“The Physical Market Is Taking Over the Paper Market” | Nomi Prins
Summary
Commodities Supercycle: The guest argues we are early in a structural supercycle for commodities driven by supply constraints and rising geopolitical uncertainty.
Hard Assets Rotation: A sustained shift into gold, silver, platinum, and copper is highlighted as investors, banks, and sovereigns seek real assets over financial assets.
Central Bank Buying: Central banks continue accumulating gold, with room for more structural buying, supporting higher precious metal prices relative to Treasuries.
Silver Shortage: Silver faces multi-year deficits, limited new mines, and rising industrial/sovereign demand, making silver miners a focal opportunity.
Platinum Upside: Tight supply concentrated in South Africa and Russia plus critical uses in hybrid technologies underpin a bullish platinum outlook.
Copper Demand: A forecast for $7/lb near term is supported by grid expansion and global stockpiling needs, with 30% more copper required by 2030.
Miner Positioning: The strategy shifts from large-cap producers to permitted/near-permit value miners, with accelerating M&A and nation-backed financing as catalysts.
Macro & Equities: Potential Fed/Treasury easing and QE may buoy equities, but hard assets are expected to outperform; oil has upside but lacks explosive potential.
Transcript
Kitco News on-site coverage of the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference is presented by Discovery Silver. >> Hey everyone, welcome back to Kicko News. I'm Jeremy Saffron coming to you from the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference 2026. Now, if you look at the screen, the markets are moving very fast this morning. Gold has breached that $5,000 mark. Silver is trading significantly higher. A lot of volatility in this market, but breaking above $117 an ounce, a new all-time high. Now, this volatility comes against a backdrop of major institutional friction. In the last 24 hours, President Trump has filed a $5 billion lawsuit against JP Morgan about debanking, and there's reports confirmed that the DOJ has issued subpoenas to the Federal Reserve. A lot of uncertainty to say the least. is joining me to discuss whether the shift is towards hard assets is structural or if it's reactive. Of course, is one of our favorites, Nomi Prince from Prince Sight. Snowomie, nice to see you again. >> So great to see you, Jeremy. >> And what a time to talk. Uh, you know, I just had you on the show. I think we were at Rick Rule and and you nailed your forecast. I think neither of us thought it would go as quick as it did. But I mean, in this asset group, you're talking about embracing the real getting out of those, you know, tedious, tenuous kind of assets. And and I this looks like proof >> just headlines. >> Absolutely. And also for people who aren't even in the hard acid class yet, who might even feel like they've been left behind and the momentum and the just speed of the acceleration of these prices is is too much too fast. But the reality is we are really in the beginning of a major super cycle in commodities. And not just because of all the uncertainty. That's that's a factor, >> but because of the structural supply issues that you can't just snap your fingers and have go away. And so much momentum is related to both of those factors. >> Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, we are at a conference about mining and we know that we can't get new ounces out of the ground quick enough. Uh what do you think that looks like? I mean, it just seems like it's more tailwind for gold and silver at this point. >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean if you take silver for example which has gone up more quickly than gold. Um a lot of the reason for that is first of all the dual uses of silver. We have the industrial need the industrial growth and the fact that silver can also be a shadow reserve currency to gold. Not yet but that's something that can happen down the line. But you also have that supply der. We've got 200 million shortfall of ounces for four years running going into the fifth year. There are no mines coming online in 2 years. So the only thing we have to look at for additional supply in silver are mines that are permanent but not producing yet. And if we take a look at those, there's not even that many in the world at all. And so the idea of going to the mining section of silver is a very smart strategic investment. >> You know, it's interesting you brought up something. I mean, we know we report on the World Gold Council. We report on the gold holdings. We know central banks continue to pick them up. Um now you know they've almost leaped the euro and they exceed the value of the US treasuries on their books. I mean when does this it's not stopping? >> It isn't stopping and and they do exceed US debt. And what that means is over the last three years central banks have decided we are not buying US debt. In fact we are letting it roll off. We're not replacing it as US debt continues to increase. So, not only do they hold less than ever before, and not only is gold kicked up to the notch above treasuries, but there's so much more treasury debt that the percentage they hold is that much lower. That's not going to stop. They need to still I did the math on this actually. I'm a geek. You know this, Jeremy. But I did the math from the BIS reports. I went through all these numbers, all the reports, and even to get to 2008 levels when there was a lot of gold buying because of that tremendous crisis in reaction. That was reaction. Central banks have to buy another 2% of reserves to get to those levels. So all of this appreciation relative to treasuries that we have seen has at least 2% more structural buying to go let alone because of geopolitical diversification reasons. So that's what's going to continue to pull gold up and gold and silver the number one and two assets in terms of market value over Nvidia, over Google, over Apple, over Microsoft. That's not going to stop. >> Yeah. And you know, it's almost like you can't keep up with the headlines. Just this morning there's talk about the New York Fed having to possibly get into the Japanese market here, cover the yen trade, which is uh in itself uh you know a lot different than normal normal time. So uh again that base case doesn't seem like it's going away anytime soon. Do you think that we're going to see you know some healthy profit taking? Maybe see silver back under 100 or is this a base now? Um we might see silver below 100 quite honestly but that's more yes a profit taking that has nothing to do with those structural supply differences or that diversification into hard assets away from from fei away from the dollar and every time there is an issue with debt whether it's too much from the United States issuance whether the debt is to GDP too high of a ratio whether Japan is having problems paying off some of the interest on its debt at very very low cost and the US is paying a trillion dollars of interest on debt every single year all of that points to hard assets because you need to have something to replenish the devaluation of those currencies relative to the increase in debt before you even talk about interest payments. All of this together is is very long-term bullish for hard assets, particularly reserve assets like gold and quasi almost reserve assets like silver. >> Yeah. I mean, it's been interesting. I had somebody from a mint on the show, uh Josh Farah, I believe, and he was talking about how there's this hidden hand. you know, the banks are picking up silver and we don't know why, but a lot of them might be sovereigns. Is that starting to happen behind the scenes? It feels like we're getting close here. >> That's absolutely true. It's not just the banks, it's also the sovereign funds. So, when you get like the Saudi sovereign fund and some the big Middle Eastern funds, the big Asian funds buying not just gold, but but buying silver, there's two reasons for that. Aside from the supply issue, which is structural, which we can do nothing about. Um, the issues for that are diversifying against debt. They're diversifying into hard assets and they're having something that's cheaper beyond you know sort of gold which is now over 5,000 an ounce as a way to replenish their supply. This this is historical um is what it is. India for example huge buyer of silver because of their huge maker solar panels. India was one of the first uh central banks to basically plenish a lot of their reserves in silver back when um it was it was possible to be included as a reserve currency. So these things are reapping sovereign level central bank level private bank level throughout the world. It's interesting when you bring up India because it's just a a side note. I mean, I talked to to the Heckla CEO, the former CEO, and he was talking about India obviously being one of the largest markets and it's often underlooked. But the fact is, not only is it growing so fast, the population is younger. We're looking at China in comparison. That population is sadly going away fairly quickly. So, could they be, you know, we're starting to see some of these nations come out of the woodworks and and they're trying to just grab as many medals as they can possibly. >> No, that's that's exactly right. especially the ones that are in short supply are the ones that can act as monetary diversification. There's a lot of systems, payment systems that are being developed right now and trades that are being backed right now by gold. It's almost like going back to 1900 when the gold standard became the global standard except now we may or may not call it that. But having gold in a supply chain that's in reserve at banks throughout a banking system for countries is definitely going to be collateral for trades. It already it the knowledge that it's there is already collateral. It's just a matter of making that official. And with uh countries like China introducing large payment systems and moving their beta testing countries into real, that's going to continue and gold's going to be a big part of that. >> Now, we look at the geopolitics around the world. Obviously, there's a lot of headlines out of there, but one of them that we just had is this $5 billion lawsuit from President Trump against Jamie Dime. And we have subpoenas going to the Fed. I mean, you've covered the Fed, Washington for many years. The past year has been interesting to say the least. Is Is that what's almost leading to a little bit of this? I mean, are they getting their way? >> I I think it's more the issue of these are all uncertain steps. I mean, you're right. B having a lawsuit against it's about trust. It's about where is the next um where's the next domino going to fall. Um so, so in the situation with JP Morgan, Chase, the largest bank, Jamie Diamond, of course, used to be um on the the board of the New York Fed. He's he's actively involved. um so is Chase with with clearing for the United States. So it's a big deal to go after uh JP Morgan Chase that creates uncertainty in the market. It's not to say a suit will be successful, but it's the idea that you're having that sort of a power struggle going on between the largest bank in the country and the White House. And then you add the Federal Reserve and the White House with the DOJ. These are things that bring uncertainty into the markets. And this is where where do people go? Where do countries go? Where do sovereign funds go? Where do private banks go? They go into what's real. They go into what's hard that can't be taken away or sued away or subpoenaed away and and that is gold, that's silver, that's copper, that's platinum. It's hard assets. >> Yeah. Do you think the banks are are enjoying this or kind of fighting it? I mean, they prefer to get yield, right? And and now what's happening? A lot of people taking their money out, putting it into gold and silver. I mean, it's created a bit of an uncertain area for the banks. >> It has, but the banks are also buying gold. So what's interesting is for example Morgan Stanley told all of their at the end of last year we talked about this all of their um private investors and institutional funds to go from 60% equities 40% bond to 20% commodity 20% bond. That is that is a lot of money that has to find a home in commodities. Now it starts with ETFs. The western investors came into ETFs strong. It was one of the big movers of gold and silver ETFs last year was the western um investor coming in on the back of the eastern investor buying physical. that is continuing into this quarter. They want their customers to go into the ETFs that they manage. They have to buy physical gold or silver in order to back those ETFs in case their customers want liquidity. So, these banks are actively involved in this buying spree, which is the other reason why you look at all of the um you know, sort of arena of buyers supporting these prices that they're all very real. Um and and this is something that's going to continue. >> Yeah. Let's get into your price forecast because I mean you nailed it last time we had Yonomi and and I think now you're kind of forecasting nice and safe that $6,000 gold this year uh could touch that. Well, let's talk about the timeline because the runup to five has been very quick. >> It's been lightning quick and right now we're looking at six-month intervals instead of one-year intervals. So, so, so I am looking at a circus six uh month interval for 6,000 because I think we see this appreciation going up quite a lot if there are dips and if people want to go down the value chain to to miners that are are close, they're at capacity or potentially going to be bought up by the bigger ones because they have so much money now because they have those gold prices at 5100. Um, I think that's going to continue into this first half. I talked about silver being at 120 um the first half of this year. We're already almost there. Um, and I'm looking at a 180 range for the turn of the year because again, silver has that supply der. Um, it is not to say it's going to be a straight line up. Markets can go down. There's volatility. There's per periodic selling. There's profit taking, but but the fundamental mechanisms that are pushing up these these prices and the miners that supply the physical um are not going away. >> Do you think that there's more beta at this moment of buying the miners? I mean, here we are at VRIC, right? We're seeing the finally some of these wake up and start returning shareholders some value and some liquidity for that matter. But uh where do you find your value? I know you have a fund at Princes and I mean you guys have obviously been doing well in this market. Is it just the beginning? We the first innings still. >> Yeah. What's really interesting is we just um suggested to our um about our model portfolio to take profits in some of the bigger gold companies that we had riding there since last year. So we we took profits, you know, a couple hundred% profits on some of those and we have gone down that I'll call it a value chain. So downstream in the value chain to miners that have permits are near permits and are bringing new supply into the market in jurisdictions and areas that are pretty neutral. You're not going to necessarily see a lot of volatility. It can happen. That's a risk, but that's what we're looking at. So we've actually moved down um that cycle into the value miners. We we've done that in silver. We took off or suggested taking off um SLV which is the biggest silver ETF the beginning of this year as well. Take that profit. It's it's it's up quite a lot and and we are now suggesting moving down again that value chain. There's again no silver mines coming online in the next two years. But looking at the ones that have a pretty solid chance of fulfilling their timelines, have experience management, good jurisdictional relationships and will be coming on. So that's where we're recommending specific miners to our uh subscribers. >> It's such an interesting market because even at 100% returns, 200% returns for some of these miners. I mean, often people think, okay, it's done. The bubble's there. But the the fundamentals are crazy. I mean, we saw China come in and buy a Canadian miner today for $6 billion. We saw the United States, I think 3 days ago, go and sign up for 1.9 billion financing a rare earth deal. um you know if they're stepping it in as a buyer or we haven't even really seen M&A take place let alone IPOs one would think we got some room >> we do last year the average M&A or acquisition of gold miners was about under $3 billion so they were tiny little acquisitions well there's a lot of miners in the bigger space than that that are prime for acquisitions because you got the bigger companies that are literally every day scouring the planet for how to use their profits because of the commodity price in order to go and buy projects that that are nearer at permit or or about to produce. So it's not just us having this conversation. That conversation is going on um in the seauite of every single large miner out there as well as the bankers that bank them. And it's interesting you mentioned the rare earth deal that just happened with the United States. It's the second big rare earth deal over a billion dollars where they are actually participating as an equity investor and the MP deal last year which is $1.2 billion where they are an equity investor. Saudi Arabia is actually and this was not even really covered partnering with the United States on some of um that financing and will therefore get offtake from that deal um as well. So we have these these these conglomerates of nations that are partnering to try and secure their future supply and that again is is where we're seeing good value. >> Yeah. What what do you think about what's your thoughts I mean on that kind of socialism you know capital coming in from from nations for the first time that we've been seeing I mean now you have the United States as a partner in in that stock so I mean you know what's your thoughts behind that >> this is really because of that supply der that I was talking about nations are recognizing um that in a lot of these commodities if they don't have a processing chain if they don't have production in their country if they don't have a supply chain with with friendly nations to them at reasonable prices. Um they're going to be caught behind and that that is especially true for things like platinum for example. Platinum is a commodity um which has outperformed silver so far this the beginning of this year and has a great upside because it's only basically produced by two countries. It's got South Africa, it's got Russia and there are a lot of other mines in Brazil and Canada and so forth that are that are coming into that space. Um but governments want to secure not next year, not this year. They want to secure five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years because the evolution of of AI, of energy, of technology, of defense is not stopping. That's some momentum. You need the hard assets to supply it and governments want to secure that. >> It's an interesting fact. I mean, you know, we're sitting here at one of the large gold coffers. He's talking about gold and silver this price action, but plat, I mean, they've been incredibly resilient and in the tailwinds that they have from those jurisdictions in South Africa or Russia should mean that the supply is getting a little bit tighter here. I mean, do you think there's an opportunity there at these prices? >> Yeah, I um I love platinum this year. It it's um it's one of our favorite commodities. Um I actually um we forecast it to outperform gold in terms of the momentum and and looking that whole entire supply chain from minor up through price um because of that very issue that the the jurisdictional risk of finding platinum outside of those areas. If anything goes wrong, if there's any disruption, if there's any extra tear, if there's any mine problems, you you automatically have an extra dera supply. And platinum is used in converters for all sorts of hybrid vehicles, hybrid technologies, hybrid defense vehicles, and you can't just create it. >> Yeah. >> Um, so it is necessary and I think that's one of the reasons why investors that haven't looked at it yet should should definitely be doing some homework on platinum. >> Yeah. I mean, well, we say things like a whole rerating along all precious metals. I mean, is that that's taking place before our eyes? These are historical moments. Obviously that case is not going anywhere, but I got to ask you silver versus oil. I I know that you got some takes on, you know, oil is relatively stable. Is there any energy trades? Anything outside of the resource sector that you're looking at? Yeah, I mean in terms of oil, I I feel that oil um has shown itself to be incredibly resilient in the face of volatility. Whether that's, you know, basically taking out the leadership in Venezuela, whether that's Middle East tension, oil has remained fairly stable um because it's it's a very old resource. So, I do see some upside in oil, but I don't see the same kind of spikes as we see in hard assets because it's available. And because it's available, it means that supply chain is only disrupted by physical skirmishes and not necessarily by it not being uh plenished um by you know what's going on under the earth or being produced in the countries that need it. So I do see upside but I don't see the same kind of explosive upside as in the hard assets. >> Interesting. Yeah. I mean I got to ask you about the May succession. I mean we're talking Fed chair. Uh you know we've gotten a couple glimpses in Davos with questions from Trump as to who he's thinking. obviously has it. What are your thoughts? What are we going to go into here with the Fed? I mean, like I said, it's under subpoena. I mean, we've seen that credibility of the Fed at least take a little bit of a dive this past year, whether the chairman likes it or not. So, I mean, where are we going? >> I think whoever takes that seat is going to sort of walk the tight rope between trying to portray Fed independence merely because that will give them ultimate power. It's it's it's a long-term tenure, right? But also is coming in with support. Obviously, will be appointed by the president. It needs to be confirmed by a majority of the Senate. The Senate will still be Republican. It will support the president and they will have an easing bias. Now, whether that means a significant reduction in rates, it probably means somewhere between 50 and 100 basis points reduction in rates this year. >> But more than that, it probably means I think it means more QE or some form of bond buying. the Treasury Department is already looking at its own methods of QE and some coordinated method because it's going to want to give support to the long end of the curve. Um, that's really what's going on here. Um, and and so I I think the long end of the curve is going to get support. Our debt is too high. The Treasury Department needs to issue the Fed needs to buy it. The Fed has held tight on uh on not going into quantitative easing yet. But I think that's the thing to really watch um in May with whoever the new Fed chairperson is is significant >> ways of quantitative easing even if it's not called that whereby treasury supply is is bought out of the market >> and on on like S&P 500 general equities in the tech ministry I mean has that regime change already been priced into the market or do you think you know midterms coming up liquidity going into the whole gives us still a little bit of profit here or do you think we're just in that bubble? I think we're going to see the S&P continue to appreciate, but I also think it's going to continue to underperform significantly hard assets. I we just look at like we were talking about before the gold and silver the top two assets by market value with all the tech companies basically falling behind them. I don't see us ending the year differently than that. You know, I see that we are going to have higher market value in those two hard assets than we will have in Nvidia or Google or Apple. It doesn't mean they won't um continue to appreciate. They will because long-term funding is going to decline because somehow between the Fed and the Treasury Department, there's going to be more buying of treasuries to also replace the fact that other central banks are are not buying as much and they're going into hard assets. So, it's going to be tricky in terms of when that happens. But ultimately, if that happens, there will be a continued bid to the S&P. It's just not going to have a double-digit appreciation relative to hard assets. Well, that's what I was going to ask because I mean, you know, you it's holding its games, but but obviously you benchmarked performance in gold terms. I mean, last year gold outperformed the SP5 times. So, you know, are we seeing a a separation where financial assets are kind of going to start rising nominally and then obviously we got that real purchasing power behind the hard ass? >> I think so. And we're going to see that rotation happen in sequence. It's not like everybody's going to dump their tech stocks, but I think it's happening in sequence. the volumes on um SP 500 futures, S&P 500 futures and on the ETFs are declining relative to the volumes and they're bigger, but relative to the volumes that are entering your silver and gold ETFs. So, we're we're seeing the math move in that direction. Um I personally have my liquidity in in all hard assets and miners right now. Um I I have literally closed my SP500 position, not because I don't think it's going to go up, but I think that these assets are going to go up by a lot more. >> Yeah, that's good to know, actually. Uh and final question, I mean, you know, we're sitting at this show, you're talking to younger investors. I don't know about you, I've noticed a lot more kids in this room for the first time ever. Uh what did they get wrong last year and what they should they be looking at this year? >> Um that is a really good question cuz my nephew asked me this question uh just before I came here. He's 21. and he's graduating college. He's like, "All my friends are starting to look at investments between, you know, crypto and and and futures in the S&P 500 and so forth." And I'm like, "Do not invest in futures." And I had a conversation with him about hard assets. I'm like, "Pick five. I'll, you know, we'll go through them." Um, but think about the fact that everything you use, whether it's an iPhone, whether it's, you know, turning on your car, whether it's your key thing, whatever it is, requires assets that don't have enough supply. and you're continuing to use them, which means everyone's continuing to use them, which means that supply that doesn't exist will be called upon. He got that. So, I think what we're seeing here is the next generation of of investors is savvy enough to know how they can invest that they've learned, where they can invest is that next question. And I think what we're seeing with this demographic going down is a lot of new people coming into the the chain wanting to buy what's real, wanting to buy what they can touch and feel and know where it goes. And I think we're going to continue to see that. >> Yeah. You do you think there I mean they've obviously started to learn, but we talk about the debasement trade. I wonder how much of it is the fact that they go to the grocery store and they say, "Well, I can't for $20 I can't buy what I could." you know, like anything, you know, and so turning that on. I mean, I talk to average people all the time that don't really understand what that means, but they're starting to figure out maybe hard assets is it and maybe less trust towards the institutions is what's taking place. >> Well, that's exactly right because hard assets have certain constraints that institutions cannot finagle. You you cannot switch on a mine. If there is a required supply need for silver and there are no mines coming online, that's a simple economics 101. Whether you're an economist or whether you never take that class, um it's the fact that someone needs to supply something that is demanded that is real and that nobody else can do anything about. >> Yeah. >> Um and and I think where trust comes in this whole part of this whole trade is about uncertainty. Um and and what can you trust? And can you trust what's in the ground? Um because what's in the ground or under the ground can't be manipulated fast enough um to really change supply versus demand and that's why it has value. >> Yeah. And actually it was your last question, but you just brought up what's under the ground and and I got to bring up uh copper. I mean looking at the generals on the on the metal side. I mean what's your case for copper this year? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we at the moment have a $7 uh per pound forecast on copper for these next six months. I I can I can see moving that, but right now that's where we're at. Um and we have a number of copper miners again in our portfolio because over the next 5 years, just on current um projections in terms of needs for um energy grids which cannot be created without copper lines, copper wires. Um and again, this is global. This is not the just the US who has put copper on its critical mineralist as it has with silver because it needs to stockpile and have it. This is China. This is India. This is Saudi River. These are countries throughout the world who are beginning to well just continuing actually to to buy copper mines and to secure therefore their future supply of copper. We are looking at a need for 30% more copper than is currently above the ground by the next 5 years by 2030. Actually four years now because we're in 2026. >> It's crazy. It's so so I think copper is almost the hidden um beast in this and and we we've hit copper as our our third most um upside potential commodity this year. >> All right. I like it. And finally sites obviously you've done really well in the portfolio side. I know I talked to people that watch our show. They're subscribing to Princits. I mean a lot of growth this year for you. Uh that's going into anywhere and where can people find you? >> Um so if you go to princit.substack.com substack.com. That's where we've got multiple different levels of um of paid and free products um and all of our model portfolio research services. So, that's really the best place to go. And we've got another we've got another recommendation coming out on Thursday in the mining space, but um we do two uh two a month in the different products. >> Well, you put your money where your mouth is and those returns prove it. So, I appreciate this. Nomi Prince is of course joining us. Uh and I want to thank you for watching. Of course, we're going to have some great guests coming up all week long. A lot of excitement in the room with these metal prices and I don't think they're going anywhere. We'll be back. >> Kitco News on-site coverage of the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference is presented by Discovery Silver.
“The Physical Market Is Taking Over the Paper Market” | Nomi Prins
Summary
Transcript
Kitco News on-site coverage of the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference is presented by Discovery Silver. >> Hey everyone, welcome back to Kicko News. I'm Jeremy Saffron coming to you from the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference 2026. Now, if you look at the screen, the markets are moving very fast this morning. Gold has breached that $5,000 mark. Silver is trading significantly higher. A lot of volatility in this market, but breaking above $117 an ounce, a new all-time high. Now, this volatility comes against a backdrop of major institutional friction. In the last 24 hours, President Trump has filed a $5 billion lawsuit against JP Morgan about debanking, and there's reports confirmed that the DOJ has issued subpoenas to the Federal Reserve. A lot of uncertainty to say the least. is joining me to discuss whether the shift is towards hard assets is structural or if it's reactive. Of course, is one of our favorites, Nomi Prince from Prince Sight. Snowomie, nice to see you again. >> So great to see you, Jeremy. >> And what a time to talk. Uh, you know, I just had you on the show. I think we were at Rick Rule and and you nailed your forecast. I think neither of us thought it would go as quick as it did. But I mean, in this asset group, you're talking about embracing the real getting out of those, you know, tedious, tenuous kind of assets. And and I this looks like proof >> just headlines. >> Absolutely. And also for people who aren't even in the hard acid class yet, who might even feel like they've been left behind and the momentum and the just speed of the acceleration of these prices is is too much too fast. But the reality is we are really in the beginning of a major super cycle in commodities. And not just because of all the uncertainty. That's that's a factor, >> but because of the structural supply issues that you can't just snap your fingers and have go away. And so much momentum is related to both of those factors. >> Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, we are at a conference about mining and we know that we can't get new ounces out of the ground quick enough. Uh what do you think that looks like? I mean, it just seems like it's more tailwind for gold and silver at this point. >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean if you take silver for example which has gone up more quickly than gold. Um a lot of the reason for that is first of all the dual uses of silver. We have the industrial need the industrial growth and the fact that silver can also be a shadow reserve currency to gold. Not yet but that's something that can happen down the line. But you also have that supply der. We've got 200 million shortfall of ounces for four years running going into the fifth year. There are no mines coming online in 2 years. So the only thing we have to look at for additional supply in silver are mines that are permanent but not producing yet. And if we take a look at those, there's not even that many in the world at all. And so the idea of going to the mining section of silver is a very smart strategic investment. >> You know, it's interesting you brought up something. I mean, we know we report on the World Gold Council. We report on the gold holdings. We know central banks continue to pick them up. Um now you know they've almost leaped the euro and they exceed the value of the US treasuries on their books. I mean when does this it's not stopping? >> It isn't stopping and and they do exceed US debt. And what that means is over the last three years central banks have decided we are not buying US debt. In fact we are letting it roll off. We're not replacing it as US debt continues to increase. So, not only do they hold less than ever before, and not only is gold kicked up to the notch above treasuries, but there's so much more treasury debt that the percentage they hold is that much lower. That's not going to stop. They need to still I did the math on this actually. I'm a geek. You know this, Jeremy. But I did the math from the BIS reports. I went through all these numbers, all the reports, and even to get to 2008 levels when there was a lot of gold buying because of that tremendous crisis in reaction. That was reaction. Central banks have to buy another 2% of reserves to get to those levels. So all of this appreciation relative to treasuries that we have seen has at least 2% more structural buying to go let alone because of geopolitical diversification reasons. So that's what's going to continue to pull gold up and gold and silver the number one and two assets in terms of market value over Nvidia, over Google, over Apple, over Microsoft. That's not going to stop. >> Yeah. And you know, it's almost like you can't keep up with the headlines. Just this morning there's talk about the New York Fed having to possibly get into the Japanese market here, cover the yen trade, which is uh in itself uh you know a lot different than normal normal time. So uh again that base case doesn't seem like it's going away anytime soon. Do you think that we're going to see you know some healthy profit taking? Maybe see silver back under 100 or is this a base now? Um we might see silver below 100 quite honestly but that's more yes a profit taking that has nothing to do with those structural supply differences or that diversification into hard assets away from from fei away from the dollar and every time there is an issue with debt whether it's too much from the United States issuance whether the debt is to GDP too high of a ratio whether Japan is having problems paying off some of the interest on its debt at very very low cost and the US is paying a trillion dollars of interest on debt every single year all of that points to hard assets because you need to have something to replenish the devaluation of those currencies relative to the increase in debt before you even talk about interest payments. All of this together is is very long-term bullish for hard assets, particularly reserve assets like gold and quasi almost reserve assets like silver. >> Yeah. I mean, it's been interesting. I had somebody from a mint on the show, uh Josh Farah, I believe, and he was talking about how there's this hidden hand. you know, the banks are picking up silver and we don't know why, but a lot of them might be sovereigns. Is that starting to happen behind the scenes? It feels like we're getting close here. >> That's absolutely true. It's not just the banks, it's also the sovereign funds. So, when you get like the Saudi sovereign fund and some the big Middle Eastern funds, the big Asian funds buying not just gold, but but buying silver, there's two reasons for that. Aside from the supply issue, which is structural, which we can do nothing about. Um, the issues for that are diversifying against debt. They're diversifying into hard assets and they're having something that's cheaper beyond you know sort of gold which is now over 5,000 an ounce as a way to replenish their supply. This this is historical um is what it is. India for example huge buyer of silver because of their huge maker solar panels. India was one of the first uh central banks to basically plenish a lot of their reserves in silver back when um it was it was possible to be included as a reserve currency. So these things are reapping sovereign level central bank level private bank level throughout the world. It's interesting when you bring up India because it's just a a side note. I mean, I talked to to the Heckla CEO, the former CEO, and he was talking about India obviously being one of the largest markets and it's often underlooked. But the fact is, not only is it growing so fast, the population is younger. We're looking at China in comparison. That population is sadly going away fairly quickly. So, could they be, you know, we're starting to see some of these nations come out of the woodworks and and they're trying to just grab as many medals as they can possibly. >> No, that's that's exactly right. especially the ones that are in short supply are the ones that can act as monetary diversification. There's a lot of systems, payment systems that are being developed right now and trades that are being backed right now by gold. It's almost like going back to 1900 when the gold standard became the global standard except now we may or may not call it that. But having gold in a supply chain that's in reserve at banks throughout a banking system for countries is definitely going to be collateral for trades. It already it the knowledge that it's there is already collateral. It's just a matter of making that official. And with uh countries like China introducing large payment systems and moving their beta testing countries into real, that's going to continue and gold's going to be a big part of that. >> Now, we look at the geopolitics around the world. Obviously, there's a lot of headlines out of there, but one of them that we just had is this $5 billion lawsuit from President Trump against Jamie Dime. And we have subpoenas going to the Fed. I mean, you've covered the Fed, Washington for many years. The past year has been interesting to say the least. Is Is that what's almost leading to a little bit of this? I mean, are they getting their way? >> I I think it's more the issue of these are all uncertain steps. I mean, you're right. B having a lawsuit against it's about trust. It's about where is the next um where's the next domino going to fall. Um so, so in the situation with JP Morgan, Chase, the largest bank, Jamie Diamond, of course, used to be um on the the board of the New York Fed. He's he's actively involved. um so is Chase with with clearing for the United States. So it's a big deal to go after uh JP Morgan Chase that creates uncertainty in the market. It's not to say a suit will be successful, but it's the idea that you're having that sort of a power struggle going on between the largest bank in the country and the White House. And then you add the Federal Reserve and the White House with the DOJ. These are things that bring uncertainty into the markets. And this is where where do people go? Where do countries go? Where do sovereign funds go? Where do private banks go? They go into what's real. They go into what's hard that can't be taken away or sued away or subpoenaed away and and that is gold, that's silver, that's copper, that's platinum. It's hard assets. >> Yeah. Do you think the banks are are enjoying this or kind of fighting it? I mean, they prefer to get yield, right? And and now what's happening? A lot of people taking their money out, putting it into gold and silver. I mean, it's created a bit of an uncertain area for the banks. >> It has, but the banks are also buying gold. So what's interesting is for example Morgan Stanley told all of their at the end of last year we talked about this all of their um private investors and institutional funds to go from 60% equities 40% bond to 20% commodity 20% bond. That is that is a lot of money that has to find a home in commodities. Now it starts with ETFs. The western investors came into ETFs strong. It was one of the big movers of gold and silver ETFs last year was the western um investor coming in on the back of the eastern investor buying physical. that is continuing into this quarter. They want their customers to go into the ETFs that they manage. They have to buy physical gold or silver in order to back those ETFs in case their customers want liquidity. So, these banks are actively involved in this buying spree, which is the other reason why you look at all of the um you know, sort of arena of buyers supporting these prices that they're all very real. Um and and this is something that's going to continue. >> Yeah. Let's get into your price forecast because I mean you nailed it last time we had Yonomi and and I think now you're kind of forecasting nice and safe that $6,000 gold this year uh could touch that. Well, let's talk about the timeline because the runup to five has been very quick. >> It's been lightning quick and right now we're looking at six-month intervals instead of one-year intervals. So, so, so I am looking at a circus six uh month interval for 6,000 because I think we see this appreciation going up quite a lot if there are dips and if people want to go down the value chain to to miners that are are close, they're at capacity or potentially going to be bought up by the bigger ones because they have so much money now because they have those gold prices at 5100. Um, I think that's going to continue into this first half. I talked about silver being at 120 um the first half of this year. We're already almost there. Um, and I'm looking at a 180 range for the turn of the year because again, silver has that supply der. Um, it is not to say it's going to be a straight line up. Markets can go down. There's volatility. There's per periodic selling. There's profit taking, but but the fundamental mechanisms that are pushing up these these prices and the miners that supply the physical um are not going away. >> Do you think that there's more beta at this moment of buying the miners? I mean, here we are at VRIC, right? We're seeing the finally some of these wake up and start returning shareholders some value and some liquidity for that matter. But uh where do you find your value? I know you have a fund at Princes and I mean you guys have obviously been doing well in this market. Is it just the beginning? We the first innings still. >> Yeah. What's really interesting is we just um suggested to our um about our model portfolio to take profits in some of the bigger gold companies that we had riding there since last year. So we we took profits, you know, a couple hundred% profits on some of those and we have gone down that I'll call it a value chain. So downstream in the value chain to miners that have permits are near permits and are bringing new supply into the market in jurisdictions and areas that are pretty neutral. You're not going to necessarily see a lot of volatility. It can happen. That's a risk, but that's what we're looking at. So we've actually moved down um that cycle into the value miners. We we've done that in silver. We took off or suggested taking off um SLV which is the biggest silver ETF the beginning of this year as well. Take that profit. It's it's it's up quite a lot and and we are now suggesting moving down again that value chain. There's again no silver mines coming online in the next two years. But looking at the ones that have a pretty solid chance of fulfilling their timelines, have experience management, good jurisdictional relationships and will be coming on. So that's where we're recommending specific miners to our uh subscribers. >> It's such an interesting market because even at 100% returns, 200% returns for some of these miners. I mean, often people think, okay, it's done. The bubble's there. But the the fundamentals are crazy. I mean, we saw China come in and buy a Canadian miner today for $6 billion. We saw the United States, I think 3 days ago, go and sign up for 1.9 billion financing a rare earth deal. um you know if they're stepping it in as a buyer or we haven't even really seen M&A take place let alone IPOs one would think we got some room >> we do last year the average M&A or acquisition of gold miners was about under $3 billion so they were tiny little acquisitions well there's a lot of miners in the bigger space than that that are prime for acquisitions because you got the bigger companies that are literally every day scouring the planet for how to use their profits because of the commodity price in order to go and buy projects that that are nearer at permit or or about to produce. So it's not just us having this conversation. That conversation is going on um in the seauite of every single large miner out there as well as the bankers that bank them. And it's interesting you mentioned the rare earth deal that just happened with the United States. It's the second big rare earth deal over a billion dollars where they are actually participating as an equity investor and the MP deal last year which is $1.2 billion where they are an equity investor. Saudi Arabia is actually and this was not even really covered partnering with the United States on some of um that financing and will therefore get offtake from that deal um as well. So we have these these these conglomerates of nations that are partnering to try and secure their future supply and that again is is where we're seeing good value. >> Yeah. What what do you think about what's your thoughts I mean on that kind of socialism you know capital coming in from from nations for the first time that we've been seeing I mean now you have the United States as a partner in in that stock so I mean you know what's your thoughts behind that >> this is really because of that supply der that I was talking about nations are recognizing um that in a lot of these commodities if they don't have a processing chain if they don't have production in their country if they don't have a supply chain with with friendly nations to them at reasonable prices. Um they're going to be caught behind and that that is especially true for things like platinum for example. Platinum is a commodity um which has outperformed silver so far this the beginning of this year and has a great upside because it's only basically produced by two countries. It's got South Africa, it's got Russia and there are a lot of other mines in Brazil and Canada and so forth that are that are coming into that space. Um but governments want to secure not next year, not this year. They want to secure five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years because the evolution of of AI, of energy, of technology, of defense is not stopping. That's some momentum. You need the hard assets to supply it and governments want to secure that. >> It's an interesting fact. I mean, you know, we're sitting here at one of the large gold coffers. He's talking about gold and silver this price action, but plat, I mean, they've been incredibly resilient and in the tailwinds that they have from those jurisdictions in South Africa or Russia should mean that the supply is getting a little bit tighter here. I mean, do you think there's an opportunity there at these prices? >> Yeah, I um I love platinum this year. It it's um it's one of our favorite commodities. Um I actually um we forecast it to outperform gold in terms of the momentum and and looking that whole entire supply chain from minor up through price um because of that very issue that the the jurisdictional risk of finding platinum outside of those areas. If anything goes wrong, if there's any disruption, if there's any extra tear, if there's any mine problems, you you automatically have an extra dera supply. And platinum is used in converters for all sorts of hybrid vehicles, hybrid technologies, hybrid defense vehicles, and you can't just create it. >> Yeah. >> Um, so it is necessary and I think that's one of the reasons why investors that haven't looked at it yet should should definitely be doing some homework on platinum. >> Yeah. I mean, well, we say things like a whole rerating along all precious metals. I mean, is that that's taking place before our eyes? These are historical moments. Obviously that case is not going anywhere, but I got to ask you silver versus oil. I I know that you got some takes on, you know, oil is relatively stable. Is there any energy trades? Anything outside of the resource sector that you're looking at? Yeah, I mean in terms of oil, I I feel that oil um has shown itself to be incredibly resilient in the face of volatility. Whether that's, you know, basically taking out the leadership in Venezuela, whether that's Middle East tension, oil has remained fairly stable um because it's it's a very old resource. So, I do see some upside in oil, but I don't see the same kind of spikes as we see in hard assets because it's available. And because it's available, it means that supply chain is only disrupted by physical skirmishes and not necessarily by it not being uh plenished um by you know what's going on under the earth or being produced in the countries that need it. So I do see upside but I don't see the same kind of explosive upside as in the hard assets. >> Interesting. Yeah. I mean I got to ask you about the May succession. I mean we're talking Fed chair. Uh you know we've gotten a couple glimpses in Davos with questions from Trump as to who he's thinking. obviously has it. What are your thoughts? What are we going to go into here with the Fed? I mean, like I said, it's under subpoena. I mean, we've seen that credibility of the Fed at least take a little bit of a dive this past year, whether the chairman likes it or not. So, I mean, where are we going? >> I think whoever takes that seat is going to sort of walk the tight rope between trying to portray Fed independence merely because that will give them ultimate power. It's it's it's a long-term tenure, right? But also is coming in with support. Obviously, will be appointed by the president. It needs to be confirmed by a majority of the Senate. The Senate will still be Republican. It will support the president and they will have an easing bias. Now, whether that means a significant reduction in rates, it probably means somewhere between 50 and 100 basis points reduction in rates this year. >> But more than that, it probably means I think it means more QE or some form of bond buying. the Treasury Department is already looking at its own methods of QE and some coordinated method because it's going to want to give support to the long end of the curve. Um, that's really what's going on here. Um, and and so I I think the long end of the curve is going to get support. Our debt is too high. The Treasury Department needs to issue the Fed needs to buy it. The Fed has held tight on uh on not going into quantitative easing yet. But I think that's the thing to really watch um in May with whoever the new Fed chairperson is is significant >> ways of quantitative easing even if it's not called that whereby treasury supply is is bought out of the market >> and on on like S&P 500 general equities in the tech ministry I mean has that regime change already been priced into the market or do you think you know midterms coming up liquidity going into the whole gives us still a little bit of profit here or do you think we're just in that bubble? I think we're going to see the S&P continue to appreciate, but I also think it's going to continue to underperform significantly hard assets. I we just look at like we were talking about before the gold and silver the top two assets by market value with all the tech companies basically falling behind them. I don't see us ending the year differently than that. You know, I see that we are going to have higher market value in those two hard assets than we will have in Nvidia or Google or Apple. It doesn't mean they won't um continue to appreciate. They will because long-term funding is going to decline because somehow between the Fed and the Treasury Department, there's going to be more buying of treasuries to also replace the fact that other central banks are are not buying as much and they're going into hard assets. So, it's going to be tricky in terms of when that happens. But ultimately, if that happens, there will be a continued bid to the S&P. It's just not going to have a double-digit appreciation relative to hard assets. Well, that's what I was going to ask because I mean, you know, you it's holding its games, but but obviously you benchmarked performance in gold terms. I mean, last year gold outperformed the SP5 times. So, you know, are we seeing a a separation where financial assets are kind of going to start rising nominally and then obviously we got that real purchasing power behind the hard ass? >> I think so. And we're going to see that rotation happen in sequence. It's not like everybody's going to dump their tech stocks, but I think it's happening in sequence. the volumes on um SP 500 futures, S&P 500 futures and on the ETFs are declining relative to the volumes and they're bigger, but relative to the volumes that are entering your silver and gold ETFs. So, we're we're seeing the math move in that direction. Um I personally have my liquidity in in all hard assets and miners right now. Um I I have literally closed my SP500 position, not because I don't think it's going to go up, but I think that these assets are going to go up by a lot more. >> Yeah, that's good to know, actually. Uh and final question, I mean, you know, we're sitting at this show, you're talking to younger investors. I don't know about you, I've noticed a lot more kids in this room for the first time ever. Uh what did they get wrong last year and what they should they be looking at this year? >> Um that is a really good question cuz my nephew asked me this question uh just before I came here. He's 21. and he's graduating college. He's like, "All my friends are starting to look at investments between, you know, crypto and and and futures in the S&P 500 and so forth." And I'm like, "Do not invest in futures." And I had a conversation with him about hard assets. I'm like, "Pick five. I'll, you know, we'll go through them." Um, but think about the fact that everything you use, whether it's an iPhone, whether it's, you know, turning on your car, whether it's your key thing, whatever it is, requires assets that don't have enough supply. and you're continuing to use them, which means everyone's continuing to use them, which means that supply that doesn't exist will be called upon. He got that. So, I think what we're seeing here is the next generation of of investors is savvy enough to know how they can invest that they've learned, where they can invest is that next question. And I think what we're seeing with this demographic going down is a lot of new people coming into the the chain wanting to buy what's real, wanting to buy what they can touch and feel and know where it goes. And I think we're going to continue to see that. >> Yeah. You do you think there I mean they've obviously started to learn, but we talk about the debasement trade. I wonder how much of it is the fact that they go to the grocery store and they say, "Well, I can't for $20 I can't buy what I could." you know, like anything, you know, and so turning that on. I mean, I talk to average people all the time that don't really understand what that means, but they're starting to figure out maybe hard assets is it and maybe less trust towards the institutions is what's taking place. >> Well, that's exactly right because hard assets have certain constraints that institutions cannot finagle. You you cannot switch on a mine. If there is a required supply need for silver and there are no mines coming online, that's a simple economics 101. Whether you're an economist or whether you never take that class, um it's the fact that someone needs to supply something that is demanded that is real and that nobody else can do anything about. >> Yeah. >> Um and and I think where trust comes in this whole part of this whole trade is about uncertainty. Um and and what can you trust? And can you trust what's in the ground? Um because what's in the ground or under the ground can't be manipulated fast enough um to really change supply versus demand and that's why it has value. >> Yeah. And actually it was your last question, but you just brought up what's under the ground and and I got to bring up uh copper. I mean looking at the generals on the on the metal side. I mean what's your case for copper this year? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we at the moment have a $7 uh per pound forecast on copper for these next six months. I I can I can see moving that, but right now that's where we're at. Um and we have a number of copper miners again in our portfolio because over the next 5 years, just on current um projections in terms of needs for um energy grids which cannot be created without copper lines, copper wires. Um and again, this is global. This is not the just the US who has put copper on its critical mineralist as it has with silver because it needs to stockpile and have it. This is China. This is India. This is Saudi River. These are countries throughout the world who are beginning to well just continuing actually to to buy copper mines and to secure therefore their future supply of copper. We are looking at a need for 30% more copper than is currently above the ground by the next 5 years by 2030. Actually four years now because we're in 2026. >> It's crazy. It's so so I think copper is almost the hidden um beast in this and and we we've hit copper as our our third most um upside potential commodity this year. >> All right. I like it. And finally sites obviously you've done really well in the portfolio side. I know I talked to people that watch our show. They're subscribing to Princits. I mean a lot of growth this year for you. Uh that's going into anywhere and where can people find you? >> Um so if you go to princit.substack.com substack.com. That's where we've got multiple different levels of um of paid and free products um and all of our model portfolio research services. So, that's really the best place to go. And we've got another we've got another recommendation coming out on Thursday in the mining space, but um we do two uh two a month in the different products. >> Well, you put your money where your mouth is and those returns prove it. So, I appreciate this. Nomi Prince is of course joining us. Uh and I want to thank you for watching. Of course, we're going to have some great guests coming up all week long. A lot of excitement in the room with these metal prices and I don't think they're going anywhere. We'll be back. >> Kitco News on-site coverage of the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference is presented by Discovery Silver.