it down improperly, you can lose the entire mine when it might have future value. So you know high prices don't actually always cure high prices right away in the mining space. It's it's a slower moving thing and sorry I won't go too far but one more complication on the little oddball metals that's much more volatile. You can have a sudden new entrance if you got some tiny thing you know gallium is really important but it's not used in hundreds of thousands of tons. It's used in you know micrograms in your phone or something right? So if some private Chinese company, you know, had a significant new mine and it was private, so we don't know it's coming, they could suddenly hit the market with new supply, assuming the Chinese allowed it to be exported, um that we wouldn't know about. So So the the the the smaller oddball metals are harder to predict. They're more volatile, but the bigger ones, we can generally see what's coming. >> And also the fact that most of the refined copper comes from uh China. Uh, okay. Let's move on to gold. We haven't talked too much about gold so far. We've talked about silver. Does silver and gold do all do these metals have a similar story? In other words, if you're still somewhat positive on silver, I'm assuming you're still somewhat positive on gold or are they completely different narratives as of 2025? No, I just made an argument for silver having got ahead based on idiosyncratic issues including supply, physical supply in the LME and in the comics and that sort of thing. Um, and I made and the reason for that argument was to say that you know don't think that they're diverging permanently like this is I think temporary. It gets resolved and then both metals revert to trend. my base case. And by the way, this fits into why even though I am bullish on both silver and gold, uh why neither is my top pick for 2026, is that it's entirely possible that we could see more consolidation at these levels before the next big move, which I do expect to be upwards. I mean, in in 2020, we had to wait 3 years before the next big move upward happened. And I'm not saying that it has to be the same now, but I'm I am saying that if it took three years last time, there's no reason, you know, to assume that it has to, you know, the next move upward needs to be right away. It could take three years, two years. Even if it takes a year and a half, we still have months to go. So, I'm not bearish on silver or gold. The question is about gold. Um, but I do think that there is a significant chance that both correct and consolidate for a while, possibly even all of 2026. And and that's why and whereas I I'm I'm highly confident that even with the short-term correction, copper goes higher in 26. And that's why copper is my top pick to the answer for gold. You know, central banks are still buying. The debasement trade is there. When people ask me, oh, gold's so high, how high do you think it can go? My answer is always well when do you think governments stop printing money? I don't or how low can the dollar go? I don't think there's a limit to those ladder and therefore I don't think there's a limit to how high the monetary metals can go. Um the difference between me and the in the you know uber bulls who who are just like bye bye bye bye today right now. That's not me because I'm willing to admit that it may be a while before I'm right about where it goes. >> This is from the uh world gold council. They cited a few factors for why gold performed so well in 2025. Geopolitical risks, dollar weakness, and investment flows drove gold higher. Let's just talk about these macro factors. Which of these will remain relevant into 2026 and beyond? All of them will be. I mean, there's optimism about peace in Ukraine. Um, I you know, but we still don't have any word from Moscow that they're actually even interested in the peace deals the Americans and the Europeans and the Ukrainians are are hammering out between themselves without Russian participation. So, we'll see. But the the most interesting of the three that you pointed out there is actually I think the the investment scenario. One of the things that I know you've talked to our friend Rick Rule about is that the long-term average global portfolio allocation to gold has been 2% for decades and recently it's only been around a half a percent. And Rick would say that if all it has to do is revert to mean David and that would that would four that would 4x or produce four times the investment demand for gold. I think that's happening already and I think that thing you just pointed out is evidence of exactly that. I don't know that it goes back to 2%. But even if it just goes to 1%, that's twice the allocation of the past. That's a huge huge input factor. And I think we're seeing that we, you know, it's anecdotal. I can't prove this, but I listen to the talking heads on financial media. Not you and I, of course, those other talking heads, mainstream financial media, which you will be soon, I'm sure, David. But anyway, you hear these guys and instead of, you know, treating gold like a four-letter word, which it is, but you know, before like people would would if they mentioned gold at all, it was to laugh and sneer at the pet rock. Now, um, you see the the the money manager saying, "Oh, we're doing this with Nvidia and that with with Exxon or whatever. Oh, and we're hedging our bets with some gold, too." Like that's coming up frequently in the conversations. And more recently, the even the interviewers have come around to where the interviewers are saying, "Okay, well, that's really interesting. What about gold? You got some of that in there. Oh, yeah. We've got some gold, too." So, I think this is happening. I I think this is something that's been absent for decades. I think it's material. We're talking about not just institutional investors, but you know, family offices and and highly liquid, deep pocketed investors that are that are getting the memo. You think about it, you know, okay, in 2011, gold has this big spike after having been down for decades. It's easy to see why people would dismiss that. Recency bias would say, well, gee, that's that's a spike. It's a fluke. But now it's been two and a half decades of rising gold. And if you pull back and look at the big picture since 1971, um, you know, it's pretty easy to understand the the thesis that gold offers. It's it's volatile. It goes up and down on every year. It can go one way or the other. But if you look at the big picture, it has held wealth. It has held value for the for the entire time that's been free to trade against the dollar which has lost value. That chart, this is my favorite chart. You've seen it before, Dave, is a giant X from 1971 to now. If you look at the the exchange rate between gold and the dollar, and you look at the dollar's purchasing power, even using the BLS's CPI as input, it's a giant X. And and that has lasted decades. And I think people are starting to understand that now. And that is something that's completely I think that's as big a gamecher or a paradigm shift as the central banks deciding to hoard gold. The fact that gold Let me just pull up a very important chart because I don't think a lot of people have this in perspective. The fact that gold has performed almost pretty much everything else. EM stocks in 2025 year-to-day returns for gold and key asset classes in USD DM stocks XUS US stocks for the most part commodities balance portfolio US bonds global treasuries XUS US cash I'm not talking about specific stocks that have gone up 300% I'm not talking about silver that has outperformed we've already talked about that I'm not talking about some certain crypto memes meme stocks that have outperformed I'm talking about these broad basket um large asset classes underperforming gold. First of all, what does that signal to you when it comes to investment investors priorities for this year? And second, does that worry you a little bit as a commodities trader investor? >> Yes. And yes. So, an interesting thing is that you're putting gold on here versus other investments. And in a way, that shouldn't Well, a couple things. One is if you put silver, platinum, or palladium on there, they'd be even bigger than gold. Um, but this isn't your chart. I understand. But I think it's actually comparing apples to oranges here. Gold is not an investment. It is, I think, money. It it it should be compared to the dollar, not to other investment classes. Uh so if you want to compare a gold-based investment to these other investment classes, you should put the gold stocks on there. Put GDX on there. And that's up over 100%. It's like 140% or something last I saw. So it's even better if you if you compare gold investments or speculations versus these other investment classes. I think you see an even bigger outperformance. Um but to the question of what is this signaling? This ties into the earlier conversation that we kind of put the cart before the horse here on in my concerns for 2026. As you may remember from our previous conversations about the Big Mac index and other things, gold does not correlate well with inflation. You know this. I've heard you talk to other guests about this. The correlation is actually not negative, >> but it's basically negligible. >> Yes. >> And the reason for that that we've discussed before is that gold tends to lead, right? Gold went way up in 2020 and it wasn't until a couple years later that inflation went up to 9%. At least as officially admitted by the United States government. So, what does that imply about what gold is doing now? I think that's pretty scary. And I'm not going to, you know, write a science fiction story for the audience in some apocalyptic scenario. But if that if past is prologue, right, that, you know, history doesn't necessarily repeat, but if it rhymes at all, gold going to where it is gone and silver confirming it and the other so-called precious metals tagging along, I mean, that's pretty scary. You know what? We just talked about deep pockets hedging with a bit of gold. What are they hedging? What what not just, you know, when we say what is gold telling us, we're really saying what are the buyers worried about? I think that's significant. I think people should should pay attention to that. I just said, >> sorry, real quick. I just said I'm allergic to buying all-time highs. But I'll tell you, if I had no gold, and I you know, my I just said gold's not an investment. I view gold as money. I view it as savings. I have physical bullion. I won't tell you which palm tree it's buried under, but under my direct control that that is my rainy day fund and I I have lived this in the past. I have used bullion to save my family in times of trouble. So I take this very seriously. Um if I didn't have that, this is what I'm saying. If I didn't have that, you know what? I would be willing to buy gold today, even at these prices. If I had zero physical gold, if I didn't have one, gold or silver I could hold in my hand, I' I'd go on the Costco website today and buy some >> and hold it long term. >> That's my answer to, you know, what is gold telling us? It's telling us I don't know what it's telling us, but it's not good and I want insurance. And that's the direct line of insurance I'd buy. >> That is a perfect segue into my next question is to what exactly are you insuring yourself against? This is from JP Morgan. This is not [laughter] I don't have to remind the audience and yourself. This is not u an insignificant institution um publishing an insignificant post. Uh this is their forecast officially $5,000 by the fourth quarter of 2026 with $6,000 an ounce possibility longer term. Now there was a time when I was working at my last job when you and I first met when we were talking about $5,000 gold is a hypothetical doom scenario. It is now no longer that hypothetical doom scenario. We're not at 5,000. Not saying it's going to happen tomorrow. But here we have a major bank saying it's not going to happen by the end of the decade. It's going to happen by the end of next year. And I'm not going to read the entire article, but spoiler alert, not much has to change. Central banks have to continue buying and the Trump administration has to continue putting pressure on the Federal Reserve. Uh the Federal Reserve losing a dependence is one of their uh criteria. But let's just take this at face value. Gold is going towards $5,000. What has fundamentally changed in the world such that we're talking about this at the end of 2025 and it's just status quo versus 5 years ago this was a hypothetical scenario that was like the end of the world needs to happen for this to happen. Well, let's come back to what's changed. Let's go to the first bit because I think that's really interesting. I've had people say, "Well, gee, Lobo, you said if gold went to 5,000 or 10,000, and those were commonly numbers that were thrown out, 5,000 or 10,000, we'd be looking at a Mad Max scenario or the world would be totally crazy." >> Yes, exactly. >> Okay, we're It's not Mad Max, but the world looks pretty crazy to me, David. I mean, we've got a hot war in in Europe. I mean, that that Okay, it hasn't gone nuclear yet, and there's talk about peace, but no actual peace. the, you know, the bombings and strafings on both sides continue. Uh, we had a hot war in the Middle East, hotter than in decades, and that seems to have simmered down, but you know, you think Iran has given up on their goals or or or perspective or I I think um, you know, and actually we have a we don't actually have a peace deal in the Middle East. We have a ceasefire and it's held, but who knows how long it'll hold. Point is, you know, there's geopolitical not just risk or tension, but there is actual fires burning on the geopolitical front in our world right now. And then you've got this this the trade war, which isn't just a trade war. This is global superpowers, China and the US finally, you know, facing off more directly. the gloves have come off basically and and the you know the hegeimon existent and the hegeimon uprising are are openly jockeying for position here. You know that is a scary world in which that sort of thing is happening and then we've got the you know the debasement trade all these other things going on. So you know it is a pretty different world from where it was when we you know years ago thought that 5,000 would be a crazy number. Well, we live in pretty crazy times. Um, and then as far as what's changed, we've touched on these already. The central bank buying, that's absolutely a gamecher. It's not going away anytime soon. I think this other thing we've just talked about where the reallocation to gold in portfolios where it's not just gold but I mean that Jamie Diamond thing that you or sorry JP Morgan thing you just quoted remember Jamie Diamond a couple weeks ago he said well you know it's not entirely insane to own gold these days and you know it's one thing for for longtime gold bugs like Gunlock who talk about you know 25% is not excessive and even though he walked that back you he did say that a 25% allocation to gold is not excessive. But he's been into gold for many years. for for you know JP Morgan the you know that institution that gold bugs love to hate for that the leader of that institution to come out and say well you know what it's not just you know crazy people who want to own gold these days that is a huge shift and for I forget which there was another one I think it was Morgan Stanley that was al that was recommending a 10% allocation or something like that to gold that's huge and to the degree that any of I mean doesn't happen overnight But to the degree that their clients or anybody listening them starts doing that that this is enormous. Um so under any other circumstances the answer to your question actually David is if we were in that world from before and we were looking at $5,000 or four or $5,000 gold 60 $70 silver I'd be very worried that we just hit a peak and the next big move would be downwards. But for these reasons, the world that we're actually in today, I think we're actually in a consolidation phase before another move higher. How much higher? I don't know. You know, I don't do the crystal ball thing. I'm happy just to get the direction right and it'll do wonders for my portfolio if I do. >> Well, I think that was a very good recap for the year. So, thank you very much for all your contributions this year and we'll have you back on again in 2026 to see what h what has played out and uh what's changed. So, Lobo, where can we follow you for now? independentspeculator.com. I have a free weekly digest that if you sign up for, we won't spam you. Let me just say one more thing. For anybody that's mad at me for not saying silver or gold or uranium is going to the moon tomorrow, remember it's one thing to to make money on a bull market. It's another thing to keep it. And if you listen, not just don't listen to me. You listen to Rick Rule or Doug or these people and they talk about locking in their gains. And if you look at the broader markets, you listen to a Gundlock or a Howard Marx even who's not a gold bug or somebody like that, they talk about discipline. They talk about buying low and selling high and don't forget the sell high part. So just because I don't say your favorite commodity is going to the moon tomorrow doesn't mean I'm a bear. And if I talk about taking some money off the table, it's not that I hate all things good in the world. I'm trying to help people hang on to that money that they work so hard to make. That's my take. >> Follow Lobo and uh hopefully learn more about um about his takes on gold and uh commodities there. We didn't talk too much about miners. We'll continue that conversation another time, but uh do check out Lobo's work. He gives detailed analysis of individual miners. So, uh very very good resource. Thank you very much, Lobo, for coming back on the show and uh have a happy new year and we wish you all the best. Looking forward to seeing you again in 2026. >> Yes. Thank you, David. Happy holidays and a very prosperous new year to you and our audience. >> Thank you and thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe,