Andy Schectman: Silver Breakout "Long Overdue," Here's What Changed
Summary
Silver Breakout: The guest attributes silver’s surge to unprecedented physical deliveries on COMEX/LBMA, with consistent multi-month spikes signaling structural demand beyond speculation.
China Impact: China’s export controls and licensing, combined with its 60–70% share of global doré refining, are tightening supply; potential Swiss refinery delays further strain Western bar availability.
Critical Designations: The U.S. and EU labeling silver as a critical mineral underscores national-security priorities and supports a bullish long-term thesis for physical silver.
Supply Deficit: The market faces a sixth straight year of structural deficits, with most supply from byproduct mining, leading to scarcity and higher premiums for 100 oz and kilo bars in North America.
Market Mechanics: CME margin hikes are shaking out leveraged longs, but strong physical delivery demand from institutions/sovereigns is absorbing dips; Bloomberg Commodity Index rebalancing adds near-term volatility.
Gold Allocation Shift: Mainstream institutions (e.g., Morgan Stanley, Bank of America) are advocating larger portfolio weights in gold, reflecting a broader re-monetization narrative and robust central-bank demand.
Corporate Offtake Activity: Samsung (005930.KS) is highlighted for securing silver supply via offtake deals in Mexico and China, with Sony (SONY) and Tesla (TSLA) mentioned as potential physical buyers.
Transcript
I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Andy Sheckman, president of Miles Franklin. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you and happy new year. >> Happy New Year to you too, Charlotte. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. >> Of course. Really good to be kicking off 2026 with you. And I thought the right place to start is with Silver. It's been on this amazing price run. I know we're a little bit down today specifically, but amazing price run to end 2025. And we'll get into the specifics of what's going on, but I thought we could start with getting your take on what triggered this breakout for the silver price. Well, I mean it was long overdue on so many levels for sure, but but to me what really has kind of exposed the general trend in the market, I guess you could say, are the amount of deliveries that we've seen on the COMX. And you know, one of the things that differentiates this market from any other that I've seen in 36 years is the amount of deliveries both on the LBMA and on ComX where most of my career less than 1% of contracts ever stood for delivery. And now we're seeing it over and over and over and over again. Let's let's I mean go back 13 14 months when Trump won the election. It all started. Let's talk for example just last month December we saw almost 12 well we saw 12,575 contracts which was a new all-time high for the month of December of silver delivered which is 62,875,000 ounces delivered into ComX. Now if a mint box of silver maple leafs or eagles weighs 42 lb imagine what 62,875,000 ounces is all about. You're talking many semi-truck trailers worth. And much of this, not all of it, but much of it leaves the COMX. So, who is the entity or entities standing for delivery? The lack of journalistic integrity is shocking to me across the mainstream as this has been going on not in an isolated oneoff. This has been going on over and over and over again for going on 14 straight months. Now, here we are in January, uh, month to date. Um, you know, we're looking at about six trading days so far, and we've already seen 5,451 gold contracts stand for delivery at 100 ounces a piece. That's 545,100 ounces of gold at times uh what, 434,400. You're into the billions of dollars 6 days in. and 6,321 silver contracts issued and stopped. In other words, someone took possession of it within the ComX confines, moving it into an eligible category, which means it's not for sale. That's 31,65,000 ounces in 6 days. Now, this is what we have been seeing over and over and over and over again. And so, to me, there's not much more you need to see. Much of everything else we see is noise. Of course, we can say yes, the United States government created a critical mineral uh designation for silver. Certainly, that's very bullish. And the same thing happened at the end of 23 with the European Union. They did the same thing. And then in retaliation to all of this, I guess you can say, everyone is focusing on the Chinese export ban or or massive um I guess you could say um they are going to limit massively what leaves the country in terms of exports. All of the refineries that were exporting need to apply for a license out of Beijing and the uh the qualifications have become far more stringent. uh a a a much much uh fewer uh set of companies will be allowed to export um and they have to be state sponsored. Well, the state doesn't want to issue silver because one thing that wasn't really caught as much even by this industry is the uh memorandum that came out in November where the Chinese said we are going to rep prioritize exporting silver for national security for domestic priorities. So in essence, you have a race going on, not by two brothers in 1980, the Hunt brothers, who realized there were more contracts than bars and tried to buy up all the contracts and stand for delivery. No, this is sovereign nations and uh uh I guess you could say prioritizing national security and it's a different thing alto together. But I'll just simply say this, Charlotte, for years, and I've been saying with you on every show we've ever done that the most well-informed, well-funded traders, and I'll highlight well-informed, that being the central banks, have been standing for delivery since 2020. Very unusual cuz really no one ever stood for delivery. And this started to accelerate. But all along the United States was not part of this game. We were seeing it in the global south with the bricks. And now all of a sudden we are seeing the most well-informed traders in North America uh stand for delivery in massive amounts and and such that it's impossible for me to ignore. And I just wonder where all the experts, the so-called experts are in the mainstream, the Jim Kramers of the world who haven't even said, you know, it's interesting who's bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars of metal into the comx. It's as unusual as 4 ft of snow in Death Valley in July. That is how unusual these these deliveries are and and to me that's really what is setting the trend. >> Well, I think that's a great summary of the situation and where we are right now. I want to ask you a little bit more about these Chinese export controls on silver because that was such a huge focus coming into the year. And I've heard mixed mixed reactions about the implications it will have for silver supply. So, anything further you would add there on the the long-term effect on the silver market? >> Well, yeah. I mean, you know, when you talk about door bars, China refineses between 60 and 70% of all the world's unrefined silver. Much of it makes its way back out into the western markets. Now, there's a rumor that I haven't been able to substantiate that is saying that as of the last few days, same thing is happening in Switzerland where they need to uh re-evaluate things and are asking the importers or all the excuse me, all of the refineries to apply for some sort of a export license that could take between four and 6 weeks. And in other words, you're talking the majority of all of the see when China refineses the dory and and much of it will go to Switzerland because the bars that China puts out really don't meet Western standards. So uh the Swiss refiners and in particular Pampwiss uh Valkcami Argo Herrera and Metalor will take these bars and melt them down and re-refine them into kilos and 100 ounce bars that the West wants. Well, um, now all of a sudden you're you're putting a massive delay on that because things are changing very quickly when the massive refining uh engine that is uh China stops or mitigates or really puts a a wall up against uh uh exporting out into the market, you're starting to see the reverberations. And I'll tell you this, because of uh because of uh tariff threats, the 100 ounce bar and the kilo bar market in this country has become incredibly scarce with really high premiums because the threat of tariffs made it so that the the large importers who who bring these bars in were afraid to do so. So now you put in these export restrictions and problems with the refining in Switzerland. Nothing's coming in from the Royal Canadian Mint. they make 100 ounce bars because of the tariffs and all of a sudden you have a market that is really really um short on on uh uh investment grade bars in North America and it's getting worse and this is without very little mainstream participation at all. Uh I think it's it's something to certainly be concerned about if you're looking for 100 ounce bars or if you're running a company like mine. It's becoming very difficult to find what is normally the easiest product to get. >> Very interesting. And also on the note of China, I was reading this week that Chinese companies are already looking with the higher silver price at substitutions in solar panels. So I'm curious if you've been hearing about that if some if that's something that uh could continue as the price stays higher. Yeah, I mean that that is that is a rumor and you know who knows um what happens to the quality of of these solar panels as you know silver it has the the highest level of of conductivity for for not only reflection but also for heat and they are I think they are looking to do that and uh you know if it goes the other way and the price goes way down and they were able to to continue to use it it would just mean that they would sell more solar panels. The more efficient that you are with price, the the greater the volume you could give solar panels to everyone. So, it's it's an an effect of the the realization that silver is becoming critical on many levels and not just in photovotaya. It it goes well into, you know, AI and digital, electronic and military applications, not to mention monetary. So, yes, there are there is that rumor. Um, but to me it doesn't really amount to too much. It's just I guess a a indication of of much higher prices and maybe the they believe that prices are going to go much higher and they better figure out a stop gap to be able to continue to produce them. >> Yeah, I think that's an interesting point. Obviously, I know you can substitute metals for one another, but the quality is probably a question that we should be paying attention to. And another point I've been hearing related to that I think is Chinese and Indian companies reaching out to silver companies directly even silver companies that are not yet producing to talk about securing supply. So I think that's that's very intriguing as well and gives a sense of where their heads are at as the price rises. So anything that you have heard there that you think investors should be aware of? >> I've been talking about that for well over a year. Charlotte Sean Kungkun who I'm sure you know the CEO of Dolly Varden has told me a long time ago and I've been reporting it for at least a year that you know yeah everyone's fixated on Samsung going to Mexico to open up a mine uh that was closed to take all of their doray and concentrate for 2 years okay fine uh but Sean said to me well over a year ago in fact it was at dinner I believe at Vancouver Resource Investment Conference which is about a year from next week uh and he said, you know, uh or a year behind last week. You know what I'm getting at? Anyways, he said, "Yeah, China has been coming for at least a year to Mexico and and Peru in particular." Now, Mexico's number one, China's number two, Peru's number three in production, but they've been going directly to the miners, disintermediating the marketplace, buying Doré and concentrate. Dory are the bars that the miners will crudely refine and I don't know to what percentage but nowhere near full refining and uh concentrate as a byproduct sludge of the mining process. They will pay double what the west will disintermediate the market ship it back to China and refine it themselves. Now, this is the number two producer in the world, going to great lengths, flying to, you know, uh, South and Central America to to do this and to Mexico, building a deep water port in Peru, doing all of these things to be able to do this. And they're already the second largest producer. So, this has been going on for a while. And I think it goes to show if it's that important for China to buy silver in a pre-production, pre-refining stage, sending it all the way back and refining it in in order to disintermediate the marketplace. I think it's tells a signal just how valuable it is and certainly in my opinion far more valuable than the dollars used to purchase it. So yeah, these are all of these pieces put together are far more important than looking at them individually. What you have is the second largest producer of silver in the world who is basically saying that this is not a a a metal that is properly valued that in order to have a a a an advanced society, one that is electronic and digital and AI and and strong military and all of these things that it's an asset that you need. And as we've documented for a long time, it's depleting. This will be the sixth year in a row of structural deficits of between 1 and 200 million ounces if not more. And of the 800 plus million ounces mined again this last year less than 200 million came from companies like Shaun's that primarily mine silver. It's byproduct mining of copper, lead and zinc where the majority of the silver is coming from. So it's becoming harder and harder and harder to find it in large deposits. So it's no wonder that China is going to such great lengths. Samsung caught the headlines uh which has been verified and validated a couple weeks ago negotiating with a silver mine in China themselves. But yes, put it all together with being reclassified critical export bans uh and you can begin to see where this is leading if you take an objective assessment of it. >> Yeah, I appreciate you taking all the little pieces and building them together into the whole. I think it's so important to take that step back and look at what's what's really happening and as we have all this going on with the silver price demand there are my impression is there are um efforts to calm the market so I want to talk to you as well about the CME group margin increases so what can you tell us about that how can people understand what's going on there >> well you know you have to understand um that the margin increases are something the CME has done for a long time in markets that rally and it's a specifically targeting the longs specifically uh which is kind of annoying and so for people to understand what I mean by margin and margin increases uh the la they did two margin increases in the last two or 3 weeks the last one was the day after Christmas on the 26th and at on Christmas day and before you would have needed roughly $21,000 in your margin account to cover one5 5,000 ounce silver contract. Put silver at 70 bucks. You know, you're you're controlling an awful lot. $350,000 worth of silver you're controlling with a $21,000 margin account. Okay. So, they said, "Well, uh on the day after Christmas, we've just bumped it up 30%." So, now you have to have $27,000 in your margin account. And if you don't put post that into the margin account immediately, why then they liquidate it? And so everyone, let's say someone's on leverage and had to, you know, bought 30 contracts on leverage, have enough, you know, money in their margin account, and now all of a sudden they have to have 30% more in there. So they have to sell a whole bunch of these contracts in order to cover their margin. Uh, and selling beget selling. As the price falls and margin is increased, all of these traders on leverage get squeezed. Now, this is this is classic. This is called shaking the bushes. The big big big big traders love this. They see not only do they have a book where everyone is positioned, they know that who should not be playing in that sandbox. Now, let's take a step back for a second. When we see in the first few days, you know, 30 million ounces of silver delivered in the first 6 days, 18 or 19 in the first 3 days, 60 plus million delivered in December. These are the institutional or central bank sovereign wealth fund Teslas, Samsung, Sony's. These are people that aren't using leverage and not using margin. I'll make it an easy to understand way. If you are looking at a home or a neighborhood in a gated community where the homes are 30, 40, $50 million, do you think those people care what mortgage rates are? No, they don't. They come in and drop $50 million check and it's probably their second home. and the other one is up in, you know, probably up in uh upstate New York in the Hamptons or whatnot. And so they don't care. But in a normal neighborhood where people are on mortgages, yeah, it's going to have a detrimental effect on the value of the homes for sure as mortgage rates go higher. Well, that's the same thing here. You get all of these traders who might be well healed but not well healed enough to be playing in that sandbox go in on leverage taking advantage of the rising silver price and then they jack up margins on a day after Christmas when most people are on vacation. They do this specifically to protect the shorts and and for some stupid reason but they do and okay so they do they drive down the price all these traders get squeezed silver drops and who's sitting there? Thank you very much. Waiting to pick it up at subsidized prices. This would be the the big traders who have been standing for delivery. So, but what's interesting, Charlotte, and in in every market I can think of, go back to 2011. They did the same thing when silver hit 50 and then it took what it took 15 years to come back. But that's not happening anymore. Because what's different about this market than anything I've ever seen in 35 years is the standing for delivery. These contracts in London and in New York have a delivery option, but no one ever did. So they would they would use it in terms as as cash settlement or exchanging warrants back and forth. Paper promises. You own it. No, I own it. No, you own it. No, I own it. And with warrants. But now they're saying, "Yeah, no more paper. Send me the real thing." And that is what is distorting and blowing up this scheme that they've used for so long. And they can't hold it down anymore. Yeah. Goes down. Today's the second day in a row that we've seen it down and haven't seen a second day in a row in a long time. Normally it's one day down, one day or two two, three, four days up. Um, this is a game that every single time that the they hit the price, there are there are traders in in Asia just sitting there waiting or big institutional traders here in New York who are standing for a delivery. And again, no one asking who the hell is this? And that should be the only question. Who's doing this? Uh, is it the treasury on in the exchange stabilization fund? Is it because now it's critical. The US government needs it. We're building a seven billion dollar smelter. I mean, you can see the priorities are shifting. And at that level, the people who bring in billions of dollars worth of stuff don't do it for the hell of it. They do it because they've been instructed to or they know where the playbook ends. um all of this stuff in terms of margin hikes which used to be the deathnell of a rally seem to be nothing more than a fairly significant speed bump. But you also have right now the rebalancing of the Bloomberg commodity index where by law and it starts today and it goes for the next week. all these funds that are way way out out um out of whack in terms of their balance because silver and gold to that matter uh for that matter have have outsized gains last year that have created a a um a a a mess up with the equilibrium of the of the portfolio. So they will be forced to rebalance and sell and drive the price down. Silver's going to look like a heart rate monitor for the next week. But who's there waiting to pick it up? That's right. That's the Asians. And that's right, that's Samsung and Sony and and whoever is standing for delivery here in this country. So it plays right in. But at the same time, you have the January effect where all the hedge funds need to redeploy money. So the volatility will be fantastic uh over the next couple of weeks. But Bank of America just came out and said we can see silver going as high as $39. Now you're beginning to see it from the mainstream where companies and banks that were incredibly bearish on this stuff forever are now flipping the narrative. You got uh the C the chief investment officer of Morgan Stanley saying put 20% of your your assets in gold and do that by selling half your bond exposure. You got the chief analyst for Bank of America, Michael Hartnett, saying no, make it 25%. You got Jeffrey Gunlock, the bond king, saying 25% of and this is a guy who's made his reputation living and nickname by selling assets that have a return. 25% he says of assets and metals is not overvalued. So we're beginning to see at the highest level, a change of mentality, a change of um of perception of of what these metals truly are. and and it hasn't really gotten down here yet, but you can see it with what's happening on the on the COMX and the LBMA that we're we are in the midst of of a change of I think um perception and reality as to what gold and silver truly are. >> Definitely, it seems like real changes are happening right now. And I'm interested to talk a little bit more about the price because I know that some people feel a little bit uncomfortable when they see more mainstream entities making these very high price predictions. I know that you're certainly bullish on silver. You mentioned we're going to see some volatility in the near term. What are your expectations for price in 2026? >> You know, I hate making those guesses. I think a $100 silver is something, you know, Keith Newmier made it famous years ago with his tripledigit silver shirt that he sent me for during Christmas, maybe four or five years ago. And, you know, at the time people laughed about that, but he's not too far from from being off. And in fact, if if you you could take a technical um viewpoint of it and and talk about a 45-year cup and handle formation that was broken. Now, a cup and handle formation in technical analysis is one of the most bullish formations you'll ever see, especially one that's 45 years long. So, at the top in 1980, you had 50 bucks. At the bottom, in the early '90s, you had four bucks. The difference from top to bottom is 40 uh $46, right? So, then you get back up to 2011, $50, it's rejected. That's the top of the cup. Then the handle comes down to where we were just recently when we broke through 50 and off it goes. Now, technical analysis would say you take the top, you take the bottom, which is 50 -4 46, add it to the breakout, that's $96. Not too far from it. Now, at the same time, uh if you take right now the price of gold at um 4450 and divide by 45, well, you can see what that's going to be pretty easily. 4450 divided by 45 is $99. 45 is pretty much the average price ratio we've seen for the last h 100red years. And that's with central bank manipulation holding down the silver and gold price. Gold for Gibson's paradox, silver for the military-industrial complex, we can go down that road, maybe when I see in Vancouver what I mean by that. But the point of it is is that whether you take the the 100red-year average, whether you take the break out of the cup and handle, I think $100 is easy. But, you know, it's coming out of the ground at 7 to1. So, in terms of its geologic ratio, 4450 divided by 7 is $635. As crazy as that sounds, I'm not saying it's going to get there, but put it in perspective when you see what Bank of America says. And they're using the gold silver ratio as their barometer because they're saying $500 um or $5,000 uh gold next year. So, you take 5,000 and divide it by 45 and you get 111 bucks. Take 5,000 and, you know, divide it by 35 where it got down to in 2011 and you're at 142. Look, all I'm saying is that we're still undervalued. There's still a long way to go. by every metric, whether it be historical price uh averages in relationship to to gold geologic averages that go back 5,000 years and really an asset that's never been allowed to find real price discovery. So, yeah, I I think we still have plenty of room to go. But, Charlotte, I want it to be very clear. You know, you don't buy that the problem people made in in um 2021 with silver squeeze is that they bought it for the wrong reason. And and I think they became disenchanted with its performance. You don't buy silver to become wealthy. You buy it because it is wealth. For for 6,000 years, if you look at gold and silver, cumulatively mentioned over 700 times in the Bible, it's been wealth through two world wars, German hyperinflation, the Great Depression, every pandemic, every everything. And and and you know, history doesn't always repeat, but it sure as hell rhymes. And now you see the biggest money in the world, the most well informed money in the world, whether it be the central banks, the commercial banks, the sovereign wealth funds, or now the institutional traders here in the United States that are showing you through delivery of both gold and silver just how important it is. And silver now being critical in both the European Union and the United States, prioritized in Asia. Um, and if you watched any of the videos I've done with Judy Shelton, two of them, where she says Trump will back the back end of the Treasury market July 4th of 2026 with gold, written a book about this. She's all over the place saying this. She was his nominee for the Fed in 2016 and and an adviser and on his transition team. You know, you're beginning to see that gold seems to be whether it be here in the United States perhaps backing the long end of the bond market or in Asia and the bricks with a settlement vehicle to settle imbalances in trade or currency. Gold is finding a way to I think be reintegrated quietly into the monetary system and silver is just being recognized as something you better damn well have or else. And that's what we see happening between very large large sovereign nations who many of which have a head start on us. So yeah, it's uh it's going to be an interesting year. And rather than pick a price, I say we live in a world of probabilities. The probability that we see silver well north of $100 to me is rather strong. Could it be as high as $200 or higher? Sure. But to say that would be a guess and an optimistic guess. But look, if I would have told you last year that we would see silver at 80 bucks, you'd say, you know, well, that's a pretty big, you know, pretty big statement, Andy. Yeah, sure it is. 150% gain in a year is pretty big. So rather than continue with that, I would just simply say higher than most people would actually probably think possible would be my answer. >> I think that's very fair. And I appreciate you breaking down the the price implications there. I know you're not such a prediction type of person, so that was great though to go through it. And I know I've got to start getting you out of here. I'm sure we'll have more to say in Vancouver. But before before I do that, I have one more question for you. And I wanted to bring up this AI Asian guy and all of those videos with you because you're so good at helping us understand what's really going on in the silver market. And these videos that I'm sure people if they're on YouTube, they've seen them pop up. They're pretty tricky because from what I understand, there's a lot of truth in them, but also they have false things going on in there. So, how how are you what are you seeing there? Where do you think they're coming from? What should people be aware of when they see them? >> Yeah. Well, whoever is doing it is fairly well. Um, I think has a lot of help because the information that he's pouring out is non-stop. I've never seen anything quite like it. And and under, I don't know, a dozen or two dozen different channels. Um, a lot of it is very good. Um, a lot of it is I take exception with, but I think in general the information is fantastic. And I mean, it's almost as if there are entities out there trying to wake up the public who have never been awoken ever to anything that me or any of the guests on your on your channel have had. You have to be one of the few people up until this point who has the ability to break free from the herd mentality. And that's a scary lonely thing. You know, you come to a conference like V-Rick and everyone loves to talk because they go back home and everyone says, "Oh, it's crazy Uncle Johnny again or you know, there's our crazy neighbor who won't stop talking about gold and silver cuz what's coming and then all of a sudden they're right." Um, and I think that it's been an uphill battle. And Rick Rule will tell you that you take the the, you know, from Joe and Jane six-pack to the Harvard endowment fund, which by the way did just buy a couple hundred million of metal, the Harvard endowment fund, which I laugh at, but he would always say that verbatim, from Joe and Jane six-pack to the Harvard endowment fund, the exposure to gold and gold related equities, and I mean silver too, is 1/ half of 1%. So, you know, it's it's it's still it's growing. And what you see here is that everyone I talked to has seen this this guy. And some of the stuff he says is flatout wrong. He talked about companies in my industry having to issue form 8300s anytime you pay for anything over $10,000. Well, that's not true at all. And a form8300 is if you pay with cash. And that would be if you went to Nordstrom's or Bloomingdales and bought your family $11,000 worth of clothing. you would have to and paid with cash. They'd issue a form 8300. Any retail transaction, any with cash, $100 bills or multiple money orders, triggers an 8,300, but you could spend $200 million with me and send a wire and there is zero dealer reporting. He talked about an executive order, mentioned the executive order number that talked about the ability for, you know, to for metals to be confiscated. You look up that executive order, it doesn't exist. in in the way he says and what it is is actually like a some form of uh a a advanced education bill. I mean, so there are holes in what he's saying, but a lot of what he is saying is is fantastic. So, I don't know how he's getting the information. It's almost like he's scanning all of the podcast and and sucking it in and then building. Look, I do an interview with when you think of how hard that is to do, not as hard as you think anymore because I do an interview with Mike Adams and the Health Ranger and he has developed a new AI system and and a bookmaking AI program where every interview we do, a book is done, 200page book on an interview I do with him for 40 minutes with charts and graphs and he sucks everything in to support it. And he's made like 5,000 books in a few weeks. So AI is changing the world and it's even changing the way information goes out there. But you have to you have to take everything you have to try and factf find. That's why I use some of what he says and but it it's hard to support a lot of what he's saying. Well inside sources and a memo that he doesn't ever show and you know you can't go out and say these things in my position until it's validated. But I'll say there's a rumor going around that JP Morgan says everyone clo that they sent out a a memo saying close all your your um futures positions by January 31 uh because we're no longer going to um allow physical delivery just cash settlement. There's a rumor out there that Morgan Stanley is saying something similar. There's all of these rumors that if substantiated, yeah, it'll be a hell of a call. And then you're really going to think, who is this guy? But until then, I think you take it uh all the information in and you know, try to factf find it. And if you can't, let's sit back and see what happens. But to say it's gospel is dangerous in my opinion. But overall, he gets a he gets an A for effort and a strong B+ for information with a little bit of stuff that needs a little bit of clarification. >> Well, really helpful to get your take there. And I am interested to see if this does start drawing in the broader public. So, we can we can track that and see how it goes. I'm sure we'll try. >> You're going to be a rock star. If that's true, you're going to, you know, you're going to be you're going to be at the top of the food chain and and we do we do deserve kudos in my opinion, Charlotte. We've been right overall and we haven't been conspiratorial. We we have been right and we have looked at things objectively, factually. And it's it's about time that the you know the Wall Street crowd admits maybe you guys were wrong and uh so maybe this awakening is exactly what the doctor ordered and I'm all for it. But uh you know just take it with a grain of salt what you hear and uh do a little bit of your own due diligence if you hear something that you're ready to act upon. >> 100%. I agree. And I know I've got to let you go for now but I'm sure we'll catch up again soon in Vancouver at BR. We'll see how the attendance looks there. I hope it's a busy show, but thank you so much for coming on now. >> Yeah, and I would I would recommend anyone. That's a show I won't miss. Even living in Florida, flying literally to the farthest point in North America to attend the show, but it's one I wouldn't miss. And Jay Martin puts on a great show and I look forward to seeing you upstairs in that room you're always in and and hopefully uh catching up and doing one live like we always do. >> Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for now. Once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investing.com and this is Andy Sheckchman with Miles Franklin. Thank you for watching. If you like this video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, so leave us a comment below.
Andy Schectman: Silver Breakout "Long Overdue," Here's What Changed
Summary
Transcript
I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Andy Sheckman, president of Miles Franklin. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you and happy new year. >> Happy New Year to you too, Charlotte. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. >> Of course. Really good to be kicking off 2026 with you. And I thought the right place to start is with Silver. It's been on this amazing price run. I know we're a little bit down today specifically, but amazing price run to end 2025. And we'll get into the specifics of what's going on, but I thought we could start with getting your take on what triggered this breakout for the silver price. Well, I mean it was long overdue on so many levels for sure, but but to me what really has kind of exposed the general trend in the market, I guess you could say, are the amount of deliveries that we've seen on the COMX. And you know, one of the things that differentiates this market from any other that I've seen in 36 years is the amount of deliveries both on the LBMA and on ComX where most of my career less than 1% of contracts ever stood for delivery. And now we're seeing it over and over and over and over again. Let's let's I mean go back 13 14 months when Trump won the election. It all started. Let's talk for example just last month December we saw almost 12 well we saw 12,575 contracts which was a new all-time high for the month of December of silver delivered which is 62,875,000 ounces delivered into ComX. Now if a mint box of silver maple leafs or eagles weighs 42 lb imagine what 62,875,000 ounces is all about. You're talking many semi-truck trailers worth. And much of this, not all of it, but much of it leaves the COMX. So, who is the entity or entities standing for delivery? The lack of journalistic integrity is shocking to me across the mainstream as this has been going on not in an isolated oneoff. This has been going on over and over and over again for going on 14 straight months. Now, here we are in January, uh, month to date. Um, you know, we're looking at about six trading days so far, and we've already seen 5,451 gold contracts stand for delivery at 100 ounces a piece. That's 545,100 ounces of gold at times uh what, 434,400. You're into the billions of dollars 6 days in. and 6,321 silver contracts issued and stopped. In other words, someone took possession of it within the ComX confines, moving it into an eligible category, which means it's not for sale. That's 31,65,000 ounces in 6 days. Now, this is what we have been seeing over and over and over and over again. And so, to me, there's not much more you need to see. Much of everything else we see is noise. Of course, we can say yes, the United States government created a critical mineral uh designation for silver. Certainly, that's very bullish. And the same thing happened at the end of 23 with the European Union. They did the same thing. And then in retaliation to all of this, I guess you can say, everyone is focusing on the Chinese export ban or or massive um I guess you could say um they are going to limit massively what leaves the country in terms of exports. All of the refineries that were exporting need to apply for a license out of Beijing and the uh the qualifications have become far more stringent. uh a a a much much uh fewer uh set of companies will be allowed to export um and they have to be state sponsored. Well, the state doesn't want to issue silver because one thing that wasn't really caught as much even by this industry is the uh memorandum that came out in November where the Chinese said we are going to rep prioritize exporting silver for national security for domestic priorities. So in essence, you have a race going on, not by two brothers in 1980, the Hunt brothers, who realized there were more contracts than bars and tried to buy up all the contracts and stand for delivery. No, this is sovereign nations and uh uh I guess you could say prioritizing national security and it's a different thing alto together. But I'll just simply say this, Charlotte, for years, and I've been saying with you on every show we've ever done that the most well-informed, well-funded traders, and I'll highlight well-informed, that being the central banks, have been standing for delivery since 2020. Very unusual cuz really no one ever stood for delivery. And this started to accelerate. But all along the United States was not part of this game. We were seeing it in the global south with the bricks. And now all of a sudden we are seeing the most well-informed traders in North America uh stand for delivery in massive amounts and and such that it's impossible for me to ignore. And I just wonder where all the experts, the so-called experts are in the mainstream, the Jim Kramers of the world who haven't even said, you know, it's interesting who's bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars of metal into the comx. It's as unusual as 4 ft of snow in Death Valley in July. That is how unusual these these deliveries are and and to me that's really what is setting the trend. >> Well, I think that's a great summary of the situation and where we are right now. I want to ask you a little bit more about these Chinese export controls on silver because that was such a huge focus coming into the year. And I've heard mixed mixed reactions about the implications it will have for silver supply. So, anything further you would add there on the the long-term effect on the silver market? >> Well, yeah. I mean, you know, when you talk about door bars, China refineses between 60 and 70% of all the world's unrefined silver. Much of it makes its way back out into the western markets. Now, there's a rumor that I haven't been able to substantiate that is saying that as of the last few days, same thing is happening in Switzerland where they need to uh re-evaluate things and are asking the importers or all the excuse me, all of the refineries to apply for some sort of a export license that could take between four and 6 weeks. And in other words, you're talking the majority of all of the see when China refineses the dory and and much of it will go to Switzerland because the bars that China puts out really don't meet Western standards. So uh the Swiss refiners and in particular Pampwiss uh Valkcami Argo Herrera and Metalor will take these bars and melt them down and re-refine them into kilos and 100 ounce bars that the West wants. Well, um, now all of a sudden you're you're putting a massive delay on that because things are changing very quickly when the massive refining uh engine that is uh China stops or mitigates or really puts a a wall up against uh uh exporting out into the market, you're starting to see the reverberations. And I'll tell you this, because of uh because of uh tariff threats, the 100 ounce bar and the kilo bar market in this country has become incredibly scarce with really high premiums because the threat of tariffs made it so that the the large importers who who bring these bars in were afraid to do so. So now you put in these export restrictions and problems with the refining in Switzerland. Nothing's coming in from the Royal Canadian Mint. they make 100 ounce bars because of the tariffs and all of a sudden you have a market that is really really um short on on uh uh investment grade bars in North America and it's getting worse and this is without very little mainstream participation at all. Uh I think it's it's something to certainly be concerned about if you're looking for 100 ounce bars or if you're running a company like mine. It's becoming very difficult to find what is normally the easiest product to get. >> Very interesting. And also on the note of China, I was reading this week that Chinese companies are already looking with the higher silver price at substitutions in solar panels. So I'm curious if you've been hearing about that if some if that's something that uh could continue as the price stays higher. Yeah, I mean that that is that is a rumor and you know who knows um what happens to the quality of of these solar panels as you know silver it has the the highest level of of conductivity for for not only reflection but also for heat and they are I think they are looking to do that and uh you know if it goes the other way and the price goes way down and they were able to to continue to use it it would just mean that they would sell more solar panels. The more efficient that you are with price, the the greater the volume you could give solar panels to everyone. So, it's it's an an effect of the the realization that silver is becoming critical on many levels and not just in photovotaya. It it goes well into, you know, AI and digital, electronic and military applications, not to mention monetary. So, yes, there are there is that rumor. Um, but to me it doesn't really amount to too much. It's just I guess a a indication of of much higher prices and maybe the they believe that prices are going to go much higher and they better figure out a stop gap to be able to continue to produce them. >> Yeah, I think that's an interesting point. Obviously, I know you can substitute metals for one another, but the quality is probably a question that we should be paying attention to. And another point I've been hearing related to that I think is Chinese and Indian companies reaching out to silver companies directly even silver companies that are not yet producing to talk about securing supply. So I think that's that's very intriguing as well and gives a sense of where their heads are at as the price rises. So anything that you have heard there that you think investors should be aware of? >> I've been talking about that for well over a year. Charlotte Sean Kungkun who I'm sure you know the CEO of Dolly Varden has told me a long time ago and I've been reporting it for at least a year that you know yeah everyone's fixated on Samsung going to Mexico to open up a mine uh that was closed to take all of their doray and concentrate for 2 years okay fine uh but Sean said to me well over a year ago in fact it was at dinner I believe at Vancouver Resource Investment Conference which is about a year from next week uh and he said, you know, uh or a year behind last week. You know what I'm getting at? Anyways, he said, "Yeah, China has been coming for at least a year to Mexico and and Peru in particular." Now, Mexico's number one, China's number two, Peru's number three in production, but they've been going directly to the miners, disintermediating the marketplace, buying Doré and concentrate. Dory are the bars that the miners will crudely refine and I don't know to what percentage but nowhere near full refining and uh concentrate as a byproduct sludge of the mining process. They will pay double what the west will disintermediate the market ship it back to China and refine it themselves. Now, this is the number two producer in the world, going to great lengths, flying to, you know, uh, South and Central America to to do this and to Mexico, building a deep water port in Peru, doing all of these things to be able to do this. And they're already the second largest producer. So, this has been going on for a while. And I think it goes to show if it's that important for China to buy silver in a pre-production, pre-refining stage, sending it all the way back and refining it in in order to disintermediate the marketplace. I think it's tells a signal just how valuable it is and certainly in my opinion far more valuable than the dollars used to purchase it. So yeah, these are all of these pieces put together are far more important than looking at them individually. What you have is the second largest producer of silver in the world who is basically saying that this is not a a a metal that is properly valued that in order to have a a a an advanced society, one that is electronic and digital and AI and and strong military and all of these things that it's an asset that you need. And as we've documented for a long time, it's depleting. This will be the sixth year in a row of structural deficits of between 1 and 200 million ounces if not more. And of the 800 plus million ounces mined again this last year less than 200 million came from companies like Shaun's that primarily mine silver. It's byproduct mining of copper, lead and zinc where the majority of the silver is coming from. So it's becoming harder and harder and harder to find it in large deposits. So it's no wonder that China is going to such great lengths. Samsung caught the headlines uh which has been verified and validated a couple weeks ago negotiating with a silver mine in China themselves. But yes, put it all together with being reclassified critical export bans uh and you can begin to see where this is leading if you take an objective assessment of it. >> Yeah, I appreciate you taking all the little pieces and building them together into the whole. I think it's so important to take that step back and look at what's what's really happening and as we have all this going on with the silver price demand there are my impression is there are um efforts to calm the market so I want to talk to you as well about the CME group margin increases so what can you tell us about that how can people understand what's going on there >> well you know you have to understand um that the margin increases are something the CME has done for a long time in markets that rally and it's a specifically targeting the longs specifically uh which is kind of annoying and so for people to understand what I mean by margin and margin increases uh the la they did two margin increases in the last two or 3 weeks the last one was the day after Christmas on the 26th and at on Christmas day and before you would have needed roughly $21,000 in your margin account to cover one5 5,000 ounce silver contract. Put silver at 70 bucks. You know, you're you're controlling an awful lot. $350,000 worth of silver you're controlling with a $21,000 margin account. Okay. So, they said, "Well, uh on the day after Christmas, we've just bumped it up 30%." So, now you have to have $27,000 in your margin account. And if you don't put post that into the margin account immediately, why then they liquidate it? And so everyone, let's say someone's on leverage and had to, you know, bought 30 contracts on leverage, have enough, you know, money in their margin account, and now all of a sudden they have to have 30% more in there. So they have to sell a whole bunch of these contracts in order to cover their margin. Uh, and selling beget selling. As the price falls and margin is increased, all of these traders on leverage get squeezed. Now, this is this is classic. This is called shaking the bushes. The big big big big traders love this. They see not only do they have a book where everyone is positioned, they know that who should not be playing in that sandbox. Now, let's take a step back for a second. When we see in the first few days, you know, 30 million ounces of silver delivered in the first 6 days, 18 or 19 in the first 3 days, 60 plus million delivered in December. These are the institutional or central bank sovereign wealth fund Teslas, Samsung, Sony's. These are people that aren't using leverage and not using margin. I'll make it an easy to understand way. If you are looking at a home or a neighborhood in a gated community where the homes are 30, 40, $50 million, do you think those people care what mortgage rates are? No, they don't. They come in and drop $50 million check and it's probably their second home. and the other one is up in, you know, probably up in uh upstate New York in the Hamptons or whatnot. And so they don't care. But in a normal neighborhood where people are on mortgages, yeah, it's going to have a detrimental effect on the value of the homes for sure as mortgage rates go higher. Well, that's the same thing here. You get all of these traders who might be well healed but not well healed enough to be playing in that sandbox go in on leverage taking advantage of the rising silver price and then they jack up margins on a day after Christmas when most people are on vacation. They do this specifically to protect the shorts and and for some stupid reason but they do and okay so they do they drive down the price all these traders get squeezed silver drops and who's sitting there? Thank you very much. Waiting to pick it up at subsidized prices. This would be the the big traders who have been standing for delivery. So, but what's interesting, Charlotte, and in in every market I can think of, go back to 2011. They did the same thing when silver hit 50 and then it took what it took 15 years to come back. But that's not happening anymore. Because what's different about this market than anything I've ever seen in 35 years is the standing for delivery. These contracts in London and in New York have a delivery option, but no one ever did. So they would they would use it in terms as as cash settlement or exchanging warrants back and forth. Paper promises. You own it. No, I own it. No, you own it. No, I own it. And with warrants. But now they're saying, "Yeah, no more paper. Send me the real thing." And that is what is distorting and blowing up this scheme that they've used for so long. And they can't hold it down anymore. Yeah. Goes down. Today's the second day in a row that we've seen it down and haven't seen a second day in a row in a long time. Normally it's one day down, one day or two two, three, four days up. Um, this is a game that every single time that the they hit the price, there are there are traders in in Asia just sitting there waiting or big institutional traders here in New York who are standing for a delivery. And again, no one asking who the hell is this? And that should be the only question. Who's doing this? Uh, is it the treasury on in the exchange stabilization fund? Is it because now it's critical. The US government needs it. We're building a seven billion dollar smelter. I mean, you can see the priorities are shifting. And at that level, the people who bring in billions of dollars worth of stuff don't do it for the hell of it. They do it because they've been instructed to or they know where the playbook ends. um all of this stuff in terms of margin hikes which used to be the deathnell of a rally seem to be nothing more than a fairly significant speed bump. But you also have right now the rebalancing of the Bloomberg commodity index where by law and it starts today and it goes for the next week. all these funds that are way way out out um out of whack in terms of their balance because silver and gold to that matter uh for that matter have have outsized gains last year that have created a a um a a a mess up with the equilibrium of the of the portfolio. So they will be forced to rebalance and sell and drive the price down. Silver's going to look like a heart rate monitor for the next week. But who's there waiting to pick it up? That's right. That's the Asians. And that's right, that's Samsung and Sony and and whoever is standing for delivery here in this country. So it plays right in. But at the same time, you have the January effect where all the hedge funds need to redeploy money. So the volatility will be fantastic uh over the next couple of weeks. But Bank of America just came out and said we can see silver going as high as $39. Now you're beginning to see it from the mainstream where companies and banks that were incredibly bearish on this stuff forever are now flipping the narrative. You got uh the C the chief investment officer of Morgan Stanley saying put 20% of your your assets in gold and do that by selling half your bond exposure. You got the chief analyst for Bank of America, Michael Hartnett, saying no, make it 25%. You got Jeffrey Gunlock, the bond king, saying 25% of and this is a guy who's made his reputation living and nickname by selling assets that have a return. 25% he says of assets and metals is not overvalued. So we're beginning to see at the highest level, a change of mentality, a change of um of perception of of what these metals truly are. and and it hasn't really gotten down here yet, but you can see it with what's happening on the on the COMX and the LBMA that we're we are in the midst of of a change of I think um perception and reality as to what gold and silver truly are. >> Definitely, it seems like real changes are happening right now. And I'm interested to talk a little bit more about the price because I know that some people feel a little bit uncomfortable when they see more mainstream entities making these very high price predictions. I know that you're certainly bullish on silver. You mentioned we're going to see some volatility in the near term. What are your expectations for price in 2026? >> You know, I hate making those guesses. I think a $100 silver is something, you know, Keith Newmier made it famous years ago with his tripledigit silver shirt that he sent me for during Christmas, maybe four or five years ago. And, you know, at the time people laughed about that, but he's not too far from from being off. And in fact, if if you you could take a technical um viewpoint of it and and talk about a 45-year cup and handle formation that was broken. Now, a cup and handle formation in technical analysis is one of the most bullish formations you'll ever see, especially one that's 45 years long. So, at the top in 1980, you had 50 bucks. At the bottom, in the early '90s, you had four bucks. The difference from top to bottom is 40 uh $46, right? So, then you get back up to 2011, $50, it's rejected. That's the top of the cup. Then the handle comes down to where we were just recently when we broke through 50 and off it goes. Now, technical analysis would say you take the top, you take the bottom, which is 50 -4 46, add it to the breakout, that's $96. Not too far from it. Now, at the same time, uh if you take right now the price of gold at um 4450 and divide by 45, well, you can see what that's going to be pretty easily. 4450 divided by 45 is $99. 45 is pretty much the average price ratio we've seen for the last h 100red years. And that's with central bank manipulation holding down the silver and gold price. Gold for Gibson's paradox, silver for the military-industrial complex, we can go down that road, maybe when I see in Vancouver what I mean by that. But the point of it is is that whether you take the the 100red-year average, whether you take the break out of the cup and handle, I think $100 is easy. But, you know, it's coming out of the ground at 7 to1. So, in terms of its geologic ratio, 4450 divided by 7 is $635. As crazy as that sounds, I'm not saying it's going to get there, but put it in perspective when you see what Bank of America says. And they're using the gold silver ratio as their barometer because they're saying $500 um or $5,000 uh gold next year. So, you take 5,000 and divide it by 45 and you get 111 bucks. Take 5,000 and, you know, divide it by 35 where it got down to in 2011 and you're at 142. Look, all I'm saying is that we're still undervalued. There's still a long way to go. by every metric, whether it be historical price uh averages in relationship to to gold geologic averages that go back 5,000 years and really an asset that's never been allowed to find real price discovery. So, yeah, I I think we still have plenty of room to go. But, Charlotte, I want it to be very clear. You know, you don't buy that the problem people made in in um 2021 with silver squeeze is that they bought it for the wrong reason. And and I think they became disenchanted with its performance. You don't buy silver to become wealthy. You buy it because it is wealth. For for 6,000 years, if you look at gold and silver, cumulatively mentioned over 700 times in the Bible, it's been wealth through two world wars, German hyperinflation, the Great Depression, every pandemic, every everything. And and and you know, history doesn't always repeat, but it sure as hell rhymes. And now you see the biggest money in the world, the most well informed money in the world, whether it be the central banks, the commercial banks, the sovereign wealth funds, or now the institutional traders here in the United States that are showing you through delivery of both gold and silver just how important it is. And silver now being critical in both the European Union and the United States, prioritized in Asia. Um, and if you watched any of the videos I've done with Judy Shelton, two of them, where she says Trump will back the back end of the Treasury market July 4th of 2026 with gold, written a book about this. She's all over the place saying this. She was his nominee for the Fed in 2016 and and an adviser and on his transition team. You know, you're beginning to see that gold seems to be whether it be here in the United States perhaps backing the long end of the bond market or in Asia and the bricks with a settlement vehicle to settle imbalances in trade or currency. Gold is finding a way to I think be reintegrated quietly into the monetary system and silver is just being recognized as something you better damn well have or else. And that's what we see happening between very large large sovereign nations who many of which have a head start on us. So yeah, it's uh it's going to be an interesting year. And rather than pick a price, I say we live in a world of probabilities. The probability that we see silver well north of $100 to me is rather strong. Could it be as high as $200 or higher? Sure. But to say that would be a guess and an optimistic guess. But look, if I would have told you last year that we would see silver at 80 bucks, you'd say, you know, well, that's a pretty big, you know, pretty big statement, Andy. Yeah, sure it is. 150% gain in a year is pretty big. So rather than continue with that, I would just simply say higher than most people would actually probably think possible would be my answer. >> I think that's very fair. And I appreciate you breaking down the the price implications there. I know you're not such a prediction type of person, so that was great though to go through it. And I know I've got to start getting you out of here. I'm sure we'll have more to say in Vancouver. But before before I do that, I have one more question for you. And I wanted to bring up this AI Asian guy and all of those videos with you because you're so good at helping us understand what's really going on in the silver market. And these videos that I'm sure people if they're on YouTube, they've seen them pop up. They're pretty tricky because from what I understand, there's a lot of truth in them, but also they have false things going on in there. So, how how are you what are you seeing there? Where do you think they're coming from? What should people be aware of when they see them? >> Yeah. Well, whoever is doing it is fairly well. Um, I think has a lot of help because the information that he's pouring out is non-stop. I've never seen anything quite like it. And and under, I don't know, a dozen or two dozen different channels. Um, a lot of it is very good. Um, a lot of it is I take exception with, but I think in general the information is fantastic. And I mean, it's almost as if there are entities out there trying to wake up the public who have never been awoken ever to anything that me or any of the guests on your on your channel have had. You have to be one of the few people up until this point who has the ability to break free from the herd mentality. And that's a scary lonely thing. You know, you come to a conference like V-Rick and everyone loves to talk because they go back home and everyone says, "Oh, it's crazy Uncle Johnny again or you know, there's our crazy neighbor who won't stop talking about gold and silver cuz what's coming and then all of a sudden they're right." Um, and I think that it's been an uphill battle. And Rick Rule will tell you that you take the the, you know, from Joe and Jane six-pack to the Harvard endowment fund, which by the way did just buy a couple hundred million of metal, the Harvard endowment fund, which I laugh at, but he would always say that verbatim, from Joe and Jane six-pack to the Harvard endowment fund, the exposure to gold and gold related equities, and I mean silver too, is 1/ half of 1%. So, you know, it's it's it's still it's growing. And what you see here is that everyone I talked to has seen this this guy. And some of the stuff he says is flatout wrong. He talked about companies in my industry having to issue form 8300s anytime you pay for anything over $10,000. Well, that's not true at all. And a form8300 is if you pay with cash. And that would be if you went to Nordstrom's or Bloomingdales and bought your family $11,000 worth of clothing. you would have to and paid with cash. They'd issue a form 8300. Any retail transaction, any with cash, $100 bills or multiple money orders, triggers an 8,300, but you could spend $200 million with me and send a wire and there is zero dealer reporting. He talked about an executive order, mentioned the executive order number that talked about the ability for, you know, to for metals to be confiscated. You look up that executive order, it doesn't exist. in in the way he says and what it is is actually like a some form of uh a a advanced education bill. I mean, so there are holes in what he's saying, but a lot of what he is saying is is fantastic. So, I don't know how he's getting the information. It's almost like he's scanning all of the podcast and and sucking it in and then building. Look, I do an interview with when you think of how hard that is to do, not as hard as you think anymore because I do an interview with Mike Adams and the Health Ranger and he has developed a new AI system and and a bookmaking AI program where every interview we do, a book is done, 200page book on an interview I do with him for 40 minutes with charts and graphs and he sucks everything in to support it. And he's made like 5,000 books in a few weeks. So AI is changing the world and it's even changing the way information goes out there. But you have to you have to take everything you have to try and factf find. That's why I use some of what he says and but it it's hard to support a lot of what he's saying. Well inside sources and a memo that he doesn't ever show and you know you can't go out and say these things in my position until it's validated. But I'll say there's a rumor going around that JP Morgan says everyone clo that they sent out a a memo saying close all your your um futures positions by January 31 uh because we're no longer going to um allow physical delivery just cash settlement. There's a rumor out there that Morgan Stanley is saying something similar. There's all of these rumors that if substantiated, yeah, it'll be a hell of a call. And then you're really going to think, who is this guy? But until then, I think you take it uh all the information in and you know, try to factf find it. And if you can't, let's sit back and see what happens. But to say it's gospel is dangerous in my opinion. But overall, he gets a he gets an A for effort and a strong B+ for information with a little bit of stuff that needs a little bit of clarification. >> Well, really helpful to get your take there. And I am interested to see if this does start drawing in the broader public. So, we can we can track that and see how it goes. I'm sure we'll try. >> You're going to be a rock star. If that's true, you're going to, you know, you're going to be you're going to be at the top of the food chain and and we do we do deserve kudos in my opinion, Charlotte. We've been right overall and we haven't been conspiratorial. We we have been right and we have looked at things objectively, factually. And it's it's about time that the you know the Wall Street crowd admits maybe you guys were wrong and uh so maybe this awakening is exactly what the doctor ordered and I'm all for it. But uh you know just take it with a grain of salt what you hear and uh do a little bit of your own due diligence if you hear something that you're ready to act upon. >> 100%. I agree. And I know I've got to let you go for now but I'm sure we'll catch up again soon in Vancouver at BR. We'll see how the attendance looks there. I hope it's a busy show, but thank you so much for coming on now. >> Yeah, and I would I would recommend anyone. That's a show I won't miss. Even living in Florida, flying literally to the farthest point in North America to attend the show, but it's one I wouldn't miss. And Jay Martin puts on a great show and I look forward to seeing you upstairs in that room you're always in and and hopefully uh catching up and doing one live like we always do. >> Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for now. Once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investing.com and this is Andy Sheckchman with Miles Franklin. Thank you for watching. If you like this video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, so leave us a comment below.