How To Play The Breakout In Gold & Silver | Andy Schectman

Summary

• Precious Metals Breakout: Gold and silver are experiencing a significant breakout, with gold reaching new record highs and silver futures surpassing $43 an ounce, marking a strong year for precious metals investors.
• Institutional Buying: Central banks and institutional investors are shifting from net sellers to net buyers of gold, indicating a strong institutional demand and a potential signal for further price increases.
• Market Dynamics: Despite the strong performance of gold and silver, mainstream media coverage is lacking, which could be a contrarian indicator of continued upward momentum in precious metals.
• Strategic Importance: The U.S. government has reclassified silver as a strategic mineral, potentially placing a floor under its price and highlighting its critical role in national security and industrial applications.
• Investment Strategy: Investors are advised to consider maintaining or increasing their positions in precious metals, potentially using options to hedge against volatility, while recognizing the long-term bullish outlook.
• Global Economic Shifts: The shift in gold and silver markets is part of a broader realignment in global economic power, with significant implications for the U.S. and its monetary policy, including potential changes in the role of gold in the financial system.
• Liquidity and Selling: Gold and silver remain highly liquid assets, with established mechanisms for selling, although future market conditions may affect the ease of transactions.
• Contrarian Indicators: The current market setup, with high public exposure to equities and low awareness of precious metals' performance, suggests potential for continued gains in gold and silver as contrarian investments.

Transcript

And we should be live. Welcome to Thal Money. I'm Thulful Money founder and your host Adam Tagert. Welcoming you back for another week, sorry, monthly session with precious metals expert Andy Shechman of Miles Franklin. He's here with me. Hey Andy, how you doing? Great, Adam. Thanks. Thanks for having me, buddy. Hey, look, um, not only do I just enjoy doing these monthly segments with you, Andy, but the feedback from the audience, uh, has been great. And actually, people have been clamoring to have you back on uh sooner than your normal monthly cadence, but we couldn't make that happen. So, I'm glad we're finally making it now on the I think it's been pretty much exactly a month since your last opinion, but but the performance of the precious metals uh has been now in full breakout mode. So, as you can imagine, lots of people curious to hear what does Andy think about this. So, uh, I titled this, uh, this video, um, how to play the breakout. And I'm curious, Andy, one, just your general thoughts. Um, I mean, I I think if I had told you at the beginning of this year, uh, how much gold and silver would be up um, by September. Um, I mean, I imagine you could have thought, yeah, that's in the realm of the possibility, but I think the realm of the possible, but I think you would have said, I I'd be shocked if the year was that good. And so, you know, every day now it's sort of like Christmas for gold. New record high, new record high, new record high. Silver futures on the day we're talking here are over $43 an ounce. Um, finally, it's it's just a bonanza year for for um precious metals owners. So, um I guess Andy, uh you know, is this what you've been waiting for for much of your career? And and how would you play it now, especially given how far the medals have moved so far this year? Uh, you know, I, as far as I'm concerned, we haven't really seen anything yet. I know that is hard for a lot of people to believe because the public is told that gold is risky, especially at these levels. But this is happening even as the central banks and the big money hoarded as a tier one asset. And look, when I'll break it down as simple as this, and we can get into the minutiae, but when the guys running the printing presses are the biggest buyers of gold and silver, this isn't speculation, but a signal. And more for more than that, and maybe what really I think pushes me over the edge here is that when the smartest institutional money here in the United States flips from net sellers to net buyers, you better pay attention. Um, the United States has been a net exporter of gold for as long as I've been doing this for almost 36 years. And all of a sudden, we're the largest importer of gold in the world. And the bottom line is you you shouldn't trust the government data to guide your moves in precious metals. Their incentives are to mislead you, not to protect you. That is incredibly true. But there is a million reasons in both gold and silver why I would argue this is just beginning. And I'm happy to go through every single one of them as we go through this. I honestly believe this is just beginning. And I know that sounds hard to believe. Um, but no, I I think yes, the performance has been spectacular. Both gold and silver approaching 40% for the year, the dollar down 11%. What's more startling to me above all else is is that you're getting nothing from the mainstream talking about this. And um that to me should should be a guy a guide to people saying well gez if it's performing that well in fact you know just one comment on that you take a look at the S&P 500 as an example which has had a massive run one of the biggest runs ever in the history of of of the market. And this comes in at the in you know in in light of the greatest tech boom since since the internet. And yet gold and silver have outperformed the the rise in the S&P by a four-fold increase in the last 6 months. So while the S&P is up like 1,600 points, it's only a 9% gain. Uh you're up 37% year to date, four times that of the S&P's return. Um this is the strongest rally in decades for the S&P. And yet gold's up four nearly four times the return of the S&P. And what's crazier to me, you know, amidst amidst this massive AI boom, biggest tech story ever, um, you know, the markets may be celebrating AI, but gold is telling a different story where the confidence in the capital are actually moving at them. And I I say, you know, where's journalistic integrity? You would think that gold reclassified tier one, massive inflows into the United States, becoming net importers, four times the performance of the S&P over the last really five, six months since 2023. Gold's up 100%. The S&P is up 67%. And where is why isn't the media screaming about this? Why isn't the media saying, "Oh, by the way, silver is really beating everything this year, including Bitcoin. And by the way, the US government just reclassified it a strategic mineral. What? The US government just put a floor under the price of silver for y'all. And uh if you don't understand that, then I think that this nonsense of it being too expensive and being too risky is exactly the narrative that the big money who is wickedly accumulating it wants us all to believe. Yeah, we haven't seen anything yet in my opinion, Adam. All right. Um Okay. Lots to get into there. I'm definitely going to ask you to expound on that last point about um silver being declared a strategic mineral by the US government. Um what exactly is a strategic mineral defined as? What benefit would you expect that to have for silver demand and price going forward? We'll get to that in a minute. Um yeah, I I mean like you Andy, um you know, we've we've talked about how the progression of the demand for the precious metals, gold in particular. Um you know, 10 years ago, nobody really cared that much. Central bank started buying, the um eastern investor started buying, the western investor still hasn't really showed up to the party yet. Um I think that shoe still remains to drop here. And to your point, right now, you know, media is pretty silent on this. Um, so it is a head scratcher. Another head scratcher for me is, you know, I remember the last time when gold um hit its its nominal all-time high. Um, you turned on a television and there were cash for gold ads everywhere. I I don't really watch TV as much anymore, but I'm not really seeing that on the internet. I'm not seeing, you know, all of a sudden the proliferation of billboards saying cash for gold. That's kind of a head scratcher for me. Do you have any opinion on that? I I would argue probably most of the public sold their gold a long time ago, those that wanted to sell it on the way up. Um it's it it's just been muted. You know, we we have this this entire um generation of investors who believe if if returns aren't triple digit, they're not worth your time. Um, and and you know, I get it with with the the return we've seen in Apple and and in and Nvidia and Bitcoin and and this massive tech boom. Um, you know, a a 30 40% per year return just isn't doesn't cut it. Richard Russell, my my mentor, God rest his soul, I I talked with him many times and he would say to me, Andy, if you make 7% a year, you'll go down in the investing hall of fame. The public is not paying attention to it. And at the same time, I would argue probably that those that needed to sell gold, look, these would have been the same people that would have said there's no way gold goes above $2,000. And once it did, it probably siphoned out the majority of the weak hands that wanted to let go of their jewelry uh or or whatever scrap gold that they had. Uh it's probably not really as lucrative of a business any longer at these levels. I doubt many people have much to sell anymore. So yeah, it is an interesting point for sure. Okay. Well, look, um, back to my original question, um, uh, about the breakout. Um, you know, I hear you loud and clear and I know the reasons why long-term, Andy, you think the price action's just getting started. Um for uh the people that owned gold and precious metals related investments coming into this year who are now all of a sudden, you know, up 37% on gold, 40ome percent on silver, probably tripledigit percentage uh on their miners. Uh GDX is is up over 100% so far this year. Um, I guess the question I'm I'm looking for you to shed some light on is is hey, is this it? Is this the watershed event? Is this where things just run away from here? Or, you know, will will this follow sort of general market dynamics where the metals make a huge move, then there's a pullback, then they make a big move again? Um, and it it sort of begs the question, if you think it might be more the latter, is it time to either consider um in precious metals investments, maybe not necessarily physical bullion that you own, is it time to maybe take some some gains off the table and lock them in or is it time maybe to put a hedge maybe on some of your mining positions? Um, what does your experience tell you? Well, my experience tells me the answer would be yes. uh on not so much on the physical side of things to take profits off the table. You certainly could. It's been a nice run. Um the mining shares certainly are are far more volatile. There's nothing wrong with putting some trailing stops, I guess, underneath your positions if they're up that much. The the leverage you get in mining shares is fantastic. It cuts both ways. However, um you know, you got to be weary of the guy who says this time it's different. But I will tell you it certainly feels that this time it is different. I mean I'll give you some examples. The United States being a net importer of metal uh has never happened before. Um an administration who continues to drop clues and hints that gold and silver are certainly whether it be reclassified as a strategic mineral or the comments uh Trump he who has the gold makes the rules descent being a self-proclaimed gold bug. We've talked about Judy Shelton, all of or Senator Lumis, all of the things about gold revaluation. The Federal Reserve just wrote a report on it. Um, everything that's happening with the bricks and and this is something that should not be overlooked and and they are massively um tied to gold. the fact that now the rumor about everything I was talking about with the expansion of the of the Shanghai Metals Exchange and the settling in in gold outside of the trading and local currencies over Embridge. They're now talking about the rumor is uh they will have a a gold denominated repo facility uh that the will be part of the Shanghai Metals Exchange where you will take gold and use it as collateral with metal held in the Shanghai Metals Exchange and in the series of vaults that are now being built all around the belt road. The next one is being built right now in Saudi Arabia which is very symbolic. um but using it as a repo facility for renimbeased loans where you know all of a sudden the Chinese and the belt road initiative who are trying to help build this ecosystem amongst all of these underdeveloped countries will take gold as collateral for loans for repo. Repo is typically associated with giving liquidity to to the worldwide market by exchanging treasuries for cash and then being able to buy them back at a at a later date at a higher price. If you can now switch that to gold, my point is is that I truly believe we are just getting started. I truly believe with the passage of the Genius Act and the passage of a a synthetic demand for US treasures, we have entered a new monetary system and gold will be part of it. silver will follow. Um, should you take profits? Sure. It's not a four-letter word. You certainly could. Would I personally? No, not yet. Um, because I've never seen a market that behaves quite like this one does with the fundamentals that are growing at the highest levels. And I guess what I would simply say is that when the, like I said, the people running the money printers are buying gold, the central banks, you should pay attention. when the most sophisticated institutional traders in this country go from net sellers to net buyers, you better pay attention. And it's just beginning. And then when the US government comes in and says silver's now a strategic mineral, that's just a floor been put underneath the price of silver by the US government and the massive imports coming into the United States. I would argue there's a floor under the price of gold. Ultimately, I think gold will be tied to a new system, a new monetary system. will be definitely tied to one in the global south and I think it will be tied to the Treasury market here. A floor underneath the price of gold. So in my mind, this time is different. There's nothing wrong with taking a profit, it means you've won. But I would say that I think this you'll look back at it. Um look, let me put it to this way. Goldman Sachs just came out and said if the Fed if the market even thinks the Fed loses any bit of its independence, you'll see gold at 5,000 like that. Does anyone really believe the Fed is independent anymore with Steven Mirren, the architect of the Miraago accord now being put into the Fed and the the pressure that Trump is giving and and all of a sudden they talk about bending to 25% or 50% drop tomorrow. The Fed has lost its independence, which is nothing new, by the way. You go back through history, the Fed and and the and the president have been intertwined more than you would think. Um they're telling you gold's going to go higher. And you look at a guy like Luke Groman who's as smart as anyone in this industry. He said, "Yeah, they're going to let gold much go much much much much higher slowly organically before they revalue it." So, I don't think we're even out of the second inning yet where this is going, Adam. So, if it were me, I wouldn't, but I wouldn't fault someone for doing it. Okay. Uh, inning number two. That's very helpful, too. Um, no, I get And Andy, you know, we've talked enough that um I I'm I totally get your your long-term view there, the logic of your long-term view, and I I share pretty much most of it. Just to be super transparent because I've I've been public on this on X. Um as an investor, when something moves very far, very fast, um it's always important to remind yourself that nothing ever goes up um in a straight line forever. And um sometimes it doesn't hurt uh to consider a taking some profits off the table so you can realize them, you can win as you said earlier. Um, but also, you know, just put put some insurance on the portfolio so that if if indeed there is a pullback or if things just go against your primary thesis, you've got a little bit of protection there that that perhaps lets you um uh you know have some some dry powder left over so that if there is a correction and and your your hedges pay off, now you've got some funds to then reinvest at better valuations to ride the longer term bull trend. So again, just full disclosure, that is conventional wisdom. I agree. Yeah. And and in my portfolio, I did put on a small hedge, so quite small relative to my overall position. Um I'm not going to tell folks exactly what it was. Um but it was more on the miners, not on the the the precious metals themselves. Um it was an options trade and so I've locked in my maximum downside. And to be honest, I hope I lose all of it. you know, the trade has been going against the metals have still been going up since I bought it, and I'm actually happy about that because I'm making a lot more money off of my core position um than I'm losing off of this cheap insurance that I bought. So, anyways, folks, it this is all everybody's personal calculus, but um you know, if you're sitting on some really big gains here, particularly in the minors, you you may want to consider a similar strategy. Now, Andy, on your um you know, we're only in inning two. We got a lot of uh a lot of opportunity ahead of us here. I mean, a lot of that opportunity is perhaps uh gold uh true price discovery beginning to happen in gold. And that might be assisted by repricing, you know, by the government at some point in time. And part of that is also just the loss of purchasing power in the fiat currencies from the deficit spending, the money printing, etc. I I'm I'm curious, finger to the wind, you know, if we're talking three years later from here and gold's at a substantially higher price, how much of that price action do you think is going to be due to true price discovery coming in here versus just the purchasing power of the dollar weakening? That's a good point. Well, because I think they'll both be at play because part of of what they I believe want to do is is greatly devalue the dollar in order to make uh manufacturing attractive again. And we've talked about that and make the debts easier to repay. Yeah. Correct. And and pegging the back end of the bond market to gold so they can bring back manufacturing at zero borrowing costs. The the Miraago accord speaks to a devalued dollar. And so I think a good portion of it will be devaluing the dollar. But let let's look at it from a standpoint of of price setting uh which is really I think part of the bigger picture to reach real price discovery when you have a market where price is discovered for example in London and or in the United States. This is the problem. Uh I think in that um the the LBMA and and and to a degree also the ComX have been setting prices for the entire world that have been massively rehypothecated. In other words, they sell the same paper over and over and over and over again fearing or or realizing that no one ever stands for delivery until they now are standing for delivery. And so when you see all of these these um exchanges being set up around the world in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, in in Shanghai, uh in in in Hong Kong, in uh Saudi Arabia, in in um Singapore, all around the world, these are exchanges where the people not only have been accumulating tremendous amounts, but they're the ones who understand it a lot better. These are mostly cash and carry markets. Ultimately, I could see a point where the LBMA is on the ropes. And I mean, I really do believe that the LBMA is on the ropes right now in many respects. the they they I mean there was just an article by a guy named Daniel senior commod at TT TD Securities, warning investors that silver appears to be entering the endgame of the current cycle as demand now driven by renewed uh investor interest eats away at the last dregs of above ground supply. In an interview with Kitco News, GI said the free floating stock piles in the vaults of the London bullion market could run dry within seven months if investment demand picks up. They actually only have about 1 day's worth of trading in silver right there. That's it. They have 140 million ounces of silver in London. Yet they're trading over 600 million ounces a day. They have 1 to2 billion in paper claims. ounces. 1 to two billion ounces of paper claims standing against 140 million ounces of silver. All of that metal has come back to the United States. And we were supposed to believe that it was under the uh the you know the opice of um tariffs. No, I said from day one, this has nothing to do with tariffs. They're reshoring it. The the LBMA is on the ropes right now. And in other words, price discovery has been a function of of of suppression by the west. I think there will come a point a few years from now where the price setting is done in the east and uh the comx and the LBMA are rendered um not the primary price setting mechanisms of the world. You could see a combination of both pushing gold and silver substantially higher. And if gold is pegged to a new system, which I believe it will, whether it be Treasury market here or backing a new settlement system in China and and the BRICS nations, there's a floor underneath that too. And so, yeah, I mean, I think it's both really, okay, and maybe equally. So, so many questions. You keep I have all these ones I want to go back to, but you keep asking great ones. Let me ask you this. So I understand um that you you um are concerned that the east is essentially going to eat our lunch uh in the bullion markets here for many of the reasons you talked about. I also want to note too in addition to kind of the bricks gatherings um they just had the SEO the Shanghai cooperation organization where kind of everybody who's not on team team America or team west you know got together um which definitely seemed to send a signal of real solidarity there so it I think that just sort of adds credence to your arguments there Andy but you know the the bullion is now making its way back into the US as you've just mentioned Right. Is there a chance the US may wake up to your concerns and say, "Hey, wait a minute. You know, we're just not going to roll over and lose this battle. Um, we're going to start trying to, you know, amass more of a bullion uh presence here in the States and we're going to maybe start putting some controls so that we don't just keep sending our bullion cheaply to to the east at any price. I mean, is there a potential here that we don't lose this because we wake up and realize this is a strategic game that we need to actually win? I think it has happened already. I think that this administration understands it. This is why I mean I live on a golf course in Boca Raton, Florida. And and if there were 4T of snow on my on the first tea box that I live on, I wouldn't ask my sister to send me my snowmobiles that are in her garage back up in Minneapolis because I would know it's an anomaly. And this is the exact same thing we are seeing right now. The amount of metal entering this country is an anomaly from anything that we have ever seen ever. I think someone got into Trump's ear and told him just that that this is exactly what is happening. And um so I don't know that they will eat our lunch, but I do believe what they will do and and they have been eating our lunch. And I think someone said to Trump, if you don't do this, if we don't do this, our lunch will be taken off our plate completely and totally. So I think it's happening. It's kind of a race right now. At the same time, you have, I think, a race between the industrials and the investors on ComX. And so there's all of these battles going on between the West and the East, between the investors and the and the and the industrials. I think it's just just beginning. And I think the price, look, let me explain something to you. Right now, as an example, in London, there is a between a five and a 6 and a half% lease rate on borrowing silver. Uh, and this just came out of Bloomberg. Bloomberg confirms the London one-year implied silver lease rate has blasted above 5%. While on September 4th, the JBMA, that's the Japanese Bullion Market Association, Brookke Bruce IIU reported a London one-month lease rate rocketing to an extraordinary 6.4%. Over the past two decades, silver lease rates have usually hovered well under 1%. Even in a tight physical market, they often speak spike into the 1.1 to 3% range. Briefly, this signals uh a a fatal shortfall in deliverable physical silver. Here's the interesting part. Bullion banks trapped by their own overleveraged promisary notes are unable to deliver on physical contracts may unleash true price discovery and the revaluation of real assets. That's coming out of Bloomberg. What what I'm basically saying to you is that there is a race right now going on for physical metal that has never ever happened. These contracts were always ways for countries to offset risk, to hedge, for miners to offset risk, to hedge, for companies like mine to offset risk and hedge. No one ever stood for delivery. And now all of a sudden, everyone, including central banks, are standing for delivery. It was always the the east. Now it's happening here, too. And there's a race. And the fact that it's all coming in here should tell everyone that that this is far bigger than we are being led to believe. Um, and it will be a battle. I really do think someone got into Trump's ear and said, "We need to do this. We need to do it now." And you can see it by the amount coming in. One other point, Vince Lansancy, one of the smartest guys in this industry, says 85% or more of the metal that is glowing around the globe is not being reported to the IMF. These countries, including the United States, do not want anyone to know just how much is coming in. And we continue to see countries be caught. Oh, sorry, we didn't report it, but the import export numbers flag it, whether it be Saudi Arabia or China, both last year were caught taking large imports in and not declaring it. Um, it there is a race going on right now and London is the epicenter of it. This Bruce Akamisu guy, the head of the Japanese Bullion Market Association, came out two weeks ago and said, "By the way, uh, London is trading 3 million ounces per day of deliverable platinum contracts. There's no platinum," he said, in loco Switzerland means location. Switzerland or London and yet they're trading 3 million ounces a day. What could possibly go wrong? The price setting that has happened in the west is being has been outed and will ultimately I think be neutered by the massive physical acquisition by not only the rest of the world outside of London but by the US too. And guys like uh Tom Luango say that the target is squarely on the Bank of England and the European banks that have these massive short positions. All of the metal coming back could have very easily covered the short positions by the US banks who when they short on Comx take a long position in London. They brought all that metal back and I would simply say fireworks are coming on both sides and and maybe that's why there's such a rush to get all this stuff in and to reclassify silver as a strategic element rather than just an industrial because we know just how important gold and silver are in the scheme of things moving forward. Okay, great. And I'm I'm chopping my way to that question about what exactly that means to be a strategic uh element. But real quick, for months Andy, you've been talking about how we've been seeing just unprecedented flows um of bullion into the country. Um a lot of that, as you've said, is coming from the LBMA into ComX and then people were standing for delivery on ComX. Has that trend continued unabated? Yeah. Okay. So, it's not slowing down by any noticeable amount. Absolutely. Um let me just see here the amount. um of silver that has come in so far this year. I don't know if I have gold yet, but let me see. Um the should take me just one second. I apologize. No worries. So, so far the amount of silver that's come in year 58 million ounces since late August, 10,550 tons year to date of silver. Uh, the amount of gold, I have to double check, but I will tell you that just in the first five days or so of the September contract, you had well north of $4 billion stand for delivery in gold just in the first five days. And so you're seeing billions and billions and billions and billions and billions every single month of gold and silver coming into the comx. A lot of it staying there. The the vaults are flush. A lot of it leaving. Just the fact that it's that it stays there does not does not indicate any it's not an indictment against it. It's just that these institutions are leaving it within the COMX in the eligible category, which means it's eligible to be sold, but registered means it is backing those contracts that can stand for delivery. So, yeah, these are the stuff that's coming back in is not really standing for delivery. It's sitting in in strong hands in the ComX ecosystem, which would be a Brinks vault in New York City or or uh um a Delaware depository. some of these large Comx vaults can safely store it for those who maybe it's a Tesla, maybe it's the US government, we don't know. That's another thing with all of this metal coming back with gold and silver outperforming every every asset including Bitcoin this year. Where's the journalistic integrity telling the American people that yeah, not only is gold outperforming all of this stuff amix amidst the the greatest run ever in in the S&P and the the AI boom, but who's bringing it all in? Why aren't we talking about that? So, that that level of of to me is is a contrarian indicator that it's much deeper than we are we are led to believe by the mainstream. if if you think it's setting up for a positioning for something bigger that might be announced. In other words, I think they know what's happening. Okay. So, thank you. I wanted to I just wanted to clarify that that this repatriation, if you will, of bullion wasn't a surge that we saw that's now over. It's ongoing as as you just confirmed for us. So to your point about how low the stores of silver are in the LBMA, gold I presume is also getting, you know, heading in the wrong direction. Platinum sounds like it's on vapors right now, vault-wise. Um, you talked earlier about how so much of the gold that's been in the LBMA and the ComX has been rehypothecated, meaning essentially there's multiple claims on it. So what would happen? you we we for years we've heard about people talking about um the the the comics being broken basically meaning like oh there there at some point there's going to be demand for all the gold that's there and then we're going to un reveal that oh my gosh it's promised to multiple different parties right sounds like that risk now is much higher at the LBMA if it were to happen at the LBMA and folks no guarantees it's going to but if that were to happen what would you expect the shock waves to um the bullion banks over there trapped by their own overleveraged promisary notes are unable to deliver on physical contracts. It would unleash not only true price discovery and maybe the real revaluation of of real assets. But these banks don't just trade in gold and silver. These these are like the Goldman Sachs of Europe. These are banks that that trade in everything. uh it would set off a systemic chain reaction and it could push prices of gold and silver parabolic because the truth of the matter is is that real price discovery hasn't been allowed to take place in gold and silver really maybe ever. It's beginning to because the only way that you can beat these players who have unlimited funds is to stand for delivery by players that have unlimited funds and that is what is happening. the institutions across the globe like all of the central banks are quietly and slowly standing for delivery. It would set off a chain reaction that would be um spectacular to watch. Not only could it bring down some of the biggest banks in the world. Uh it would push prices to levels that people can't imagine. And for people to think that can't happen, and I may have said this on your show before, or I'm not sure if I did, but I would urge people to watch the show between Chris Marcus and Arcadia Economics and Bart Chilton. He Bart Chilton also at right around the same time did the same thing with Andrew Maguire. Did I ever mention that on your show? Bart Chilton was a former director of the CFTC, which regulates the commodities. Yeah. Did I ever mention that on your show, by the way? You did mention, I think might have been the last time or the time before, but Yeah. Yeah. And and in it he basically says that a large reason why Bear Sterns went bankrupt is because silver went from from $21 to or from $12 to $21 and it they had a massive short position and it more or less buried them. So when you talk about this not happening, look, it could very well happen. And all it takes or or not even that, Adam, if one of these banks freaks out and says, you know, this is just killing us. we are getting destroyed by the by the price continuing to move higher and they break ranks and cover just like that boom the whole thing falls apart kind of like the London gold pool uh fell apart so I don't know I I think that for the first time in my career all of the rhetoric talking about that it seems as though not only does this administration understand it they're taking steps to protect the comx by stuffing the vaults and I do believe that there will be some sort of controls at the same time it would the target seems square on the Bank of England and the LBMA. So I think it would uh it would be something to to certainly behold not just in the gold market but the reverberations through much of the financial ecosystem in the west I think would feel the the fallout from that. Okay. So, um, in in a a situation like that, um, Mike Maloney, who I think you know, and he's he's another, you know, runs an online dealer. Um, he talks about a future moment where the world sort of wakes up to what we're talking about here. And he says when that happens, I hope I get this right. Uh he said um gold will be um oh shoot I forget what he calls gold. Um silver will be unobtanium meaning you just you gold will basically get so expensive you won't be able to buy it. Silver will get so expensive because you won't be able to find it. Yeah I agree with that. Do you expect some Okay. Yeah, I do agree with that. I mean, um, the big money Adam always positions itself ahead of the crowd and the the you can see the big money is doing exactly that. And I think that the fact that it continues to march higher is um is very telling without the public understanding. I want to read something to you that I think may help explain that moment, right? And it comes from all people, a central banker. And in 2023, I made a huge deal about this central banker and what he said. I'm going to read you what he said after I read you what was just quoted in investing.com about the Polish central bank and Adam Gleinsky, the head of it. You think about a moment that that could happen. Investing.com Poland central bank announced plans on Wednesday to increase its gold holdings to 30% of its reserve assets, aiming to strengthen the country's financial security in these difficult times of global turmoil and the search for a new financial order. Gold is the only safe investment for state reserves. Uh National Bank of Poland Governor Adam Kpinsky said in an emailed statement he is proposing a motion to the bank's management board about raising the reserve target for gold to 30% from 22. Here's what he said in in 2023 coming from a central banker. This caught my attention in a big big way. And he said, "Why does a central bank hold gold?" Because it retains its value even if someone cuts off the power to the global financial system that is largely based on electronic accounting records. Of course, we do not assume that this will happen, but as a saying goes, fortune favors the prepared and a central bank must be prepared for the most adverse circumstances. This is why gold has a special place in our currency management process. You know, he's basically saying, so something happens that blows up the the total financial system, whether it be some sort of a of a uh an outage uh with the grid or some sort of a EMP, I don't know what the hell he's getting at, but to hear a central banker say, "Yeah, a cyber attack. We we do because it's all based on electronic accounting records." I mean, come on. And that is true. Everyone's money is is in the cloud, right? That's why they own gold. So yeah, I think there there could come that time where something happens like that. And you know, the name of my podcast is little by little. It speaks to logarithmic decay. Little by little by little by little and bang, all at once. Where is that all at once moment? Is there an all at once moment? Sure could be. The biggest money in the world seems to be preparing for it, slowly accumulating it without anyone noticing. Well, they would do that before the all at once moment. You can see the little by little if you're opening your eyes to it. And when that all at once moment happens, yes, the market will be, and I've always said something similar to what Mike said, and I'm a fan of Mike. He's a smart dude. And that is that for people like um the outsiders, people not listening to this show, the market will be defined by the price being too high. Kind of the way that the public looks maybe at Bitcoin right now. For people watching this show, it will be defined by the inability to readily source product because there are two major mints in the in North America, US and Canada. The US has been nothing but the model of inefficiency for the last I don't know since 2008. Continually not meeting demand in an in an in in a period of time where less than 1 half of 1% of the public owns any. The Royal Canadian Mint fine a little bit better, but that's it. You have some refineries across North America. the majority of all the other gold is across the Atlantic. And once something wakes up the collective um wisdom of of the public or the collective conscious of the consciousness of the public, two precious metals just like that, the product disappears. We've seen it so many times like during the pandemic and premiums go parabolic, right? The ironic thing of all of it is that it's the opposite thing. Right now you have the largest exposure by the retail public ever in the stock market at about 56% ever. You have the highest le amount of leverage in option exposure ever by the public over $1 trillion. Same with margin. Yep. Yeah. And margin. And the same thing uh with option exposure. Options margin and allin on equity exposure as the insiders are selling and moving the other direction at the same time. the biggest money around the globe, the central banks, and now the institutional money here in the United States who are the smartest traders in the world are all importing gold and silver. What could possibly go wrong as the public has zero exposure to it and premiums are at the lowest level ever? It's the weirdest setup I have ever seen, ever. And I think it's a contrarian indicator to the nth degree of where things ultimately go. Okay. Um, real quick, folks, uh, I just want to give Mike full attribution here. He said gold would become unaffordium and silver would become unattenium. Um I agree if this event happens. And again folks, no guarantee this event's going to happen or happen in our lifetimes. I think Andy is getting increasingly concerned about the probability of it happening. But Andy, just to your little by little, your thesis for owning gold and silver isn't predicated on a breaking moment like that, right? In other words, you can make a good return on gold and silver just by the little by little appreciation that you expect to continue happening into the foreseeable future. Correct. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, gold's up 37% year to date. And but it's averaged 9.9% since the year 2000, which has beaten the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested, which no one ever does. If they reinvested their dividends the whole way up, gold still has beaten it. Um, and you know, since 2023, as I said, gold's up 100%, the S&P up 67% to mix the greatest tech boom ever. And so, when you talk about the fact that gold is the tortoise, doesn't get noticed the way the hair does, we have a whole generation of investors who think if there's not a triple-digit gain behind it, it's not worth it. So, yeah, I I do think that it has proven little by little. If if I were to tell you what is the ask you what is the best performing asset since 1971 when when Nixon closed the gold window most people would not think gold but it is number one the S&P 2 the Dow three and silver four so since literally for the past 55 years nearly gold has been the best performing asset cumulatively since that day and it gets zero attention but the central bankers they all own it they're all doubling ling down on it. They know it. And so you don't buy it to become wealthy. You buy it because it is wealth. And and that's the biggest issue in my opinion. Yeah. And you know, look at what they do, not what they say. Um I swear I'm getting to that silver um what does it mean to be a strategic uh mineral? Um, and and maybe I'll let you answer that right now. But real quick, a question to squeeze in right before it is how much of the activity in silver now that again silver futures are at about 43 bucks now at the moment we're talking Andy. How much of that is due to a short squeeze with the big players that have had short positions on it? Um, is that why it's moved so much or is that still a shoe to drop ahead of here if silver keeps rising? So I think that is an incredibly intuitive question that you've answer asked. Well, thank you. So yeah, because let's talk about that for a moment. Um speculators after months of of little bit of liquidation in the gold market where the speculators were taking profits and and gold kind of just chopped sideways, they are returning with massive open interest rising again in in the futures market. What open interest means is who's people are coming in to buy more open interest. They're buying more contracts and price is breaking out again as we see it nearing 27 or 3,700. This is the normal link between purchasing and higher prices. Okay. To your point and you're the first person who I've talked to in a while that's got this. No. And that is that the silver rally right now is is driven not by speculation, but I would argue this systemic short squeeze because you have record high lease rates. You have falling open interest, meaning the speculators are the hedge funds aren't buying. You have massive delivery demands, 58 million ounces since late August, 10,550 tons year to date. This points to a shrinking physical liquidity and mounting pressure on the market in London. London shows that they're trading 600 million ounces of silver a day representing between 1 and two million billion paper ounces claims claims 1 and two billion and they have 140 million ounce free float backing that 1 to two billion claims and 600 million ounces a day. So it really means that that London basically virtually has no free silver to meet rising investor demand and or back the billions of ounces in outstanding contracts. And with the lease rates at that level, it it's basically the risk of a delivery default in London is rising. And and that is the the point where I do believe that what you just said is is true that there are traders that smell blood in the water with silver and it is being pushed up because of the fall falling r um open interest more by short squeezing than by anything else. And uh you know silver h is something called a gifening good or gif and good means that as prices rise demand increases. That's kind of abnormal in in investing but it makes shortages even worse because as the price rise rises you'll get the industrials that say man we need to just jump on this now like Tesla because we need you know so much silver and the price keeps going let's just jump in. Yes. And so, yeah, really, really, really, really good question. And I would say gold's open interest is massive. That's the central bank. Silver open interest is falling a little bit, but the price keeps rising. That's a short squeeze. All right. Fascinating. Okay. Well, again, back to the question I've been trying to get to forever. Uh, so the US government just declared silver as a strategic mineral. You think that puts a floor under the price of silver? I do. What exactly does it mean to be a strategic mineral? and talk about the floor. Um, where do you think that floor is right now? Well, I mean, I think it means that big buyers are entering the market, including the US government. And again, companies like Tesla, they're going to be forced to st soon stockpile it, too. Um, because it is a strategic. It's just something that I think the government acknowledges that the the we need for national security, whether it be for its military components, whether it be for its um industrial applications in electronics and and electrical. Um it's an asset that is depleting in nature. It is falling from what for 5,000 years was 16 to1 and it is now 7 to1. It's falling, but it is indispensable. It is needed in so many things that it's there really is no substitute for it. This is one of it's called inelastic meaning um that that the price the the component of it is integral but the price isn't as important if you need a fifth of an ounce for a phone. It doesn't matter if the price goes to 300 bucks an ounce. The phone will just cost a little bit more but you need it. you compare it to what like a very elastic commodity would be. Think of like corn. Corn is very elastic because you can just plant more fields of it, right? Silver isn't because it's depleting in nature. And I think that's really the understanding here is that the government says, "Hey, in fact, the US government, they have a branch of the government called the US um geological survey um department. They came out a year or so ago and said that they believe that silver could be actually the one of the first elements struck from the periodic table of elements as it's disappearing in nature. So I think that's what it means. It's critical to the safety and security the future safety and security of the United States government. But countries like India and China have realized that a long time ago. This is why China, the second largest producer in the world, as I've been reporting for the last year, is flying all around Central America and and and all the way up to Mexico and buying Doré and concentrate. Concentrate being a byproduct of the mining process. Dory, a crudely refined bar before it's sent for pure full purification. Buying it and sending it back, paying double what the West will sending it back to China for refining. If they're the number two producer in the world, what the hell are they doing? Going out of their way to Central and South America to buy stuff that is not refined, pay double what the West will pay to ship it back and then refine it because they understand it's strategic. It is critical. And in fact, this was something that the folks in Canada noticed last year. They petitioned the government to call silver a strategic critical mineral, not an industrial metal. And I don't know how that played out, but I know they were talking about it a year ago. The US was just late to catch on. It is this administration who understands the significance of these precious metals not just for wealth but for the greater picture in terms of not only monetary uh reasoning but also um like silver which is one of the unique things about it. It's it's its plurality in uses monetary, industrial, strategic, military, etc. Um, critical and what it really means is my opinion is that the floor has been put under the price of silver and gold by the US government. I really do believe that. So, there's a chart I'm looking for and I'm not finding it here in real time. I've shown on the program before. it's electrical production capacity and it it contrasts China's with US's and um Europe's and US and Europe's they're they're basically flat lines and this goes over the past couple decades and China is almost a vertical line and China is is so far ahead of the West right now it's it's just ridiculous and I think they're adding a US's worth of electrical production every I 18 months. Um and so when you talk about a strategic asset um it's not just strategic you know kind of monetarily potentially but it's strategic because it's used in a lot of critical industry but I think you know the the the superpowers have realized look uh the the the supremacy of the future is going to be dependent upon who's got access to the greatest amount of the cheapest energy and particularly electricity production as we get into the age of AI. high, right? So, presumably that could be a big answer to your question, Andy. That's why they're willing to scour the world for these unrefined products and pay double for them because they've been heavily investing in their energy grid. The US has said now said, "Look, we're going to catch up. We we we we've got to win this war." So, presumably, uh that is going to be extremely pro price of silver, too. Correct. Yeah. 100%. And this is when you will see investor demand and industrial needs collide. Um the market will face I think that moment where there is a battle between the hedge funds and and the industrials which will massively add fuel to the fire because the realization will be that that's exactly what is happening. And when you see the amount of silver coming in in in the first week of the September contract, as an example, we saw literally um almost almost well over $2 billion worth of silver come delivered into Comx in just the first couple of days of this last week in the September contract. And again, what did I say? How much has come in so far this month? It was um so far this month, the first week, because I didn't get the numbers yet for this week, 52 million ounces were delivered on COMX of silver. So 52 times, you know, your $2 billion right there. So um every s that's just one week with with three weeks worth of data left. This is every month. So someone or some entity with a whole heck of a lot of money is saying, "Yeah, we want the physical. we don't want your paper promises anymore for these reasons. Now, is it an industrial? Is it a is it a government entity? Is it an investor? So, is it it, you know, is it someone that needs it like Tesla or Panasonic or Sony or whatever? Or is it is it someone uh who says, uh, you know what, we're going to stockpile this. See, the US government got rid of its strategic stockpile ages ago, and they've always had to go into the open market to buy silver, even to make silver eagles. So that I think it's a realization that in the end it's about having the tools as you mentioned to further your society. China's realized that for a long time they play the long game and they've been buying this stuff stock but they've been producing gold and silver even when it was uneconomical for years using their trade imbalance because they understand in the end he who has not just the gold and silver but all of the things that's why China bought the LME the London Metals exchange all the base metals they own it and they're warehousing these metals they're building warehouses all throughout China that store the metals on the LME that's why the whole premise of the belt road initiative is partnering with countries that are resourceri and underdeveloped. We will develop your country. We will build the infrastructure. We get a piece of what comes out of the ground. And now we're we're making it so you can go back and forth on not only on transactions using the bridge technology which is being rolled out to them which settles in 7 seconds outside of the swift at a 98% reduction in fees. You can settle in balances in gold or you can take your gold that you pull out of the ground all throughout Africa. You can put it into a vault that will soon be in all of the countries around the belt road as collateral for renimbased loans like a repo. And so we are getting to a point where gold and silver and commodities are becoming far more important than the paper that has been used to purchase them and to value them for a very long time. the folks in other parts of the world see this clearly. the insiders here I think now see it when will that trickle down to you and I and the rest of us um don't know I mean people watching your show probably have a better idea but the people who we call friends and family who are very well read and very intelligent arguably just read the wrong stuff and they are being misled and misdirected with the public who's all in on margin all in on leverage uh on options and all in in stocks as the insiders go this way and gobble up physical assets sets. It's classic misdirection. It's the art of war. They're winning. Thank God someone in this administration, in my estimation anyway, clued in this uh President Trump and this administration to the importance of getting on the bandwagon. Okay. All right. Well, look, we're we're coming up near the end of the hour here, so I want to start trying to land the plane a little bit. Um there are a few topics that I I think we're just going to have to revisit uh because they and I have no time constraints. I know you might, but I don't. So, as long as you want to go, let's do it. Oh, thanks. All right. You're making me the the villain here. Um because I haven't relatively soon. No, I I have another interview coming up uh with Sven Henrik, by the way, and I know folks are excited to hear from him. It's been a while since he's been on the program. Um All right, Andy. Um so, one of the ones I think we'll punt, um unless you've got a short answer to it, is the significance of the Genius Act. You mentioned it very briefly early on. Um I guess why don't we just go there real quick? Um, so Genius Act is really about helping stable coins thrive. Um, how do you see that? It's not it's nowhere near that. I think what it is, it's about providing synthetic demand for the US Treasury, right? That's what help them thrive so that they can then buy treasuries. But but tie that back to to to gold then. Well, I I just think that what it really means is is that the world is dumping US treasuries. there's far less demand for US treasuries and the the US government wants to in essence it's almost like yield curve control. They want to hold the front end of the market low interest rates to finance the the workings of the government giving it synthetic demand by the purchase of these stable coins. It goes handinhand with my bigger picture and I'll try to do this in in one minute and that is you let gold you revalue gold. You let it go much higher first and then revalue it to a level that massively devalues the dollar. That's what revaluation of gold is. It's to devalue the dollar. You peg it to the back end of the bond market so that you can have zero borrowing costs on on your longdated treasuries to bring back manufacturing and with a massively devalued dollar, you can sell your products to the world. And in essence, it is a part of a process of of defaulting on the world reserve standard. Not defaulting period, but defaulting on us being the solo the world reserve. It's something we can't do anymore if we want to have strong manufacturing and we must have strong manufacturing. So you devalue the dollar, you peg gold to the back end, bring ma bring back manufacturing at zero borrowing costs upfront and then you um you sell your goods to the world at a massively devalued dollar. That's what it's all about. So, if you're going to have zero borrowing costs, you know, and it's going to be about gold, how do you finance the government? Well, you call it the Genius Act. And all of these stable coins will finance the government because they're all buying US treasuries that no one else wants to buy. I think it's it's it's interesting. They call it stable coin. Stable coin backed by US debt. Not real stable, but a a interesting plan to find demand for a diminishing demand um vehicle. That's critically important. Um, you know, interesting. Uh, I So, we're hearing news that stable coin, existing stable coins like Tether and whatnot are actually starting to buy precious metals. Um, so they they very, it sounds like the intent is for them to become a very important marginal buyer of treasuries. Do you see them potentially becoming increasingly important buyers of precious metals over time? Absolutely. And and mining companies, too, they're talking about. But why would that help the US government? Oh, that's right. We're going to peg it to the bond market. We're going to let it go higher. So, the demand coming from all of the If you buy treasuries, it's lowers interest rates. You buy gold, what pushes up the value of gold and further devalues the dollar. It's genius. I mean to no pun intended, I guess. Pun intended. It is genius. Diabolical maybe, but genius. Synthetic demand. So yes, I think it will it look I think the folks at Tether were probably given, you know, a talking to by the powers that be and say, "We're going to give you a ticket to to, you know, unlimited riches, but here's what you're going to do. You're going to peg these with not only um US treasuries, maybe with Bitcoin and with gold because these are the things that we want to do to not only devalue the dollar, to back the Treasury market, and to pay off our debt." 100% they already do own gold and now they're looking at buying gold mining. They'll continue to buy gold. The price of gold will continue to rise because that's what the US government for the first time wants and that's part of their plan I believe. Yeah, good question. Okay. Um we're going to end with a user question here. Um I'm going to squeeze in one before Andy which is just kind of back to asking you about how to play this breakout in gold and silver. You know, what I'm hearing from you is um ride it. Um if you uh want to, you know, maybe take a page from Adam's book of you've got some really big gains, maybe particularly even on the mining side, which is a lot more volatile, you want to buy some cheap insurance in case there's a pullback at some point here. Um not a bad thing to do, but just don't get shaken out of your core position because you believe you think that's going to keep on rising for a long time for all the reasons you just mentioned. Um, for somebody that doesn't have any exposure to the precious metals, my guess, and correct me if I'm wrong here, you would say just hold your nose and buy in. Get your get your foot in the door, get an initial position there, and then I presume you would say just for both parties, existing holders and uh, and newbies, as long as it's not like, you know, a dangerously large percentage of your overall portfolio, just keep dollar cost averaging in. I know that you your father started that with you and you still do it to this day. Correct. Yeah. I've been buying every two weeks for 36 years is the greatest gift I've ever been given. The the the gift of not only letting compounding of time be my friend. Um but but also to pay myself, my future self, pay myself first. That the concept of cost averaging is the only way to smooth out uncertainty. And so yes, I do it. It's just get on a regimented path because if I'm right on this and I do think I am again, you know, either I'm stupid to say it publicly or I'm on to something. I don't know which one. One or the other. But I do believe very much so that gold and silver are now taking on a new role in this country. Um and they'll continue to go higher in the face of a devaluing dollar. So yes, I I'll say it the way Rick Rule does. If you save in dollars, you're destined to go broke. If you are not a contrarian, you're destined to become a victim. I believe that completely and totally. So, the worst thing you can do is to keep your assets in US dollars. And to your point of of putting something out there to protect yourself, trailing stops are usually things that can kick you out of your position, but doing what you did is a little bit more sophisticated, but also maybe smarter, and that is to buy some, you know, some options that allow you to protect your downside. And the maximum risk is the cost of the option, nothing more. Not a bad plan, not a bad strategy. But yeah, cost averaging will make this a a way for you to continue to accumulate and and smooth out the uncertainty of of markets that do not always just go straight up, of course, but we'll have pullbacks. And uh that's that's sound advice as well. Well, thanks. And and just on that point, if if you're interested in perhaps exploring, you know, an an options hedging strategy, but you've never done it before, highly recommend that you get the help of a financial adviser who is well practiced in them and they can show you how to do it. Um, you're more than welcome to talk to one of the ones that thoughtful money endorses. Uh, there's the URL, thoughtfulmoney.com. Just fill out the short form there. Tell them you want uh some help on understanding options. They'll happily sit down with you, explain it all for free. There's no expectation or commitments involved. They'll just do it to help you out. Um Andy, I lied. Two more questions for you, not one. Um got it. This fellow asked, of course, I just lost it now. Here we go. Um John asks, "How hard will it be to sell gold when the need comes?" And several people said, "Hey, that's actually a really good question." So, we're at some point in the future. uh whether you just need to sell because you're you're at a life stage where you got to start unloading um or Andy Sheckchman comes on and says, "Hey everybody, you know, we've had the big event I was expecting. I think gold, silver may have a rockier ride ahead of it uh and therefore it's time to start taking some of your winnings off the table. H what will it be like to sell? Will you just have eager buyers everywhere? Uh you know, what's the best?" And here's a good question. just practically what's the best way to sell? Is it is it to uh trade with somebody else? Somebody mentioned, well, you'll just, you know, buy a house with gold. I mean, you could do direct trade like that if someone's willing to accept it. Or is it better to to go to a professional dealer like your organization? Well, I mean, I think it gives you options when others don't have any perhaps. Uh it it is incredibly liquid. It always has been. It's very easy to sell. I I think it could get to a level where selling it, you'll see where coin shops, local coin shops go out of business because it's too expensive, too expensive to keep to ensure that your shop just by inventory alone. Oh, interesting. Um, you know, but but I think that you would have um uh with a company like ours, it would be incredibly easy. We make it very easy. We lock it in. We send you FedEx air bills. You ship the stuff back. We wire the funds immediately as soon as it it comes in. It's been money and wealth for 5,000 years. There'll always be demand for it to some degree. Um, with major dealers, I could see it the availability of people who have enough money like like Mike Maloney says um you know what did he say? Unaffordium. You're going to have to deal with major players. But, you know, it's very easy. We can buy back any amount very easily on a handshake. Snap, lock it in, send you the FedEx air bill. ship it back and it's done. Um, it's not hard at all. It will be easy to to sell. So, um, but maybe not as many people will have the funds to to buy it. So, this is one of the benefits of establishing a relationship. So, you know, people who are buying gold bars at Costco, you can't sell them back through Costco. You never realize how important a relationship is, Adam, until there is a need or a problem. And that's one of the things we're very strong about developing relationships. So, and and so you call me, look, if you called me, Adam, and said, "Hey, I need to sell." Bang. I would lock in whatever amount you want. Send you an invoice. I would send you with it a FedEx air build with insurance put on it. You go to FedEx with the box. You You don't even have to tell them what's in there. We've insured it. Gets back to us the next day overnight, and we then wire your funds or send you an overnight check. That's how it's always worked. All right. And let me ask you this question, Andy. So for years, many years before I met you, you know, I would encourage people to buy at least some of their gold bullion from a local dealer for that relationship reason. And part of the logic was um you want to have a relationship with a gold dealer because there are going to become periods of time when inventory is going to become tight and the dealer is not going to be able necessarily to fulfill every transaction. And so you want to have a relationship really for two reasons. One, if if he's got limited inventory to sell, hopefully he'll prefer to sell to you because you're a valued customer he's been doing business with over the years. And when you go to sell, if you're selling your product back to the same dealer you bought it from, he's going to trust it and he's going to be willing to take it back from you. There's not going to be any issues about provenence or or, you know, quality, integrity of of the metals, etc. So, do people do those benefits extend to working with a firm like Miles Franklin? Yeah, we guarantee the highest bid price in America if purchased through us. Always have, always will. And I think they do. I think relationships, you know, we've gone so far astray from relationships in a world that is so impersonal with big box stores and emails and texts. Um, I'm old school. We've always been old school. This is why we don't really we have a very small capability of purchasing online but we do everything through relationship and I will tell you it is my honest to god opinion that gold belongs in an analog world not the digital world and I think relationships are far more important in this respect than than it sounds at first blush and yeah for my clients who all my clients have my cell phone number including those of yours that I've worked with personally And accessibility is something that's very important to me as is maintaining, you know, these relationships. God, God forbid that you get people coming back to you and saying, you know, he didn't treat me well. We go out of our way to establish relationships and make it good. And that's why I'm so proud of the fact that above all else, you know, I'm proud of raising my children. I'm also proud of the fact that in 35 years, I've never had a customer complaint. It's like another child to me. my business, which is something that means the world to me, is something that we've taken great great care of. And the people that have been kind enough to work with us, have never seen fit to issue any legitimate customer complaint ever. And that's because relationships make the world go round. And I think people forgot that along the way in a world that has become rather impersonal. And uh so yeah, to me, it's everything. And we will always go out of our way to help your your people. We will always guarantee them the highest bid price in North America. Period. I will say that right here in front of you. I will always guarantee the highest bid price. And we've never had a problem meeting that ever because I can see through what's called the um the certified exchange, the uh CE, I forgot the acronym of it, but it's there's there's 1500 dealers. I can see all the bid prices that all the dealers are bidding. And we always are the highest bid price in America. Always. So, um, that's an easy one for us. All right. Well, well, well, thank you and and I I really do very much appreciate and it's turning into kind of like a love fest right here, Andy. But, um, uh, you know, since you've started coming on this channel as Thoughtful Money's endorsed, um, officially endorsed precious metals provider. um you know a fair amount of people have have gone your way and the feedback that I've gotten from them in terms of the quality the high quality of the service and the high personal touch um has has made me feel extremely uh good about this relationship and and I'm okay with love fest by the way you we can love fest all all hour if you'd like but I'm I'm okay with it but you know again and I I try to be sincere I'm not the smartest guy in the world I work real hard not only to find information to talk about but also to maintain that level of of of trust with with the people that do business with us and and respect and and availability. So, uh no one's perfect. We try our best, but yeah, there is something to be said for a relationship. It's very important to I think where we are going. Yeah. And and I think folks, a good just primary evidence of this is Andy comes on the channel every time I ask him to do so. No questions asked. When he comes on, he's like he is today. Hey, you need me to go long? I'll go as long as you want. Right. I mean, you really just make yourself fully available to your partners. Um, it it has been a bit of a love fest, too, in the comment section, Andy. I'm I'm guessing you haven't had much of a chance to look at it because I've been throwing all these questions at you, but I can't see it. I see you on the monitor that I look at. I can't see any of the questions. I'll watch it later this afternoon. Okay. Well, here's here's one saying Andy Sheckchman for Treasury Secretary. Um, somebody said a nice thing about me for doing so many of these uh these videos, Colin referring to me as the Cal Ripken um of uh of podcasting, which that's a record that will never be broken. By the way, Cal Ripken's record of consecutive starts will never ever be broken. I'm a big baseball bobo. Yeah, he was phenomenal. So, I mean, look, I'm no Cal Ripken, but even just the comparison is a huge honor. Um, uh, so anyways, Andy, thank you. Folks, I do want to note too, I did see some back and forth going there in the comments. Um, little bit of bickering between the gold and the Bitcoin crowd. Um, maybe we can talk a little bit about this next time, Andy, but just hey folks, end of the day, if you're on team Sound Money, you're part of the same family. Um, you know, let's let's let's make sure that we're Can I have 10 seconds to address that? Yeah. 10 seconds. This is why I brought Michelle McCory on board because we see the world the same way. We both go into the same door because we see the world the same way. And to be mutually exclusive of one another is silly. It's as silly as a mud wall. Not only is your understanding of of monetary history and the problems that are facing this country better by having exposure to the both. Your portfolio is a hell of a lot stronger by having a sampling of both. It doesn't need to be one or the other. And that is the mistake that both crowds are making. Not just the hard money, but also the Bitcoin. let's just be tolerant and and complimentary to each other and you'll be a lot better off. And my theory is you take some of the profits of your Bitcoin, you put it into gold, you leave your Bitcoin there. Every time it gets up by 10 or 15%, take some off, put it into gold and silver, leave it there. Goes up, take it. The point is is that it doesn't have to be one or the other. You're a whole hell of a lot better off on every metric by having some of both. And if one goes to the moon, I guarantee you the other one will follow it, cuz they're both going up, not in and of themselves arbitrarily, they're both going up in the face of a dying dollar. That's why I think they're both a lot better to own together instead of fighting with one another is silly. All right. Thanks. Um All right. So, just in wrapping up here, um Andy, for folks that, um would like to get some guidance or actually get some product uh from your company, I just want to make sure I put up uh the call to action here, but basically miles.com. Yeah, info@ milesfranklin.com. There we go, folks. Right there on the screen. You fill that out, the email will go to Andy directly and or Andy and his team, and one of them will get back to you right away and handle. Make sure they put in the subject line or in the body of the email where they've come from. It's very important that we track that. Any questions you have, nothing's off limits. If you just want our price list, now one comment on the price list, we try and update it two or three times a week. It'll be amongst the best in the industry. If you find better pricing, let us know. We usually can match it or beat it, but it'll be amongst the very best in North America to begin with. Or any questions, if you want to be contacted, please put your phone number down. Last thing, if you don't get a response within a few hours, please check your spam. One out of every 20 of these will go into a spam filter coming from a corporate server like ours. But, uh, any questions, just want the price list, precious metals, IAS, anything you've heard here or questions directly from me, please let us know. Make sure you put that it came from from this podcast and uh, we'll we're more than happy to entertain any questions. All right. Thank you so much, Andy. Last folks, just in closing up here, um please let Andy know if you want to have him continue coming on every month like this, um please vote for that by hitting the like button and then clicking on the subscribe button below as well as that little bell icon right next to it. And in addition to emailing Andy there at info@mfranklin.com. Just a reminder that our uh fall online conference is coming up pretty fast now. It's really just a little bit more than a month away. It's going to be Saturday, October 18th. Uh if you can't watch live, don't worry. Everybody who registers will get sent a replay of the entire event, all the presentations, all the live Q&As's. Um Andy is going to be one of the featured speakers there, so we'll get his latest and we'll also do some pretty liberal live Q&A with him. Then um we will also have um a lot of great folks on there. You've heard me talk about them. Um Lacy Hunt, Jim Grant, Judy Shelton is going to be there. Uh Darius Dale, Michael How, Sven Henrik I just mentioned here. Uh Lynn Alden's going to be on as well, Stephanie Palmboy, Grant Williams, few other names I haven't mentioned yet, but it is just a murderer's row of uh some of the top minds in macro in the markets coming at a time when we're heading into a very uncertain year. So anyways folks, if you haven't yet registered for the conference, go buy your ticket now at thoughtfulmoney.com/conference. Annie, my friend, thanks so much. Another great uh discussion with you. Um, again, just value your your insights, your expertise, but also just your partnership. You're a great man to work with. Couldn't couldn't feel echo echo your sentiment uh any more than than you just did. And thank you very much, and I'll look forward to picking up where we left off um somewhere real soon. But hope you and everyone else stays well and and thanks for letting me be here today. All right. And everybody else, thanks so much for watching.