Silver Squeeze? What’s REALLY Happening Behind the Scenes | Stefan Gleason
Summary
Silver Breakout: Guest is bullish on silver due to inelastic supply and demand, citing momentum indicators and potential for a sharp move, even supporting a call for $200 silver this year.
Supply Chain Bottlenecks: Real bottlenecks are at refineries and mints, with the U.S. short on silver refining capacity and private mints backlogged, while COMEX remains supplied for now.
Global Dislocations: London and Asia are tight on silver with higher premiums, COMEX trades at a discount to London/Asia, and logistics costs prevent easy arbitrage.
Retail Dynamics: Avoid high-premium U.S. Silver Eagles; better value is in bars, rounds, and Maple Leafs, as premiums on government coins can swing widely with cycles.
Critical Minerals Policy: The U.S. critical minerals designation should speed permitting and could spur investment, but tariffs on needed silver make little sense; China’s export controls and dominant refining capacity add friction.
Gold Outlook: Gold remains stable with strong availability and steady retail activity; no signs of a “gold squeeze,” though price action has been constructive.
Platinum & Copper: Platinum shows silver-like supply/demand dynamics but remains a small retail market; copper interest is rising, with best value in pre-1982 pennies versus high-premium minted copper bars.
Risk Indicators: A true squeeze would show up as dwindling exchange stocks and industrial users bypassing exchanges; current tightness is more acute outside the U.S.
Transcript
Gold, silver are rallying, reaching all-time highs pretty much every single trading day. But what is really happening behind the scenes? Meaning, what does the supply chain look like? Is there really a silver squeeze going on? Is there a shortage of metals in general? I've invited a fantastic guest to take a look under the hood. It's Stefan Gleason. He's the CEO of Money Medals. They're a sponsor of this channel, but I'm really excited to have him on cuz he's going to give us a perspective that barely anybody in the US or in the world can share with our audience here. I really want to know what is happening. Is this a squeeze or is it just something, you know, benign, meaning a supply chain issue. So, I'm really curious what he has to share with us. But before I switch over to my guest, hit that like and subscribe button. It helps us out tremendously. We much much appreciate the support because we do want to reach 100,000 subscribers by the end of this quarter. And with your support, we can do it. So, thanks so much for doing that. Now, Stefan, it is great to welcome you back on sore financially. Thanks so much for joining us. >> Yeah, it's great to be back, Kai. Thank you. >> Yeah, really looking forward to this, Stefan. I've been thinking about this for weeks now that to get you back on because I'm really curious what is happening in the precious metals markets, silver in particular. And uh maybe we'll start right with silver like is there a short squeeze going on or what is happening behind the scenes? there. It's very complicated, but I first of all, I say it's total pandemonium right now in the retail market and it's it's pandemonium both on the selling people selling their their gold and particularly silver, but also buying and we're seeing levels of demand that we have not seen since COVID and and actually exceeding that last month in the last three or four weeks uh on the retail side. So, with prices, we've seen a lot of interest come into the market on the retail side. uh new new investors primarily and and older longerterm investors. Some of them are taking profits and you know you really can't blame them. Silver's gone up threefold in the last 12 months. There's been a lot of frustration and impatience over the years. And so I think folks are you know reasonably taking a little bit of money off the table but at the same time that's more than being replaced by a lot of new people coming in seeing the headlines. And so we're seeing lots of dislocations across the globe when it comes to silver supply in particular. uh Asia and London very tight in terms of and that's reflected by the high premiums that you're seeing in those markets. But on the whole yet in the US we're not seeing a shortage of metal per se where we are seeing uh some minting issues. We're seeing backlogs processing uh queue issues but we're not yet seeing a shortage if you will. Um although it you will see lots of products out of out of stock particularly across uh the my competitors. Money Metals is very well stocked on just about everything right now and that has to do with the way we manage our inventory and the capital we have. But there are real issues developing in terms of getting minted product. But the the raw metal at least in the US is not in shortage at least if you're trying to get thousand ounce bars for minting. That's still uh very much available. But you do see supplies dwindling on the exchange as well. And so you know we could be seeing an issue at the deep uh commercial level at some point too. >> Yeah. No, really, really good overview. Of course, I have lots of follow-up questions for you, Stefan. Maybe we'll stay on the supply side and I think the minting issue is an important one because we've just seen I think it was last week the US mint stopped the sales of American Eagles if I'm not mistaken. So, um I'm curious what what do you make of that and maybe elaborate a little bit what what's the minting issue that you're describing there? >> Yeah. Okay. Well, starting with the the US Mint. First of all, this is a government and it may be one of the worstrun government mints, you know, and it's government to begin with and it's a badly run government mint. Um, and so what happened there was not a shortage of the bullion eagles. It wasn't a shortage of metal. It was basically mismanagement on their website. You know, they have these high premium proofs and burnished coins. you know, they silver has moved up so fast uh that, you know, the proof eagles, silver eagles that they were selling for $95 on their website suddenly were at spot and there, you know, they intended those to be sold at, you know, 100% over spot, you know, with a nice certificate and a box and, you know, you know, that kind of thing. So, they of course as a government can adjust quickly. In a real business, you would adjust pricing very quickly. you wouldn't have an issue. But, you know, they have to go into meetings and do memos and get approvals and, you know, rulemaking or whatever the process is. So, they just had to stop selling because, well, I think they started selling out, but also people were realizing, hey, these proof coins are at spot. So, um, I think they've now relaunched those products. These are the products you can buy directly to from the US Mint, which are really the products you should not buy as an investor, maybe as a collector or as a gift. You might want to buy those things one at a time. They're nice presentation, different interesting stuff, but at the end of the day, um, you know, they've now repriced everything about 100% higher and so now you can buy a proof silver eagle for $170. Uh, again, don't buy more than one. Maybe a nice gift, but not something to put real money in. So, there isn't a real shortage of even US minted bullion eagles right now at the moment. That they are producing those, distributing those out through the wholesale market. Uh but the US men is not really a good bellweather for what's happening in the retail market because we have over the years we see them cutting production when demand is higher, raising production when demand is lower, it causes big yo-yos in the premiums of these bullion uh eagles and items. So, uh, one of the reasons we we strongly encourage people to avoid these government minted coins, particularly the US government minted coins, >> they're often a really bad value, uh, because it's so poorly run and it's just distorted, uh, pricing and so forth. So, you know, we we say, you know, buy a bar or buy a silver round or buy, you know, Canadian maple leaf or something like that. Try to avoid the US silver eagle, at least in quantity, if you want a good experience. And and you know what ends up happening is you know the the premiums on those go to 10 20 you know $20 over spot on the bullion ones and then at at times when the market turns the premium comes way down and people get upset because they bought this thing at $20 over spot and they're being offered spot when they sell it back because the cycle turned and and those swings are just much greater in that product than say a silver bar. So that's my thought on that. But in terms of minting in general, so the market was very slow uh really the last two years because there had been so much selling back especially of of gold and you know initially and then in the last few months 6 12 months ago silver started we started seeing a lot of silver being sold and so the mints had nothing to do because there was so much secondary market out at least in the US there was so much secondary market metal that it was the wholesale market and the retail market the wholesale market the supply chain was priced lower than the cost of newly minted uh products. And so mints, private mints, had very little to do, laid off staff. A couple went out of business and, you know, slim down their available silver in in their in their system. So, they're not ready to flex up if something happens because they didn't want to tie up a bunch of capital for for silver that's not turning over very fast. Um, there's not as much gold minting in the US uh privately, but mostly a silver story. So then suddenly in October the market turned dramatically and and then even more in the last four weeks and so all of these mints completely flatfooted don't have silver in their in their mint takes couple weeks few weeks to get it off the exchange to get it delivered. Uh suddenly they have to hire up shifts. So it's it's a very very difficult business to be a mint. And that's really what we're seeing at the moment is a lot of our competitors are having trouble getting mints to produce enough to keep them stocked. And so you're seeing premiums go up. you're seeing a lot of stuff out of stock out of stock in a lot of dealers, but um you know that's not unusual given the major change in in in demand flows at the retail level in such a short period of time. Now whether that persists you know I think I think we may be in a new major growth phase for retail demand here in the US and you know these mints are probably going to be expanding and and hopefully they'll be able to you know meet the demand. >> No, absolutely. No, it's it's it's fascinating because I think the market wasn't fully aware of that because I always hear short squeeze, short squeeze. What does that mean? It's like, well, um then there was the London Bullion Bank issue as well where they couldn't deliver. I think it was just a supply chain issues like you sort of said and uh >> not so much in London honestly. There is a real there in London there's a real there is tightness of metal um and and a lot of it was getting drained out. Some of it got drained to the US early in the year as people were front running the tariffs and the and there was a premium in New York and a discount in London and that drew metal to New York. So the comx got more metal in it. It got up to 530 million ounces or something like that of silver. Um whereas the de the float in London was declining um from that and then everything flipped and the the demand started the the the tariff thing was resolved and the premium uh in uh in New York came down but then suddenly demand got very high in Asia and China for silver, India and and other parts of the world that drained London from the other side. Um and so London is actually have and then meanwhile ETFs source a lot of their metal in the London market and the ETF inflows from investors particularly on the silver side have spped up a lot of that extra metal in London. So there are bonafide uh tightnesses in London, no question about it. And also in Asia um and that's you know so so you are seeing these dislocations and New York is currently trading at a 50cent discount to London and probably $2 or $3 a discount to Asia. But in order to close that gap you have to transport the metal and that's logistic costs and so forth. So these dislocations are real. they are causing supply issues in different parts of the world. Um I would say it's mostly a story outside of the US at the current at the current time. >> Okay. Now we'll come back to the tariffs. I want to sh table that. I want to I don't want to move too far away from the supply side that we just started discussing as well. Um because we have I want to go through with you through the supply chain just a little bit for silver and really work out where the bottlenecks are. Um we we all know it starts with a mine, it goes to the refiner, you got the wholesaler, you talked about the mint already, the dealer and then the customer of course, which is the whole supply chain. But where where do you see the whole the bottlenecks? Is it really just the mint or are there other >> No, the refineries too. So So this is the problem with you know, first of all, there's not much refining capacity for silver in the US. There's there's enough capacity for gold, but not enough for silver. All the refineries that can do silver are backlogged by months. And it's a problem because the way most of them finance their refining is they pay the customer when the metal comes in or shortly after and then they have a silver lease or whatever with a bullion bank and they finance the metal while it's going through the production process and they're able to offer early payment to the scrap collectors or the the dealers that want to melt. For example, 90% silver coins. A lot of that's come back. A lot of that's now discounted so much that if you could get it refined and turned into 49 silver, 39 silver, you'd you'd be able to capture a nice spread. But the problem is the mints have no capac or the refineries have no capacity and they're backlogged by months or they're just outright refusing to accept scrap silver or and that includes silverware and and all the things that come back, but also these coins. And so there's a bottleneck there. Uh and that's a real issue. China has like 55 60% of the silver refining capacity in the world and the US is way short on silver refining capacity. So there's a bottleneck there. Uh and there's also bottlenecks at the mints when you get into the retail product being demanded as I mentioned earlier. So there's two major bottlenecks. Refinings refining bottleneck and minting bottleneck in silver. Um, but if you can get thousand ounce bars off the exchange, which you still can, there's plenty of supply there for now. Um, but, uh, you know, it would really help if there was more refining capacity because I I see the, uh, available 39 silver eventually dwindling here. And it it it could happen quicker than you think cuz, you know, when the retail comes in on the investor side, which has been mostly asleep for a while, uh, last two or three years, it can come in big. I mean, you're talking you're talking about something that only 1% of the American people own, right? And it go or or maybe one and a half might have some silver and gold other than jewelry. Very small percentage own. And they see these the price action, they start seeing what's happening with gold, but also especially silver. They start hearing about buying silver. They maybe they hear some of the hype around silver squeeze, which I think is a little overblown, at least here in the US. But the bottom line is it's triggering a lot of demand. and you go from 1% to 2% to 3% of the public buying silver. I mean, there's just no way. So, it it could happen fast. Um, and we're starting to see the stresses, but I don't think we're there yet. >> No. No. Interesting. I you touched on the thousand ounce bars as well, because I want to separate maybe industrial demand versus retail demand. I think we just mostly talked about retail demand. Yeah. Um, what what does it look like on the industrial side on the thousand bars? Is there enough supply for the industry right now >> in the US? I think there is, but I'm not an industrial user, so I can't speak to the difficulties other people are having or like on the manufacturing side. So, it's possible. I honestly don't know if they're if they're having trouble sourcing silver. I mean, I don't think they are in the US because silver is still available at a discount to spot from the exchange and we're not seeing a premium. So, the tightness appears to be more of an issue in London, in Asia. Um but we are in around the world you are seeing as there's all this noise around silver and the price of silver and the potential scarcity of silver uh and they you start hearing about the inelastic supply the inelastic demand all the the interesting things about silver can make it move very fast and and not result in a supply response even if prices are five times higher uh because of you know the way that it's mined you you do start seeing folks going you know I I need to have a little more silver on the on the shelf I I don't know, you know, what the issue is exactly, but I know that I need the silver for our manufacturing, and it's a small component of what we're making, and there's no way we can stop the stop the machines, the manufacturing process over a small shortage of silver. And so, everybody is going to start hoarding more or just keeping a little more on hand or maybe a lot more on hand. And so these things have a tendency to feed on themselves and very quickly uh you know sort of like a bank run. You could have a run on silver and all of it could be cleaned out. I don't think we're quite there yet, but I I would not rule out the idea that it happens and could happen within weeks. >> I' I've asked you very specific questions. I want you to speculate a little bit because I'm really trying to understand like the price move in silver as well. And maybe you're you're hearing things that I'm we're definitely not hearing and seeing here in the market. So I'm curious um what is your theory behind the silver price run right now and are you hearing as well that the bank might have been caught short here on the wrong side? What what are you seeing behind the curtain that we don't see? >> I do I I I've seen indications that Deutsche Bank is is selling a lot of silver that they may have committed to and so if if there is uh some somebody on the short side it it could be something like that where they they disording more silver than they wanted to. I mean, I've I've heard uh Robert Gotautle talk about how bullion banks in the US are positioned on the long side, and so they're they're actually cashing in quite well on this situation. Um, you know, I I don't know. I'm I I think it's overstated uh at the moment, but um I think back to the the bullion banks. Um well, okay, let me let me put it like that. You were asking what I think's happening with the silver price. I think I've been watching Michael Oliver. I don't know if you've had him on your show. >> Oh, yeah. Numerous times. He's awesome. >> I think I think he's on to something. I think he sees, you know, I think we've all we've all looked at what happened with silver where it basically went nowhere for 40 years, 50 years. Other other commodities have broken out to all-time highs years ago, decades ago. Um, silver has been frankly such a such a bad investment frankly compared to many of these other com commodities until until recently if you look at things in the large scheme of things. And I think there's just a lot of pent-up demand. And you know, we've gotten to a situation where I think in 1980 about 70% of silver was produced by primary silver mines. And now it's the opposite. Now it's like 30% is produced by primary silver mines. Silver prices have been so low for so long that there there isn't primary silver mining that can be profitable in most on most deposits. And so I think that we've now gotten ourselves boxed in on silver. I think silver's boxed in on the supply side and then at the same time the demand side has has become so diverse and so so broad across the globe you know because of silver's unique properties as a natural bioside as a great condu the best conductor of electricity the best reflector of visible light and all the different properties that make silver what it is and so you have this cocktail of of supply inelasticity and demand inelasticity and silver was somehow trapped trapped under $50 for decades and now it's suddenly breaking out and none of it seemed to matter, all these conditions, all these bullish factors until suddenly maybe now it does matter big time and and now it's you get you go up to 75 or $100 and realize this doesn't result in more silver mining. $200 uh silver may not result in much more silver supply coming out. So, and it doesn't necessarily cause that much substitution. Now, I've heard on the copper panels that re-engineering, you know, at $1, $150 silver, you could start getting to solar panels that are made of copper, but that takes time and, you know, it takes R&D. So, there will be some substitution as prices go up. But the silver is very sticky uh both on the demand and the supply side. And I think now that we've seen this price breakout at 50, I think we could see the move that Michael Oliver is talking about. and he looks at things like momentum under the markets and not just the price, but things that are happening building with volumes and and momentum. And he's talking about $200 silver this year. And I don't think that's unrealistic. And and I think this is a special situation uh that we're seeing. I mean, you've already seen it triple in in in a year. And you know, it's almost doubled since the breakout point, which was three months ago. So there, you know, there's there's a lot going on there. I think I think it's pretty exciting. Oh, absolutely. Tell me about it. We've run a podcast focused on gold and silver, right? So, yeah, it's very exciting. Absolutely. Um, Stefan, just coming back to the terrorists real quick. Um, silver we all know is is a is been deemed a critical mineral or a critical metal. Um, but now like it seemed like President Trump was tack assessed. Um, what are you hearing and seeing? Are you involved in those discussions at all? Are you seeing anything that we should be talking about? >> I'm not involved in those discussions. that's been more of a mining industry thing. Um, I don't think that it's going to result in the government stockpiling silver at this point, but I do think that it's a good it's a good thing for miners because I mean, honestly, every mineral should be a critical mineral. We need these minerals. I maybe there's only 60 on this list, but you know, probably the most direct impact of being on that list is that there's going to be faster permitting for projects. But, you know, we should be p permitting everything fast. uh all we it takes so much time, takes so much capital. It's it's just it's just a terrible place to invest most of the most of the time. Right now it's it's it's doing well, but there's been huge underinvestment. And so we mistreat all of these producers in our country and and uh in many parts of the world, put them through the ringer and and they can't produce these these uh these materials that we need. So being on the critical mineral list will benefit silver and these other minerals. Platinum is on the list as well. That's another interesting one frankly. Uh similar there's some similarities with silver in terms of the supply demand picture. Uh but so I think the the big impact is going to help get more silver mines opened. But this is a long-term process and and you know whether the government's going to come in and invest in silver refineries uh silver um uh actual silver mining companies. I don't know. I I will say there was there is a joint venture happening in uh first ever in a refining business in Tennessee where the US government is going into a joint venture with a a Korean uh zinc company to build a a smelter for zinc. And I I understand that silver may be something that could be refined there as well. So maybe the US government starts actually making direct investments as a result of the the the the critical minerals designation. But I think the biggest thing is going to be on the mining side. Uh so I don't and I'm not involved in those discussions, you know, where I sit. >> No, fair fair enough. No, I appreciate your cander there. Um it's it's an interesting topic and uh it caused silver to drop a few bucks uh just last week when uh I wouldn't say it got removed from the list, but I think the discussion was toned down a bit when it came to critical mineral. >> Yeah. Because because there was there was for some reason people were thinking, oh, it's on the critical mineral list, so we're they could have a tariff slapped on it on importing it. But that makes no sense. Why would you put a tariff on something that you need more of in your country? So I had never understood why there was noise around, oh there could be tariffs on silver because it's on the critical mineral list. Now maybe export controls, you know, maybe and that's what China has done or at least they they already had them frankly and that maybe has been a little bit overstated, but but they did sort of refine and and bolster their export uh registration and approval process on silver. And so that may cause a little bit a little bit more friction around the release of silver from China. And by the way, in China, I mentioned that 60 to 70% of the refining capacity of silver is in China. And that's way more than they produce, right? They're the second largest producer of silver, but they refine the most silver. And that means silver is being imported into, and I'm looking at this right now, by the way, sending 90% silver coins to uh a refinery in Asia to have it refined because I can't get it refined here and it's selling at such a discount. We and people aren't buying it even though it's the best deal around. We're actually selling it under spot right now. You can buy 90% silver coins from Money Metals under spot. A dollar under spot. Um but there's just so much of it. It's a lot of long-term holders that are just hoarding it. And so that premium is >> that trash silver. >> Yeah. They call it junk silver, right? >> Junk silver. That's what it >> And so the new the new retail investor is like, "What is this?" You know, I I want a silver bar. I want pure silver. I don't want these old coins. You know what? They get mixed up with the the ones that aren't silver. how why is this worth more? So, I mean, the newer people coming in are not buying the junk silver because they don't understand it. The older the longer term investors who realize this is one of the best ways to buy silver, especially when it's cheap like it is now under spot, but some of them are taking more of them are taking profits right now and and I we didn't really talked about that, but longer time holders are are definitely selling. We're doing a lot of buying from our customers as well. Uh, so it's a very active market. But I guess what I was getting at with China is that and Asia is that you got silver refining capacity in Asia and that means that silver's coming in to be refined and then they have a little bit of a friction or export controls around sending it back out. So you could have basically a huge vacuum of of silver coming just going into China and not leaving. And and right now there isn't any real incentive to export silver anyway from China because there's such a premium on the local market. why would anyone, you know, uh why would they send it out and get less if you if you know what I mean. So, um anyway, there's some very interesting things happening. Uh and I I think that, you know, recognition of silver as a a vital and critical mineral is good. I think that's it. We've always thought that. Um and you know, we'll we'll see. I think I it's all very positive for the silver market. >> Absolutely. Chef, we spent just about 25 minutes talking about silver. We haven't talked about gold at all, but silver seems to be the more exciting supply side story at least. Um, run us a bit through the the gold scenario as well. What is happening? Is everything honky? Goldilocks, not too hot, not too cold. What does it look like? >> Yeah, it's the gold market is uh honestly it hasn't changed much in the last 6 months like silver has. Silver just gone massively, you know, much more interesting. Um I will say that uh early this the first half of the year about last year over 60% of our revenues and sales was related to gold and less than 40% was silver. Now that has more than flipped in the last two months. We're talking 70% 75% of our revenues on the retail side is silver. So there's been a big trans and that but that has mostly been new demand and and activity on silver. the gold demand has kind of been flat and so suddenly, you know, the the the proportion changes. Um, so I'd say the gold market is more has been more steady. It's still very very strong both on the retail side as well as people selling back to the retail side. You know, there there's a lot of people taking profits, but it's not drawing the excitement that silver is because the price action. Frankly, you should be quite excited about the price action in gold. I mean, gosh, you know, what what did it go up 65% last year? Um, the the year before the year before that has been on a tear. So, but I would say things are much more stable in terms of the supply chain in gold. Uh definitely silver is is tough. It's if you don't have good sourcing and good logistics, you can run into issues. Gold is is readily available even in in the minted retail form. >> I can't hear you. You're muted. Um >> sorry. Yeah, I was coughing. Um no, we never heard about a gold squeeze or anything before. So it seems like supply side is absolutely fine, right? So yeah, >> I would say so. Yeah, there's there's been those dislocations between the markets that we, you know, especially early this year, but there still is a little bit. Platinum is tricky. Platinum is >> is another one. Platinum is looking a lot like silver as far as some of the dynamics. I mean, it's not it doesn't have the retail demand. It it has some and it is increasing and proportionally it may be increasing as much as silver, but it's still very very small for us. It's, you know, 1 to 2% of our revenue is platinum. Uh, but there's some exciting things happening with the platinum picture. >> Yeah, I remember playing with copper pennies in uh in your depository as well. Like what what's your what what are your thoughts on copper right now? About $6 a pound. So those copper pennies are worth a pretty penny. Um >> what uh what are your thoughts? >> Well, copper that's we've been cleaned out of most of our copper. Uh we actually restocked a lot of it uh lately in the last couple weeks. We got maybe 10 or 15 SKs back in stock. But across our market, because of the price of silver go running so much, people have turned to copper, which is even, you know, a lower cost metal. They see it as a value. I would honestly say though, the only thing that people should buy, at least in in our part of the market, would be those pennies because those are actually sold very close to the copper value, maybe 20 30% over the the spot price of copper. So, you know, $8 a pound and instead of uh the the spot price of $6 a pound, those are 95% copper pennies from 1982 and earlier, we sell those by the pound. Actually, 34lb bags, I think, is how we sell them. But there's a lot of other minted copper products, bars and rounds and so forth. And you know, they're beautiful and they're they're certainly popular, but they're not a good value from a copper standpoint versus the price. I would not put a lot of money in those but un you know unfortunately people don't always you know we offer it for sale but we don't encourage people you know to buy certain things but they are very popular and copper is a beautiful metal but but if you buy a one pound copper bar a newly minted copper bar because of the cost of fabrication involved versus the cost of the metal the the the premium gets very high as a percentage and maybe if copper goes to you know $50 a pound that'll be different but when it's at $6 a pound and the fabrication cost is s such a big part of the cost. You have a high premium and it is in a great value, but it is a beautiful metal and we have a lot of demand for the copper bars. There you go. Yeah. All kinds of stuff. >> Love them. 5 kilos right there. I love it. >> It's pretty. >> I bought it years ago. So, but uh >> but we had a guy I had a guy I'm going back and forth with. He wants us to send him a truck of of copper and I said, you know, look, if you're going to buy copper in quantity from us, you know, the only thing I can recommend is the pennies. It's actually actually a good value. Uh and so, you know, we might send him several pallets, you know, several tons, several tons. He, you know, up to five tons of copper pennies. I don't know what where he's going to put them. You know, it's interesting. It's, you know, people talk about, oh, silver's too bulky. You know, I don't want silver. I'm going to get gold. You know, that's that's the case in spades with copper, of course. But, you know, I also say, look, silver's too bulky. Okay. Well, you know, it's bulky when it's at 30 cents and $30 an ounce. It's too bulky. You want to have gold. How do you feel about it when it's at $100 an ounce? Is it still too bulky? Are you mad that you have too much silver? You know, it was such a hassle. So, you know, but we're seeing that, you know, this the Have you ever heard of a a gifining good? There's an economic thing called a gifin good. So, it's it's the idea it's called a gifin good. So, silver is becoming a gifin good. And the argument that basically as price rises, demand is increasing, not decreasing. And so an example is like the potato famine in in in in uh in Ireland where you know meat became too expensive. So people started buying more potatoes and the cost of potatoes was going up faster than the cost of meat. And the more it went up the more people switched to potatoes and it kept driving up the cost of potatoes. So that's kind of what's happening with silver. It's it's the phenomenon of higher prices is not resulting in in in lower demand. it's actually resulting in increased demand. And so you also have that with copper. Uh as it goes up, the demand goes up. And so that's sort of an interesting dynamic that's happening right now. And I think in silver, that's a a big part big part of the story. It's substitution from gold. And the more it goes up, the more people want it. And it's not uh reducing demand. It's actually potentially increasing it. >> Stefan, help help our audience really cut through the BS when it comes to the silver squeeze. And that's my last question to you today as well. like what what should we be paying attention to when you heard you hear the word squeeze? Like what are some of the signals? Is it the increase in premium? Is it anything the Comx puts out like margin increases? Um what should be the first indicators that there's a real squeeze? Well, I think if you look at the silver stocks and com and the comx and these other exchanges because that's the sort of deep industrial core of the market uh and and you look at at companies bypassing the exchanges and going direct to the mines and the refineries and basically draining the exchanges of liquidity and the flows. So, I think I think that's where you're going to see it. When you see real shortages at that level, then we have a big big issue in silver or any metal. Um this other stuff around uh refining and premiums and and silver retail minting product that's a little bit more of a noise thing. Uh clearly that part of the market is very active and it can draw upon these large pools of metal that still exist and and is drawing upon them. So I guess I guess I would be looking at the exchanges for the liquidity in the exchanges and and that will be your clue that there's like an emergency happening in silver. We're not there yet. There's indications of that but you know in different parts of the world but we're not there in a full sort of global way. >> Fantastic. No Stefan super insightful. We need to do this more regularly just to get uh a look underneath the hood here. See what's going on really and not just get confused by as you said noise out there. So tremendously appreciate your insight Stefan. Really appreciate you supporting the channel of course as well. Means a lot to us. Keeps the keeps the engine running here. Uh much much appreciated. Stefan where can we follow more of your work? Where can we send our audience? Yeah, go to moneymetals.com. We're a large US focused bullion dealer depository, massive facility in Idaho for storage. We also lend against gold and silver. If you want a line of credit like like uh against your home, you can get that against your holdings at at our depository. Very uh unusual to find in the market. So, we're one of the largest US dealers. >> Fantastic. Awesome. Stefan, thank you so much for coming on. It was great to catch up. Really, really insightful and uh we'll have to do it again soon. So, take care out there. We'll we'll talk soon. And to everybody else, thanks so much for tuning in here to sore financial today. We focused on the silver market primarily because I really wanted to get a good look underneath the hood. What is happening in the market? What is happening on the supply side? And what what do the supply chains look like? Should we be really worried about a silver squeeze? Stefan just shared that with us. We don't have to worry yet. But also, he supports Michael Oliver's call of potentially $200 this year because he does see potential for a shakeup in the market, which will be interesting to see. If you enjoyed this conversation, please hit that like and subscribe button. It helps us out tremendously. Also shows that Money Medals is sponsoring the right channel and we do appreciate that. So, thanks so much for tuning in. Take care out there and stay safe.
Silver Squeeze? What’s REALLY Happening Behind the Scenes | Stefan Gleason
Summary
Transcript
Gold, silver are rallying, reaching all-time highs pretty much every single trading day. But what is really happening behind the scenes? Meaning, what does the supply chain look like? Is there really a silver squeeze going on? Is there a shortage of metals in general? I've invited a fantastic guest to take a look under the hood. It's Stefan Gleason. He's the CEO of Money Medals. They're a sponsor of this channel, but I'm really excited to have him on cuz he's going to give us a perspective that barely anybody in the US or in the world can share with our audience here. I really want to know what is happening. Is this a squeeze or is it just something, you know, benign, meaning a supply chain issue. So, I'm really curious what he has to share with us. But before I switch over to my guest, hit that like and subscribe button. It helps us out tremendously. We much much appreciate the support because we do want to reach 100,000 subscribers by the end of this quarter. And with your support, we can do it. So, thanks so much for doing that. Now, Stefan, it is great to welcome you back on sore financially. Thanks so much for joining us. >> Yeah, it's great to be back, Kai. Thank you. >> Yeah, really looking forward to this, Stefan. I've been thinking about this for weeks now that to get you back on because I'm really curious what is happening in the precious metals markets, silver in particular. And uh maybe we'll start right with silver like is there a short squeeze going on or what is happening behind the scenes? there. It's very complicated, but I first of all, I say it's total pandemonium right now in the retail market and it's it's pandemonium both on the selling people selling their their gold and particularly silver, but also buying and we're seeing levels of demand that we have not seen since COVID and and actually exceeding that last month in the last three or four weeks uh on the retail side. So, with prices, we've seen a lot of interest come into the market on the retail side. uh new new investors primarily and and older longerterm investors. Some of them are taking profits and you know you really can't blame them. Silver's gone up threefold in the last 12 months. There's been a lot of frustration and impatience over the years. And so I think folks are you know reasonably taking a little bit of money off the table but at the same time that's more than being replaced by a lot of new people coming in seeing the headlines. And so we're seeing lots of dislocations across the globe when it comes to silver supply in particular. uh Asia and London very tight in terms of and that's reflected by the high premiums that you're seeing in those markets. But on the whole yet in the US we're not seeing a shortage of metal per se where we are seeing uh some minting issues. We're seeing backlogs processing uh queue issues but we're not yet seeing a shortage if you will. Um although it you will see lots of products out of out of stock particularly across uh the my competitors. Money Metals is very well stocked on just about everything right now and that has to do with the way we manage our inventory and the capital we have. But there are real issues developing in terms of getting minted product. But the the raw metal at least in the US is not in shortage at least if you're trying to get thousand ounce bars for minting. That's still uh very much available. But you do see supplies dwindling on the exchange as well. And so you know we could be seeing an issue at the deep uh commercial level at some point too. >> Yeah. No, really, really good overview. Of course, I have lots of follow-up questions for you, Stefan. Maybe we'll stay on the supply side and I think the minting issue is an important one because we've just seen I think it was last week the US mint stopped the sales of American Eagles if I'm not mistaken. So, um I'm curious what what do you make of that and maybe elaborate a little bit what what's the minting issue that you're describing there? >> Yeah. Okay. Well, starting with the the US Mint. First of all, this is a government and it may be one of the worstrun government mints, you know, and it's government to begin with and it's a badly run government mint. Um, and so what happened there was not a shortage of the bullion eagles. It wasn't a shortage of metal. It was basically mismanagement on their website. You know, they have these high premium proofs and burnished coins. you know, they silver has moved up so fast uh that, you know, the proof eagles, silver eagles that they were selling for $95 on their website suddenly were at spot and there, you know, they intended those to be sold at, you know, 100% over spot, you know, with a nice certificate and a box and, you know, you know, that kind of thing. So, they of course as a government can adjust quickly. In a real business, you would adjust pricing very quickly. you wouldn't have an issue. But, you know, they have to go into meetings and do memos and get approvals and, you know, rulemaking or whatever the process is. So, they just had to stop selling because, well, I think they started selling out, but also people were realizing, hey, these proof coins are at spot. So, um, I think they've now relaunched those products. These are the products you can buy directly to from the US Mint, which are really the products you should not buy as an investor, maybe as a collector or as a gift. You might want to buy those things one at a time. They're nice presentation, different interesting stuff, but at the end of the day, um, you know, they've now repriced everything about 100% higher and so now you can buy a proof silver eagle for $170. Uh, again, don't buy more than one. Maybe a nice gift, but not something to put real money in. So, there isn't a real shortage of even US minted bullion eagles right now at the moment. That they are producing those, distributing those out through the wholesale market. Uh but the US men is not really a good bellweather for what's happening in the retail market because we have over the years we see them cutting production when demand is higher, raising production when demand is lower, it causes big yo-yos in the premiums of these bullion uh eagles and items. So, uh, one of the reasons we we strongly encourage people to avoid these government minted coins, particularly the US government minted coins, >> they're often a really bad value, uh, because it's so poorly run and it's just distorted, uh, pricing and so forth. So, you know, we we say, you know, buy a bar or buy a silver round or buy, you know, Canadian maple leaf or something like that. Try to avoid the US silver eagle, at least in quantity, if you want a good experience. And and you know what ends up happening is you know the the premiums on those go to 10 20 you know $20 over spot on the bullion ones and then at at times when the market turns the premium comes way down and people get upset because they bought this thing at $20 over spot and they're being offered spot when they sell it back because the cycle turned and and those swings are just much greater in that product than say a silver bar. So that's my thought on that. But in terms of minting in general, so the market was very slow uh really the last two years because there had been so much selling back especially of of gold and you know initially and then in the last few months 6 12 months ago silver started we started seeing a lot of silver being sold and so the mints had nothing to do because there was so much secondary market out at least in the US there was so much secondary market metal that it was the wholesale market and the retail market the wholesale market the supply chain was priced lower than the cost of newly minted uh products. And so mints, private mints, had very little to do, laid off staff. A couple went out of business and, you know, slim down their available silver in in their in their system. So, they're not ready to flex up if something happens because they didn't want to tie up a bunch of capital for for silver that's not turning over very fast. Um, there's not as much gold minting in the US uh privately, but mostly a silver story. So then suddenly in October the market turned dramatically and and then even more in the last four weeks and so all of these mints completely flatfooted don't have silver in their in their mint takes couple weeks few weeks to get it off the exchange to get it delivered. Uh suddenly they have to hire up shifts. So it's it's a very very difficult business to be a mint. And that's really what we're seeing at the moment is a lot of our competitors are having trouble getting mints to produce enough to keep them stocked. And so you're seeing premiums go up. you're seeing a lot of stuff out of stock out of stock in a lot of dealers, but um you know that's not unusual given the major change in in in demand flows at the retail level in such a short period of time. Now whether that persists you know I think I think we may be in a new major growth phase for retail demand here in the US and you know these mints are probably going to be expanding and and hopefully they'll be able to you know meet the demand. >> No, absolutely. No, it's it's it's fascinating because I think the market wasn't fully aware of that because I always hear short squeeze, short squeeze. What does that mean? It's like, well, um then there was the London Bullion Bank issue as well where they couldn't deliver. I think it was just a supply chain issues like you sort of said and uh >> not so much in London honestly. There is a real there in London there's a real there is tightness of metal um and and a lot of it was getting drained out. Some of it got drained to the US early in the year as people were front running the tariffs and the and there was a premium in New York and a discount in London and that drew metal to New York. So the comx got more metal in it. It got up to 530 million ounces or something like that of silver. Um whereas the de the float in London was declining um from that and then everything flipped and the the demand started the the the tariff thing was resolved and the premium uh in uh in New York came down but then suddenly demand got very high in Asia and China for silver, India and and other parts of the world that drained London from the other side. Um and so London is actually have and then meanwhile ETFs source a lot of their metal in the London market and the ETF inflows from investors particularly on the silver side have spped up a lot of that extra metal in London. So there are bonafide uh tightnesses in London, no question about it. And also in Asia um and that's you know so so you are seeing these dislocations and New York is currently trading at a 50cent discount to London and probably $2 or $3 a discount to Asia. But in order to close that gap you have to transport the metal and that's logistic costs and so forth. So these dislocations are real. they are causing supply issues in different parts of the world. Um I would say it's mostly a story outside of the US at the current at the current time. >> Okay. Now we'll come back to the tariffs. I want to sh table that. I want to I don't want to move too far away from the supply side that we just started discussing as well. Um because we have I want to go through with you through the supply chain just a little bit for silver and really work out where the bottlenecks are. Um we we all know it starts with a mine, it goes to the refiner, you got the wholesaler, you talked about the mint already, the dealer and then the customer of course, which is the whole supply chain. But where where do you see the whole the bottlenecks? Is it really just the mint or are there other >> No, the refineries too. So So this is the problem with you know, first of all, there's not much refining capacity for silver in the US. There's there's enough capacity for gold, but not enough for silver. All the refineries that can do silver are backlogged by months. And it's a problem because the way most of them finance their refining is they pay the customer when the metal comes in or shortly after and then they have a silver lease or whatever with a bullion bank and they finance the metal while it's going through the production process and they're able to offer early payment to the scrap collectors or the the dealers that want to melt. For example, 90% silver coins. A lot of that's come back. A lot of that's now discounted so much that if you could get it refined and turned into 49 silver, 39 silver, you'd you'd be able to capture a nice spread. But the problem is the mints have no capac or the refineries have no capacity and they're backlogged by months or they're just outright refusing to accept scrap silver or and that includes silverware and and all the things that come back, but also these coins. And so there's a bottleneck there. Uh and that's a real issue. China has like 55 60% of the silver refining capacity in the world and the US is way short on silver refining capacity. So there's a bottleneck there. Uh and there's also bottlenecks at the mints when you get into the retail product being demanded as I mentioned earlier. So there's two major bottlenecks. Refinings refining bottleneck and minting bottleneck in silver. Um, but if you can get thousand ounce bars off the exchange, which you still can, there's plenty of supply there for now. Um, but, uh, you know, it would really help if there was more refining capacity because I I see the, uh, available 39 silver eventually dwindling here. And it it it could happen quicker than you think cuz, you know, when the retail comes in on the investor side, which has been mostly asleep for a while, uh, last two or three years, it can come in big. I mean, you're talking you're talking about something that only 1% of the American people own, right? And it go or or maybe one and a half might have some silver and gold other than jewelry. Very small percentage own. And they see these the price action, they start seeing what's happening with gold, but also especially silver. They start hearing about buying silver. They maybe they hear some of the hype around silver squeeze, which I think is a little overblown, at least here in the US. But the bottom line is it's triggering a lot of demand. and you go from 1% to 2% to 3% of the public buying silver. I mean, there's just no way. So, it it could happen fast. Um, and we're starting to see the stresses, but I don't think we're there yet. >> No. No. Interesting. I you touched on the thousand ounce bars as well, because I want to separate maybe industrial demand versus retail demand. I think we just mostly talked about retail demand. Yeah. Um, what what does it look like on the industrial side on the thousand bars? Is there enough supply for the industry right now >> in the US? I think there is, but I'm not an industrial user, so I can't speak to the difficulties other people are having or like on the manufacturing side. So, it's possible. I honestly don't know if they're if they're having trouble sourcing silver. I mean, I don't think they are in the US because silver is still available at a discount to spot from the exchange and we're not seeing a premium. So, the tightness appears to be more of an issue in London, in Asia. Um but we are in around the world you are seeing as there's all this noise around silver and the price of silver and the potential scarcity of silver uh and they you start hearing about the inelastic supply the inelastic demand all the the interesting things about silver can make it move very fast and and not result in a supply response even if prices are five times higher uh because of you know the way that it's mined you you do start seeing folks going you know I I need to have a little more silver on the on the shelf I I don't know, you know, what the issue is exactly, but I know that I need the silver for our manufacturing, and it's a small component of what we're making, and there's no way we can stop the stop the machines, the manufacturing process over a small shortage of silver. And so, everybody is going to start hoarding more or just keeping a little more on hand or maybe a lot more on hand. And so these things have a tendency to feed on themselves and very quickly uh you know sort of like a bank run. You could have a run on silver and all of it could be cleaned out. I don't think we're quite there yet, but I I would not rule out the idea that it happens and could happen within weeks. >> I' I've asked you very specific questions. I want you to speculate a little bit because I'm really trying to understand like the price move in silver as well. And maybe you're you're hearing things that I'm we're definitely not hearing and seeing here in the market. So I'm curious um what is your theory behind the silver price run right now and are you hearing as well that the bank might have been caught short here on the wrong side? What what are you seeing behind the curtain that we don't see? >> I do I I I've seen indications that Deutsche Bank is is selling a lot of silver that they may have committed to and so if if there is uh some somebody on the short side it it could be something like that where they they disording more silver than they wanted to. I mean, I've I've heard uh Robert Gotautle talk about how bullion banks in the US are positioned on the long side, and so they're they're actually cashing in quite well on this situation. Um, you know, I I don't know. I'm I I think it's overstated uh at the moment, but um I think back to the the bullion banks. Um well, okay, let me let me put it like that. You were asking what I think's happening with the silver price. I think I've been watching Michael Oliver. I don't know if you've had him on your show. >> Oh, yeah. Numerous times. He's awesome. >> I think I think he's on to something. I think he sees, you know, I think we've all we've all looked at what happened with silver where it basically went nowhere for 40 years, 50 years. Other other commodities have broken out to all-time highs years ago, decades ago. Um, silver has been frankly such a such a bad investment frankly compared to many of these other com commodities until until recently if you look at things in the large scheme of things. And I think there's just a lot of pent-up demand. And you know, we've gotten to a situation where I think in 1980 about 70% of silver was produced by primary silver mines. And now it's the opposite. Now it's like 30% is produced by primary silver mines. Silver prices have been so low for so long that there there isn't primary silver mining that can be profitable in most on most deposits. And so I think that we've now gotten ourselves boxed in on silver. I think silver's boxed in on the supply side and then at the same time the demand side has has become so diverse and so so broad across the globe you know because of silver's unique properties as a natural bioside as a great condu the best conductor of electricity the best reflector of visible light and all the different properties that make silver what it is and so you have this cocktail of of supply inelasticity and demand inelasticity and silver was somehow trapped trapped under $50 for decades and now it's suddenly breaking out and none of it seemed to matter, all these conditions, all these bullish factors until suddenly maybe now it does matter big time and and now it's you get you go up to 75 or $100 and realize this doesn't result in more silver mining. $200 uh silver may not result in much more silver supply coming out. So, and it doesn't necessarily cause that much substitution. Now, I've heard on the copper panels that re-engineering, you know, at $1, $150 silver, you could start getting to solar panels that are made of copper, but that takes time and, you know, it takes R&D. So, there will be some substitution as prices go up. But the silver is very sticky uh both on the demand and the supply side. And I think now that we've seen this price breakout at 50, I think we could see the move that Michael Oliver is talking about. and he looks at things like momentum under the markets and not just the price, but things that are happening building with volumes and and momentum. And he's talking about $200 silver this year. And I don't think that's unrealistic. And and I think this is a special situation uh that we're seeing. I mean, you've already seen it triple in in in a year. And you know, it's almost doubled since the breakout point, which was three months ago. So there, you know, there's there's a lot going on there. I think I think it's pretty exciting. Oh, absolutely. Tell me about it. We've run a podcast focused on gold and silver, right? So, yeah, it's very exciting. Absolutely. Um, Stefan, just coming back to the terrorists real quick. Um, silver we all know is is a is been deemed a critical mineral or a critical metal. Um, but now like it seemed like President Trump was tack assessed. Um, what are you hearing and seeing? Are you involved in those discussions at all? Are you seeing anything that we should be talking about? >> I'm not involved in those discussions. that's been more of a mining industry thing. Um, I don't think that it's going to result in the government stockpiling silver at this point, but I do think that it's a good it's a good thing for miners because I mean, honestly, every mineral should be a critical mineral. We need these minerals. I maybe there's only 60 on this list, but you know, probably the most direct impact of being on that list is that there's going to be faster permitting for projects. But, you know, we should be p permitting everything fast. uh all we it takes so much time, takes so much capital. It's it's just it's just a terrible place to invest most of the most of the time. Right now it's it's it's doing well, but there's been huge underinvestment. And so we mistreat all of these producers in our country and and uh in many parts of the world, put them through the ringer and and they can't produce these these uh these materials that we need. So being on the critical mineral list will benefit silver and these other minerals. Platinum is on the list as well. That's another interesting one frankly. Uh similar there's some similarities with silver in terms of the supply demand picture. Uh but so I think the the big impact is going to help get more silver mines opened. But this is a long-term process and and you know whether the government's going to come in and invest in silver refineries uh silver um uh actual silver mining companies. I don't know. I I will say there was there is a joint venture happening in uh first ever in a refining business in Tennessee where the US government is going into a joint venture with a a Korean uh zinc company to build a a smelter for zinc. And I I understand that silver may be something that could be refined there as well. So maybe the US government starts actually making direct investments as a result of the the the the critical minerals designation. But I think the biggest thing is going to be on the mining side. Uh so I don't and I'm not involved in those discussions, you know, where I sit. >> No, fair fair enough. No, I appreciate your cander there. Um it's it's an interesting topic and uh it caused silver to drop a few bucks uh just last week when uh I wouldn't say it got removed from the list, but I think the discussion was toned down a bit when it came to critical mineral. >> Yeah. Because because there was there was for some reason people were thinking, oh, it's on the critical mineral list, so we're they could have a tariff slapped on it on importing it. But that makes no sense. Why would you put a tariff on something that you need more of in your country? So I had never understood why there was noise around, oh there could be tariffs on silver because it's on the critical mineral list. Now maybe export controls, you know, maybe and that's what China has done or at least they they already had them frankly and that maybe has been a little bit overstated, but but they did sort of refine and and bolster their export uh registration and approval process on silver. And so that may cause a little bit a little bit more friction around the release of silver from China. And by the way, in China, I mentioned that 60 to 70% of the refining capacity of silver is in China. And that's way more than they produce, right? They're the second largest producer of silver, but they refine the most silver. And that means silver is being imported into, and I'm looking at this right now, by the way, sending 90% silver coins to uh a refinery in Asia to have it refined because I can't get it refined here and it's selling at such a discount. We and people aren't buying it even though it's the best deal around. We're actually selling it under spot right now. You can buy 90% silver coins from Money Metals under spot. A dollar under spot. Um but there's just so much of it. It's a lot of long-term holders that are just hoarding it. And so that premium is >> that trash silver. >> Yeah. They call it junk silver, right? >> Junk silver. That's what it >> And so the new the new retail investor is like, "What is this?" You know, I I want a silver bar. I want pure silver. I don't want these old coins. You know what? They get mixed up with the the ones that aren't silver. how why is this worth more? So, I mean, the newer people coming in are not buying the junk silver because they don't understand it. The older the longer term investors who realize this is one of the best ways to buy silver, especially when it's cheap like it is now under spot, but some of them are taking more of them are taking profits right now and and I we didn't really talked about that, but longer time holders are are definitely selling. We're doing a lot of buying from our customers as well. Uh, so it's a very active market. But I guess what I was getting at with China is that and Asia is that you got silver refining capacity in Asia and that means that silver's coming in to be refined and then they have a little bit of a friction or export controls around sending it back out. So you could have basically a huge vacuum of of silver coming just going into China and not leaving. And and right now there isn't any real incentive to export silver anyway from China because there's such a premium on the local market. why would anyone, you know, uh why would they send it out and get less if you if you know what I mean. So, um anyway, there's some very interesting things happening. Uh and I I think that, you know, recognition of silver as a a vital and critical mineral is good. I think that's it. We've always thought that. Um and you know, we'll we'll see. I think I it's all very positive for the silver market. >> Absolutely. Chef, we spent just about 25 minutes talking about silver. We haven't talked about gold at all, but silver seems to be the more exciting supply side story at least. Um, run us a bit through the the gold scenario as well. What is happening? Is everything honky? Goldilocks, not too hot, not too cold. What does it look like? >> Yeah, it's the gold market is uh honestly it hasn't changed much in the last 6 months like silver has. Silver just gone massively, you know, much more interesting. Um I will say that uh early this the first half of the year about last year over 60% of our revenues and sales was related to gold and less than 40% was silver. Now that has more than flipped in the last two months. We're talking 70% 75% of our revenues on the retail side is silver. So there's been a big trans and that but that has mostly been new demand and and activity on silver. the gold demand has kind of been flat and so suddenly, you know, the the the proportion changes. Um, so I'd say the gold market is more has been more steady. It's still very very strong both on the retail side as well as people selling back to the retail side. You know, there there's a lot of people taking profits, but it's not drawing the excitement that silver is because the price action. Frankly, you should be quite excited about the price action in gold. I mean, gosh, you know, what what did it go up 65% last year? Um, the the year before the year before that has been on a tear. So, but I would say things are much more stable in terms of the supply chain in gold. Uh definitely silver is is tough. It's if you don't have good sourcing and good logistics, you can run into issues. Gold is is readily available even in in the minted retail form. >> I can't hear you. You're muted. Um >> sorry. Yeah, I was coughing. Um no, we never heard about a gold squeeze or anything before. So it seems like supply side is absolutely fine, right? So yeah, >> I would say so. Yeah, there's there's been those dislocations between the markets that we, you know, especially early this year, but there still is a little bit. Platinum is tricky. Platinum is >> is another one. Platinum is looking a lot like silver as far as some of the dynamics. I mean, it's not it doesn't have the retail demand. It it has some and it is increasing and proportionally it may be increasing as much as silver, but it's still very very small for us. It's, you know, 1 to 2% of our revenue is platinum. Uh, but there's some exciting things happening with the platinum picture. >> Yeah, I remember playing with copper pennies in uh in your depository as well. Like what what's your what what are your thoughts on copper right now? About $6 a pound. So those copper pennies are worth a pretty penny. Um >> what uh what are your thoughts? >> Well, copper that's we've been cleaned out of most of our copper. Uh we actually restocked a lot of it uh lately in the last couple weeks. We got maybe 10 or 15 SKs back in stock. But across our market, because of the price of silver go running so much, people have turned to copper, which is even, you know, a lower cost metal. They see it as a value. I would honestly say though, the only thing that people should buy, at least in in our part of the market, would be those pennies because those are actually sold very close to the copper value, maybe 20 30% over the the spot price of copper. So, you know, $8 a pound and instead of uh the the spot price of $6 a pound, those are 95% copper pennies from 1982 and earlier, we sell those by the pound. Actually, 34lb bags, I think, is how we sell them. But there's a lot of other minted copper products, bars and rounds and so forth. And you know, they're beautiful and they're they're certainly popular, but they're not a good value from a copper standpoint versus the price. I would not put a lot of money in those but un you know unfortunately people don't always you know we offer it for sale but we don't encourage people you know to buy certain things but they are very popular and copper is a beautiful metal but but if you buy a one pound copper bar a newly minted copper bar because of the cost of fabrication involved versus the cost of the metal the the the premium gets very high as a percentage and maybe if copper goes to you know $50 a pound that'll be different but when it's at $6 a pound and the fabrication cost is s such a big part of the cost. You have a high premium and it is in a great value, but it is a beautiful metal and we have a lot of demand for the copper bars. There you go. Yeah. All kinds of stuff. >> Love them. 5 kilos right there. I love it. >> It's pretty. >> I bought it years ago. So, but uh >> but we had a guy I had a guy I'm going back and forth with. He wants us to send him a truck of of copper and I said, you know, look, if you're going to buy copper in quantity from us, you know, the only thing I can recommend is the pennies. It's actually actually a good value. Uh and so, you know, we might send him several pallets, you know, several tons, several tons. He, you know, up to five tons of copper pennies. I don't know what where he's going to put them. You know, it's interesting. It's, you know, people talk about, oh, silver's too bulky. You know, I don't want silver. I'm going to get gold. You know, that's that's the case in spades with copper, of course. But, you know, I also say, look, silver's too bulky. Okay. Well, you know, it's bulky when it's at 30 cents and $30 an ounce. It's too bulky. You want to have gold. How do you feel about it when it's at $100 an ounce? Is it still too bulky? Are you mad that you have too much silver? You know, it was such a hassle. So, you know, but we're seeing that, you know, this the Have you ever heard of a a gifining good? There's an economic thing called a gifin good. So, it's it's the idea it's called a gifin good. So, silver is becoming a gifin good. And the argument that basically as price rises, demand is increasing, not decreasing. And so an example is like the potato famine in in in in uh in Ireland where you know meat became too expensive. So people started buying more potatoes and the cost of potatoes was going up faster than the cost of meat. And the more it went up the more people switched to potatoes and it kept driving up the cost of potatoes. So that's kind of what's happening with silver. It's it's the phenomenon of higher prices is not resulting in in in lower demand. it's actually resulting in increased demand. And so you also have that with copper. Uh as it goes up, the demand goes up. And so that's sort of an interesting dynamic that's happening right now. And I think in silver, that's a a big part big part of the story. It's substitution from gold. And the more it goes up, the more people want it. And it's not uh reducing demand. It's actually potentially increasing it. >> Stefan, help help our audience really cut through the BS when it comes to the silver squeeze. And that's my last question to you today as well. like what what should we be paying attention to when you heard you hear the word squeeze? Like what are some of the signals? Is it the increase in premium? Is it anything the Comx puts out like margin increases? Um what should be the first indicators that there's a real squeeze? Well, I think if you look at the silver stocks and com and the comx and these other exchanges because that's the sort of deep industrial core of the market uh and and you look at at companies bypassing the exchanges and going direct to the mines and the refineries and basically draining the exchanges of liquidity and the flows. So, I think I think that's where you're going to see it. When you see real shortages at that level, then we have a big big issue in silver or any metal. Um this other stuff around uh refining and premiums and and silver retail minting product that's a little bit more of a noise thing. Uh clearly that part of the market is very active and it can draw upon these large pools of metal that still exist and and is drawing upon them. So I guess I guess I would be looking at the exchanges for the liquidity in the exchanges and and that will be your clue that there's like an emergency happening in silver. We're not there yet. There's indications of that but you know in different parts of the world but we're not there in a full sort of global way. >> Fantastic. No Stefan super insightful. We need to do this more regularly just to get uh a look underneath the hood here. See what's going on really and not just get confused by as you said noise out there. So tremendously appreciate your insight Stefan. Really appreciate you supporting the channel of course as well. Means a lot to us. Keeps the keeps the engine running here. Uh much much appreciated. Stefan where can we follow more of your work? Where can we send our audience? Yeah, go to moneymetals.com. We're a large US focused bullion dealer depository, massive facility in Idaho for storage. We also lend against gold and silver. If you want a line of credit like like uh against your home, you can get that against your holdings at at our depository. Very uh unusual to find in the market. So, we're one of the largest US dealers. >> Fantastic. Awesome. Stefan, thank you so much for coming on. It was great to catch up. Really, really insightful and uh we'll have to do it again soon. So, take care out there. We'll we'll talk soon. And to everybody else, thanks so much for tuning in here to sore financial today. We focused on the silver market primarily because I really wanted to get a good look underneath the hood. What is happening in the market? What is happening on the supply side? And what what do the supply chains look like? Should we be really worried about a silver squeeze? Stefan just shared that with us. We don't have to worry yet. But also, he supports Michael Oliver's call of potentially $200 this year because he does see potential for a shakeup in the market, which will be interesting to see. If you enjoyed this conversation, please hit that like and subscribe button. It helps us out tremendously. Also shows that Money Medals is sponsoring the right channel and we do appreciate that. So, thanks so much for tuning in. Take care out there and stay safe.