Dana Samuelson: Gold, Silver in Global Bank Run, Prices on Hair Trigger
Summary
Precious Metals: The guest highlights an unprecedented global physical buying spree driven by tariffs and shifting inventories, arguing the physical market is overtaking paper in price discovery.
Gold: Bullish long-term outlook with near-term consolidation; support seen around $3,900 and resistance $4,050-$4,100, with catalysts likely tied to policy shifts and global demand.
Silver: Ongoing silver squeeze due to London OTC tightness, ETF drawdowns, and India’s substitution from gold to silver; support near $47 and resistance around $50.
Platinum: Positive view supported by tight supply, jewelry substitution in Asia, and higher usage in hybrid vehicles versus EVs, underpinning potential outperformance.
Macro Drivers: Tariffs on China and India spurred massive physical buying; Fed’s uncertain rate path and a fickle dollar/yields backdrop are less influential than physical demand.
Market Structure: Large shifts of metal from London to COMEX warehouses created regional imbalances, with lease rates and premiums spiking when the London OTC market briefly broke.
Opportunities & Risks: Expect sideways-to-grinding higher action until a new catalyst emerges; risks include policy volatility and supply bottlenecks at mints amid product changeovers.
Investment Angle: No single equity was pitched; the thesis centers on gaining exposure to gold, silver, and platinum as hedges and beneficiaries of global trade disruptions and persistent physical demand.
Transcript
[music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investing.com and here today with me is Dana Samson, president of American Gold Exchange. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Hi Charlotte, it's great to see you again. Thanks for having me. >> Oh, of course. Really good to be catching up with you. And as we were saying, in person, I think is always better. So good to have you here. And of course, we're going to start out by talking about gold. I think we last spoke in the summer and you were looking for a $4,000 target for gold. So, we got there. We got past it. And I'm wondering if I can get your updated thoughts on gold. We're in a pullback right now. Is this a muchneeded consolidation? How are you seeing it? Yeah, we've had a red-hot run uh that's been driven by remarkable physical buying primarily out of India this time due to tariffs that were put on India by President Trump of 50% in late August uh which spurred the Indian public to buy which got this whole move higher going uh and of course we broke the London overthec counter market in silver uh we got into a real frothy the speculative driven blowoff top. You know, uh when gold and silver go up 10% in a week, that means the speculators are, you know, piling on and the the market topped and started to correct coincidental with the comx raising margins on contracts and also the end of Diwali festival season. So if you look at how much physical buying went into India uh through coins and bars and also into ETFs and particularly silver um which they focused on this year uh because gold has become more expensive um that's what really created that frothy top. So now we've had the froth come out. The speculators are usually the last in the door and they're the first out. So, you get a knee-jerk sell-off, which we've had, and we are clearly into the consolidation phase now, and we're looking for support. I see support for gold at about 3,900 with resistance at about 4050 or 4,100 in the current market. For silver, I see support at 47 and resistance at 50. Uh, we're still in a bit of a silver squeeze. And uh that's going to continue for a while because there's not enough metal in London and there's too much in the ComX warehouses uh because of fear over tariffs. We haven't had clarification on silver potential tariffs like we have had on gold. So there's a there's an equity an inequity of where physical silver truly is and there's still a lot of demand for it. So I think we are clearly in a consolidation phase uh like we were in May and June and July after we had a strong gold run in April that was driven by Chinese gold buying primarily again due to tariffs. Right. So I expect to see us go sideways and potentially grind a little higher before we get another catalyst that really moves the metals one way or the other. But I do think we'll go higher still. Well, and I I have to ask since you bring up that catalyst, do you have any sense of what that could be? >> Well, uh you know, when we get a big gain like this and we go sideways, you just don't know what's really going to happen. Uh the US economy has actually been doing fairly well. Um, the Fed has just cut rates for the second time in this cycle, but Chairman Pal threw the markets a bit of a curveball by saying that they may not cut rates again in December because inflation's remaining a bit pesky and the fall off in employment has not been as great as they thought it might be. So on though on their dual mandate, things are balancing out a bit again for them. I had expected lower rates to really be one of the drivers or a lower dollar to be one of the drivers to help push this market higher again, but that might not happen for a while. We think it'll happen next year when President Trump replaces Chairman Pal with a Fed chairman of his liking, and we'll probably see some real rate cuts at that point in time. But I I don't think we're going to have to wait till May. It just you don't know what's going to happen next when tariffs are on, tariffs are off, they're ratcheted up, they're ratcheted back down. It could be anything, but the world has gone on a physical buying spree over the last six months following a huge movement of physical metal into the COMX warehouses this year. Inordinately, I mean, record high levels. So, we've had three big moves of physical metal this year that we haven't seen the likes of since the 70s. And to me, this is literally a run on the bank of gold globally. It's global. It's widespread and it's deep. And I don't see it changing anytime soon. >> That's quite a quite a significant statement from you there. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about those three big movements just for anybody who might not be up to speed on what that entailed. Okay. >> So, at the end of 2024 and into early 2025. Due to fears over potential tariffs on gold and silver, the bid for physical metal in New York increased over what the same metal was worth in London. Because if tariffs are added to the price of metal, say 10%. Theoretically, the metals that's already in the United States is suddenly worth that much more because that's what it's going to take to replace it if you sell it. So we're always looking at replacement costs. So that drew a lot of metal out of London primarily and into the United States Comx warehouse vaults. We got up to uh 45 million ounces of gold which was started we started about 17 million. Uh so more than double the increase of physical gold in Comx warehouses. For silver, we went from under uh 300 million ounces, about 265 million ounces, to a peak of 531 million ounces. Now, the this is inordinately large amount of metal in the ComX warehouses um to the detriment of London. And it's been more affecting the market in silver because there's not the big cushion for physical silver in London like there is for physical gold where central banks warehouse their gold holdings. So if you want to lease it or borrow it, it's more easy to get your hands on gold. And so that's number one. That's a setup. So that's moved metal around where it wouldn't have normally have been to start with. And it's not where it should have been to start with or normally has been historically. And then President Trump uh ratcheted tariffs up on China in April to 145%. which led to a huge buying spree by the Chinese public and uh in April and they ran the gold price up $500 through their own buying and you can see that on gold flows into China uh for physical metal. It's a physical metal move. So now you got two big physical metal moves. And we got a third one in August when President Trump tariffed India 50% over their buying oil from Russia which is supporting Russia in their war against the Ukraine. And it kind of came with a a double or triple whammy for the metals. Number one, you've got the the largest populace in the world now buying precious metals because they've been tariffed. In April it was the second most populous nation in the world. The two biggest countries in the world together that both have huge precious metals cultures are now spurred into buying. And in particular this year for Diwali festival which is one of their biggest festivals where they traditionally give a lot of precious metals as gifts. um the Indians didn't focus so much on gold this year because of its expense and instead rolled into silver which made this problem for silver especially more acute in London because all that silver had come out of London where they don't have the cushion. So it created a two or three-step domino effect that led to a huge price surge which got people around the world buying which brought the speculators in heavy and the whole thing goes from gradual to higher to parabolic and then we peak uh and as I said coincidental to the margin requirements and the comx being raised which means now you got to put more money up to hold the same position uh and also the end of Diwali festival which is a huge underpinning of physical support. So this is three big movements of physical metal this year, the likes of which we haven't seen since the 70s. That's been extraordinary for precious metals. And what it means is the physical markets are reasserting price discovery dominance over the paper markets, which has been the most of the case for the last 20 years or so. The paper markets have pushed the market around, precious metals prices around much more than physical market demand has. And what this really means is um there's been a run into precious metals globally due to the trade uh disruptions that the tariffs are causing and the rest of the world is looking for, you know, an insurance policy, a hedge. Uh they're a little nervous about the dollar and about the US. I mean, we just went to $ 38 trillion in debt. Um we have a government shutdown, so we can't even get our business done. And if you're outside looking in, you know, we don't look so good. And you know, we're here at the New Orleans Investment Conference. There's a lot of Canadian miners here and Canadian people here. And the Canadians are not happy with the US right now. You know, they can't get bourbon. It's one of the things they can't get their hands on. But that's just a symptom of what's going on. And these are one of our biggest trading partners along with Mexico. And so we're President Trump's tariffs are disrupting the glo global trade order. And it's been um most obviously manifested in gold and silver buying sprees that both China and India have gone on. And like I said, haven't seen anything like this since the 70s. And um it is it is meaningful in ways that you know we never would have appreciated even six months ago without these two episodes. >> Really big movements as you've been saying. I think this is very significant. And I wanted to follow up also ask you about the situation with silver in London. I I'm sure that's connected to this where we had the shortage and that was causing issues in the market. It feels like that has resolved at least to some degree right now. We've seen the silver price come back down, but I'm wondering if you can explain what went on there, whether that could reemerge in the future. So typically the London bullion market association warehouses are where most of the gold and silver around the world is held not the comx it's hedged in the New York Stock and the New York Comx exchange but the warehouses usually don't have as much metal. So all that metal moving in has affected supplies in London. As I said silver is much more sensitive to this because central banks warehouse gold in London but they don't warehouse silver. So the above ground stocks of silver or the available supplies of silver in London were were thinner to start with and then we drained a lot of that out. So when these Indian buying waves hit there wasn't a cushion. And what's also happened this year which we haven't seen is meaningfully this in the past are ETFs around the world in precious metals in India in other parts of the world not just GLD or SLB or the spot funds. Now pretty much every country has an ETF for precious metals and they've been very active. So they're pulling a lot more metal out of the equation than we have seen in the past. And this is really what happened with the Indian focus on silver this year. One of the Indian influencers with three million followers has been telling his listeners since the gold to silver ratio peaked at 100 earlier this year, 100 ounces of silver to equal 1 ounce of gold, you should buy silver this year instead of buying gold. And that's what they did. Uh and they drove the silver price up. You know, gold went up $1,000 and silver went up $15 uh during this run. And that's uh really what has pushed it so much. And when that cushion was absorbed in London, suddenly there wasn't enough metal to meet demand. And the people that actually had a little bit of metal to sell, they raised the prices up. Uh the market became dysfunctional. Lenders saw risk in the market because they're they're leasing metal now. They're lending so people can borrow it and they see that maybe they can't replace it. So they raised they jacked up the lease rates which brought the whole equation to a halt. It literally stopped the market from working properly through normal lubrication which is financing fees and availability of supply and it suddenly just broke and that's what happened. It was due to Indian excessive demand. Now, uh, Robert Gotautle, who is an analyst, a former JP Morgan Chase trader, has said that for the London Bullion Market Association to normalize, they need about another 100 to 120 million more ounces than they have now. But we have seen lease races, which spiked and premiums, which spiked when the London uh over-thec counter market broke, come back down. But the market's still tight. It's not where it was. uh premiums in in London for physical silver went to $3 on thousand ounce bars which stopped two of the big Indian ETFs from actually buying more silver. They said it's gotten too heavy and we're going to stop for a while. So that's caused a pause which is you know gives a chance for the market to relieve itself a little bit. But we're not back to normal now and the higher silver prices now create a demand in the US that didn't exist. At the same time, many of the mints around the world are changing from the 25 issue to the 26 issue and that that's a month in transition. Uh we don't know if silver's going to be tariffs. So some are not even really ready to do anything even though it's a changeover year. So the mints are kind of caught with their pants down and supplying the US market uh at a time when there's higher demand. So we're we're feeling a bit of a silver squeeze in the US right now with more demand than there is available sovereignmented products to be had. So it's it's all dominoing, you know, ding ding ding on, you know, as we go down the line. >> Yeah, you can you can really start to see that. And that's one of the questions that I wanted to follow up with you with. So we can see from what you're laying out this massive demand from the east and is there anything more you'd say about what we're seeing among Western investors? It's funny. I think I think you said they see the price higher and then they want to come in, >> right? So, you know, the US investor has been more seller than buyer from gold at $2,300 to $3,700 an ounce and silver from about $28 to $42 an ounce. We had a lot more sellers over the last 18 months until this breakout than we had buyers. And this breakout run has really brought the US public into the market as buyers for the first time in mass because now they trust this rally better than they trusted it before where you've got um inflation spike. There's been some distress sellers. There's been profit takers. There's been people that don't normally buy precious metals but bought it for insurance during the great financial crisis or during COVID that now they're, you know, if they bought it near the top, they had to wait to get out. Now they're making profits and that's what they've done. What's happened in the meantime? The US stock market has been setting record highs and the um the economy has actually been doing fairly well. It looks like it might be picking up a little bit to be honest with you. Uh so the recession that we've all been fearing or the unemployment mess that we have been fearing hasn't materialized yet. So there's complacency in the US and the biggest driver beyond you know fear of missing out for the US investors which is a minor driver is fear. We don't have that but there's a growing sense of fear around the world with our trade policies and how we're handling uh you know tariffs and uh the rest of the world due to President Trump's disruptive policies. Uh, I like what he's trying to do to tame our debt and our deficits and make us more resilient and less vulnerable to Chinese, you know, rare earth magnets, you know, supply withholding or, you know, not using leverage over his uh, constituency of farmers in the US not buying soybeans. Um, but I wish it was done a little bit more diplomatically than we than we're doing it. Uh, so I applaud the effort, but I don't applaud the way that it's been handled because when when the when Canadians are not happy with us, that's not a good thing. [laughter] It's a symptom of the whole situation. >> So maybe maybe a little bit different method there. Well, and I wonder, so you're mentioning there's this complacency among US investors about what's going on in the economy and it it does seem to be continuing in a better way than many people thought it would for for longer. So I'm wondering what is your view? What do you see coming for the US economy? What what are your views? >> Well, I've been concerned that we have this, you know, increasingly called a K-shaped economy where the wealthy are doing well and you know, the lower 60% of the economy is is underperforming, especially comparative inflation. And um you know, there's a lot of people in this country right now that are not doing that well. They're having a hard time making ends meet. And um it's not a good situation for the US overall, but it hasn't gotten to a real tipping point at this point in time. And you know, I'm not an economist. I can only look at what I see. And we're in a blackout phase right now because the government shut down. So we're not getting the reliable statistics that we should be getting for unemployment or inflation or some of the other, you know, manufacturing. Um so it's a little hard to say how this is going to go until we start getting some reliable statistics. even if government statistics are reliable to start with these days. But um there's there's anecdotal evidence that the US economy, you know, is potentially vulnerable to a downturn. We haven't seen it yet. Uh and if we get into a situation where the Fed really has to cut rates to stimulate the economy, that's good for metals. Uh as because yields will go negative where right now yields are still slightly positive. In fact, we've seen the dollar perk up a little bit and yields perk up a little bit on the back of the chairman palace presser after the FOMC meeting where he indicated that, you know, a rate cut for December is not a luck, which I think market participants thought, you know, 98% we'd get a third cut in December. Now we don't. So, normally you see the yields puff up a bit on the 10-year Treasury and the two-year Treasury and the dollar perk up a little bit, which has happened, would push metals down, but it's not happening. They're not reacting like you might expect them to which speaks to the resilience of gold and silver globally right now. There's a lot of demand for it and that's not changing and we're in a setup now where we've kind of got a hair trigger on the market, the precious metals markets because there's been so much demand especially London uh silver rather is in a squeeze. Um, so the setups there, it's just what might trigger that hair trigger to be pulled and it may maybe it doesn't get pulled. Maybe we get six months of sideways or a little grind higher, which is what I expect to see over the next few months at least while the market, you know, finds real support and resistance. But I do think the there's going to continue to be bid and not sold. Um, so who knows how the economy will shape up in the next three to six months. It's hard to say. It it is hard to say. And I also I appreciate the global perspective and reminding us that it's not all about the US and the West. I think that's really helpful. As we're getting to the end here, I know I have to get you back out on the show floor, but I'm trying to ask this question to everybody. I think it's a little bit of a fun one. If we look forward to 2026, what do you what would be your pick for best performing asset of the year? >> Oh boy, that's hard to say. I I still think gold and silver are going to do quite well. You know, if you look at uh a couple different things um how well precious metals have done this year in currencies around the world, you know, the Indian rupee has has uh lost more purchasing power to gold than any other currency and silver this year and that's helped to spur Indian buying. The dollar is number two for loss of purchasing power relative to me. So that's because we've seen the dollar down 10% this year. I don't see that trend. I I see this trend for metals going higher. Um I do think stocks, you know, could be vulnerable. Um in the US, I'm a little leery there. I do like the trend for gold and silver. You know, the last time we had the kind of gains that we have for precious metals on an annual basis going back to 1971 uh is 1979 when gold went up 126% in the US. It's up about 45% in the US now if I've got my numbers right uh for this year so far but to me this really feels like 1978 for the precious metals where the setup is in place uh we kind of kind of got a hair trigger on the markets but we don't have the catalyst that's going to really create that buying action in the US if we get a recession here we get lower rates here if we get fear in the US market that could be what turbocharges us to a real parabolic run that takes gold and silver substantially higher as well. Uh whether that manifests or not, we don't know, but I the setup is clearly in place now. And again, I've never seen a buying wave globally, broad-based and deep from countries that have a precious metals culture. We don't have that in our country. Why? Well, if you're in a country that has seen war on your shores or you've seen your currency fail, you have a precious metals culture. And what do we have? We have two oceans to protect us and we have the world's reserve currency. Um, we're not going to lose the world's reserve currency status, but we're losing trust in the dollar. And when we talked last time in July, we were talking about how there's been, you know, a bit of a repudiation of US treasuries by the by the world. And that's this is just this whole episode with India that's happened in the meantime is just another symptom of the world turning to the world's most trusted form of currency, safest form of currency in money, gold and silver. Uh which is something they can turn to because there's not a good alternative for the dollar. So I I think precious metals are going to continue to do well. Um how well they do is anyone's guess. I think we could see a real big run still ahead of us if things shape up the way I think they will. Uh, as far as other asset classes, you know, I'm a humble precious metals dealer for a reason. This is what I know. >> I could have been making you choose between gold and silver next year. >> Well, I I think silver is poised for a better run. And I do like platinum as well because both are in uh demands environments where there's not enough supply. And there's a case to be made for platinum because it's a jewelry substitute for gold. uh especially in Japan and China. And that's part of the reason platinum has taken off this year is because there has been a run into platinum for jewelry reasons in Asia. Uh and platium is not going to enjoy the same benefit to that. And one of the uh speakers here at the conference, Dave Colum, told me came by our booth today and he told me that I didn't know this that EVs um don't consume as much platinum as hybrid vehicles do. And there's a lot more demand for platinum for hybrid automobiles, which I think, you know, EVs are not going to replace the gasoline engine. They just can't scale them up enough. But hybrids are a great option if you want to have efficiency and power at the same time. And I didn't realize there was an a a need for platinum in hybrid vehicles. And that helps to underpin the the the case for platinum. >> Okay. Okay. Well, I think I think that it gives a good idea of your thoughts. Thank you very much. I think I'll wrap it up here unless you had any final thoughts to add. >> Uh I just we've never seen anything like it in decades, this physical wave of buying. And I really do think it's been a run on the bank and it's not over and it's going to continue. It's just how big of a run will we get? And um it's been an extraordinary year for precious metals. That's what's driven the price more than anything else. And that means the physical market is overtaking price discovery from the paper market. And this is where the rubber starts to really meet the road. >> Well, perfect place to end it. Thank you much so much for coming on to share. Always good to have you. >> Thank you, Charlotte. Appreciate being here. And once again, I'm Charlotte.
Dana Samuelson: Gold, Silver in Global Bank Run, Prices on Hair Trigger
Summary
Transcript
[music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investing.com and here today with me is Dana Samson, president of American Gold Exchange. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Hi Charlotte, it's great to see you again. Thanks for having me. >> Oh, of course. Really good to be catching up with you. And as we were saying, in person, I think is always better. So good to have you here. And of course, we're going to start out by talking about gold. I think we last spoke in the summer and you were looking for a $4,000 target for gold. So, we got there. We got past it. And I'm wondering if I can get your updated thoughts on gold. We're in a pullback right now. Is this a muchneeded consolidation? How are you seeing it? Yeah, we've had a red-hot run uh that's been driven by remarkable physical buying primarily out of India this time due to tariffs that were put on India by President Trump of 50% in late August uh which spurred the Indian public to buy which got this whole move higher going uh and of course we broke the London overthec counter market in silver uh we got into a real frothy the speculative driven blowoff top. You know, uh when gold and silver go up 10% in a week, that means the speculators are, you know, piling on and the the market topped and started to correct coincidental with the comx raising margins on contracts and also the end of Diwali festival season. So if you look at how much physical buying went into India uh through coins and bars and also into ETFs and particularly silver um which they focused on this year uh because gold has become more expensive um that's what really created that frothy top. So now we've had the froth come out. The speculators are usually the last in the door and they're the first out. So, you get a knee-jerk sell-off, which we've had, and we are clearly into the consolidation phase now, and we're looking for support. I see support for gold at about 3,900 with resistance at about 4050 or 4,100 in the current market. For silver, I see support at 47 and resistance at 50. Uh, we're still in a bit of a silver squeeze. And uh that's going to continue for a while because there's not enough metal in London and there's too much in the ComX warehouses uh because of fear over tariffs. We haven't had clarification on silver potential tariffs like we have had on gold. So there's a there's an equity an inequity of where physical silver truly is and there's still a lot of demand for it. So I think we are clearly in a consolidation phase uh like we were in May and June and July after we had a strong gold run in April that was driven by Chinese gold buying primarily again due to tariffs. Right. So I expect to see us go sideways and potentially grind a little higher before we get another catalyst that really moves the metals one way or the other. But I do think we'll go higher still. Well, and I I have to ask since you bring up that catalyst, do you have any sense of what that could be? >> Well, uh you know, when we get a big gain like this and we go sideways, you just don't know what's really going to happen. Uh the US economy has actually been doing fairly well. Um, the Fed has just cut rates for the second time in this cycle, but Chairman Pal threw the markets a bit of a curveball by saying that they may not cut rates again in December because inflation's remaining a bit pesky and the fall off in employment has not been as great as they thought it might be. So on though on their dual mandate, things are balancing out a bit again for them. I had expected lower rates to really be one of the drivers or a lower dollar to be one of the drivers to help push this market higher again, but that might not happen for a while. We think it'll happen next year when President Trump replaces Chairman Pal with a Fed chairman of his liking, and we'll probably see some real rate cuts at that point in time. But I I don't think we're going to have to wait till May. It just you don't know what's going to happen next when tariffs are on, tariffs are off, they're ratcheted up, they're ratcheted back down. It could be anything, but the world has gone on a physical buying spree over the last six months following a huge movement of physical metal into the COMX warehouses this year. Inordinately, I mean, record high levels. So, we've had three big moves of physical metal this year that we haven't seen the likes of since the 70s. And to me, this is literally a run on the bank of gold globally. It's global. It's widespread and it's deep. And I don't see it changing anytime soon. >> That's quite a quite a significant statement from you there. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about those three big movements just for anybody who might not be up to speed on what that entailed. Okay. >> So, at the end of 2024 and into early 2025. Due to fears over potential tariffs on gold and silver, the bid for physical metal in New York increased over what the same metal was worth in London. Because if tariffs are added to the price of metal, say 10%. Theoretically, the metals that's already in the United States is suddenly worth that much more because that's what it's going to take to replace it if you sell it. So we're always looking at replacement costs. So that drew a lot of metal out of London primarily and into the United States Comx warehouse vaults. We got up to uh 45 million ounces of gold which was started we started about 17 million. Uh so more than double the increase of physical gold in Comx warehouses. For silver, we went from under uh 300 million ounces, about 265 million ounces, to a peak of 531 million ounces. Now, the this is inordinately large amount of metal in the ComX warehouses um to the detriment of London. And it's been more affecting the market in silver because there's not the big cushion for physical silver in London like there is for physical gold where central banks warehouse their gold holdings. So if you want to lease it or borrow it, it's more easy to get your hands on gold. And so that's number one. That's a setup. So that's moved metal around where it wouldn't have normally have been to start with. And it's not where it should have been to start with or normally has been historically. And then President Trump uh ratcheted tariffs up on China in April to 145%. which led to a huge buying spree by the Chinese public and uh in April and they ran the gold price up $500 through their own buying and you can see that on gold flows into China uh for physical metal. It's a physical metal move. So now you got two big physical metal moves. And we got a third one in August when President Trump tariffed India 50% over their buying oil from Russia which is supporting Russia in their war against the Ukraine. And it kind of came with a a double or triple whammy for the metals. Number one, you've got the the largest populace in the world now buying precious metals because they've been tariffed. In April it was the second most populous nation in the world. The two biggest countries in the world together that both have huge precious metals cultures are now spurred into buying. And in particular this year for Diwali festival which is one of their biggest festivals where they traditionally give a lot of precious metals as gifts. um the Indians didn't focus so much on gold this year because of its expense and instead rolled into silver which made this problem for silver especially more acute in London because all that silver had come out of London where they don't have the cushion. So it created a two or three-step domino effect that led to a huge price surge which got people around the world buying which brought the speculators in heavy and the whole thing goes from gradual to higher to parabolic and then we peak uh and as I said coincidental to the margin requirements and the comx being raised which means now you got to put more money up to hold the same position uh and also the end of Diwali festival which is a huge underpinning of physical support. So this is three big movements of physical metal this year, the likes of which we haven't seen since the 70s. That's been extraordinary for precious metals. And what it means is the physical markets are reasserting price discovery dominance over the paper markets, which has been the most of the case for the last 20 years or so. The paper markets have pushed the market around, precious metals prices around much more than physical market demand has. And what this really means is um there's been a run into precious metals globally due to the trade uh disruptions that the tariffs are causing and the rest of the world is looking for, you know, an insurance policy, a hedge. Uh they're a little nervous about the dollar and about the US. I mean, we just went to $ 38 trillion in debt. Um we have a government shutdown, so we can't even get our business done. And if you're outside looking in, you know, we don't look so good. And you know, we're here at the New Orleans Investment Conference. There's a lot of Canadian miners here and Canadian people here. And the Canadians are not happy with the US right now. You know, they can't get bourbon. It's one of the things they can't get their hands on. But that's just a symptom of what's going on. And these are one of our biggest trading partners along with Mexico. And so we're President Trump's tariffs are disrupting the glo global trade order. And it's been um most obviously manifested in gold and silver buying sprees that both China and India have gone on. And like I said, haven't seen anything like this since the 70s. And um it is it is meaningful in ways that you know we never would have appreciated even six months ago without these two episodes. >> Really big movements as you've been saying. I think this is very significant. And I wanted to follow up also ask you about the situation with silver in London. I I'm sure that's connected to this where we had the shortage and that was causing issues in the market. It feels like that has resolved at least to some degree right now. We've seen the silver price come back down, but I'm wondering if you can explain what went on there, whether that could reemerge in the future. So typically the London bullion market association warehouses are where most of the gold and silver around the world is held not the comx it's hedged in the New York Stock and the New York Comx exchange but the warehouses usually don't have as much metal. So all that metal moving in has affected supplies in London. As I said silver is much more sensitive to this because central banks warehouse gold in London but they don't warehouse silver. So the above ground stocks of silver or the available supplies of silver in London were were thinner to start with and then we drained a lot of that out. So when these Indian buying waves hit there wasn't a cushion. And what's also happened this year which we haven't seen is meaningfully this in the past are ETFs around the world in precious metals in India in other parts of the world not just GLD or SLB or the spot funds. Now pretty much every country has an ETF for precious metals and they've been very active. So they're pulling a lot more metal out of the equation than we have seen in the past. And this is really what happened with the Indian focus on silver this year. One of the Indian influencers with three million followers has been telling his listeners since the gold to silver ratio peaked at 100 earlier this year, 100 ounces of silver to equal 1 ounce of gold, you should buy silver this year instead of buying gold. And that's what they did. Uh and they drove the silver price up. You know, gold went up $1,000 and silver went up $15 uh during this run. And that's uh really what has pushed it so much. And when that cushion was absorbed in London, suddenly there wasn't enough metal to meet demand. And the people that actually had a little bit of metal to sell, they raised the prices up. Uh the market became dysfunctional. Lenders saw risk in the market because they're they're leasing metal now. They're lending so people can borrow it and they see that maybe they can't replace it. So they raised they jacked up the lease rates which brought the whole equation to a halt. It literally stopped the market from working properly through normal lubrication which is financing fees and availability of supply and it suddenly just broke and that's what happened. It was due to Indian excessive demand. Now, uh, Robert Gotautle, who is an analyst, a former JP Morgan Chase trader, has said that for the London Bullion Market Association to normalize, they need about another 100 to 120 million more ounces than they have now. But we have seen lease races, which spiked and premiums, which spiked when the London uh over-thec counter market broke, come back down. But the market's still tight. It's not where it was. uh premiums in in London for physical silver went to $3 on thousand ounce bars which stopped two of the big Indian ETFs from actually buying more silver. They said it's gotten too heavy and we're going to stop for a while. So that's caused a pause which is you know gives a chance for the market to relieve itself a little bit. But we're not back to normal now and the higher silver prices now create a demand in the US that didn't exist. At the same time, many of the mints around the world are changing from the 25 issue to the 26 issue and that that's a month in transition. Uh we don't know if silver's going to be tariffs. So some are not even really ready to do anything even though it's a changeover year. So the mints are kind of caught with their pants down and supplying the US market uh at a time when there's higher demand. So we're we're feeling a bit of a silver squeeze in the US right now with more demand than there is available sovereignmented products to be had. So it's it's all dominoing, you know, ding ding ding on, you know, as we go down the line. >> Yeah, you can you can really start to see that. And that's one of the questions that I wanted to follow up with you with. So we can see from what you're laying out this massive demand from the east and is there anything more you'd say about what we're seeing among Western investors? It's funny. I think I think you said they see the price higher and then they want to come in, >> right? So, you know, the US investor has been more seller than buyer from gold at $2,300 to $3,700 an ounce and silver from about $28 to $42 an ounce. We had a lot more sellers over the last 18 months until this breakout than we had buyers. And this breakout run has really brought the US public into the market as buyers for the first time in mass because now they trust this rally better than they trusted it before where you've got um inflation spike. There's been some distress sellers. There's been profit takers. There's been people that don't normally buy precious metals but bought it for insurance during the great financial crisis or during COVID that now they're, you know, if they bought it near the top, they had to wait to get out. Now they're making profits and that's what they've done. What's happened in the meantime? The US stock market has been setting record highs and the um the economy has actually been doing fairly well. It looks like it might be picking up a little bit to be honest with you. Uh so the recession that we've all been fearing or the unemployment mess that we have been fearing hasn't materialized yet. So there's complacency in the US and the biggest driver beyond you know fear of missing out for the US investors which is a minor driver is fear. We don't have that but there's a growing sense of fear around the world with our trade policies and how we're handling uh you know tariffs and uh the rest of the world due to President Trump's disruptive policies. Uh, I like what he's trying to do to tame our debt and our deficits and make us more resilient and less vulnerable to Chinese, you know, rare earth magnets, you know, supply withholding or, you know, not using leverage over his uh, constituency of farmers in the US not buying soybeans. Um, but I wish it was done a little bit more diplomatically than we than we're doing it. Uh, so I applaud the effort, but I don't applaud the way that it's been handled because when when the when Canadians are not happy with us, that's not a good thing. [laughter] It's a symptom of the whole situation. >> So maybe maybe a little bit different method there. Well, and I wonder, so you're mentioning there's this complacency among US investors about what's going on in the economy and it it does seem to be continuing in a better way than many people thought it would for for longer. So I'm wondering what is your view? What do you see coming for the US economy? What what are your views? >> Well, I've been concerned that we have this, you know, increasingly called a K-shaped economy where the wealthy are doing well and you know, the lower 60% of the economy is is underperforming, especially comparative inflation. And um you know, there's a lot of people in this country right now that are not doing that well. They're having a hard time making ends meet. And um it's not a good situation for the US overall, but it hasn't gotten to a real tipping point at this point in time. And you know, I'm not an economist. I can only look at what I see. And we're in a blackout phase right now because the government shut down. So we're not getting the reliable statistics that we should be getting for unemployment or inflation or some of the other, you know, manufacturing. Um so it's a little hard to say how this is going to go until we start getting some reliable statistics. even if government statistics are reliable to start with these days. But um there's there's anecdotal evidence that the US economy, you know, is potentially vulnerable to a downturn. We haven't seen it yet. Uh and if we get into a situation where the Fed really has to cut rates to stimulate the economy, that's good for metals. Uh as because yields will go negative where right now yields are still slightly positive. In fact, we've seen the dollar perk up a little bit and yields perk up a little bit on the back of the chairman palace presser after the FOMC meeting where he indicated that, you know, a rate cut for December is not a luck, which I think market participants thought, you know, 98% we'd get a third cut in December. Now we don't. So, normally you see the yields puff up a bit on the 10-year Treasury and the two-year Treasury and the dollar perk up a little bit, which has happened, would push metals down, but it's not happening. They're not reacting like you might expect them to which speaks to the resilience of gold and silver globally right now. There's a lot of demand for it and that's not changing and we're in a setup now where we've kind of got a hair trigger on the market, the precious metals markets because there's been so much demand especially London uh silver rather is in a squeeze. Um, so the setups there, it's just what might trigger that hair trigger to be pulled and it may maybe it doesn't get pulled. Maybe we get six months of sideways or a little grind higher, which is what I expect to see over the next few months at least while the market, you know, finds real support and resistance. But I do think the there's going to continue to be bid and not sold. Um, so who knows how the economy will shape up in the next three to six months. It's hard to say. It it is hard to say. And I also I appreciate the global perspective and reminding us that it's not all about the US and the West. I think that's really helpful. As we're getting to the end here, I know I have to get you back out on the show floor, but I'm trying to ask this question to everybody. I think it's a little bit of a fun one. If we look forward to 2026, what do you what would be your pick for best performing asset of the year? >> Oh boy, that's hard to say. I I still think gold and silver are going to do quite well. You know, if you look at uh a couple different things um how well precious metals have done this year in currencies around the world, you know, the Indian rupee has has uh lost more purchasing power to gold than any other currency and silver this year and that's helped to spur Indian buying. The dollar is number two for loss of purchasing power relative to me. So that's because we've seen the dollar down 10% this year. I don't see that trend. I I see this trend for metals going higher. Um I do think stocks, you know, could be vulnerable. Um in the US, I'm a little leery there. I do like the trend for gold and silver. You know, the last time we had the kind of gains that we have for precious metals on an annual basis going back to 1971 uh is 1979 when gold went up 126% in the US. It's up about 45% in the US now if I've got my numbers right uh for this year so far but to me this really feels like 1978 for the precious metals where the setup is in place uh we kind of kind of got a hair trigger on the markets but we don't have the catalyst that's going to really create that buying action in the US if we get a recession here we get lower rates here if we get fear in the US market that could be what turbocharges us to a real parabolic run that takes gold and silver substantially higher as well. Uh whether that manifests or not, we don't know, but I the setup is clearly in place now. And again, I've never seen a buying wave globally, broad-based and deep from countries that have a precious metals culture. We don't have that in our country. Why? Well, if you're in a country that has seen war on your shores or you've seen your currency fail, you have a precious metals culture. And what do we have? We have two oceans to protect us and we have the world's reserve currency. Um, we're not going to lose the world's reserve currency status, but we're losing trust in the dollar. And when we talked last time in July, we were talking about how there's been, you know, a bit of a repudiation of US treasuries by the by the world. And that's this is just this whole episode with India that's happened in the meantime is just another symptom of the world turning to the world's most trusted form of currency, safest form of currency in money, gold and silver. Uh which is something they can turn to because there's not a good alternative for the dollar. So I I think precious metals are going to continue to do well. Um how well they do is anyone's guess. I think we could see a real big run still ahead of us if things shape up the way I think they will. Uh, as far as other asset classes, you know, I'm a humble precious metals dealer for a reason. This is what I know. >> I could have been making you choose between gold and silver next year. >> Well, I I think silver is poised for a better run. And I do like platinum as well because both are in uh demands environments where there's not enough supply. And there's a case to be made for platinum because it's a jewelry substitute for gold. uh especially in Japan and China. And that's part of the reason platinum has taken off this year is because there has been a run into platinum for jewelry reasons in Asia. Uh and platium is not going to enjoy the same benefit to that. And one of the uh speakers here at the conference, Dave Colum, told me came by our booth today and he told me that I didn't know this that EVs um don't consume as much platinum as hybrid vehicles do. And there's a lot more demand for platinum for hybrid automobiles, which I think, you know, EVs are not going to replace the gasoline engine. They just can't scale them up enough. But hybrids are a great option if you want to have efficiency and power at the same time. And I didn't realize there was an a a need for platinum in hybrid vehicles. And that helps to underpin the the the case for platinum. >> Okay. Okay. Well, I think I think that it gives a good idea of your thoughts. Thank you very much. I think I'll wrap it up here unless you had any final thoughts to add. >> Uh I just we've never seen anything like it in decades, this physical wave of buying. And I really do think it's been a run on the bank and it's not over and it's going to continue. It's just how big of a run will we get? And um it's been an extraordinary year for precious metals. That's what's driven the price more than anything else. And that means the physical market is overtaking price discovery from the paper market. And this is where the rubber starts to really meet the road. >> Well, perfect place to end it. Thank you much so much for coming on to share. Always good to have you. >> Thank you, Charlotte. Appreciate being here. And once again, I'm Charlotte.