'Violent' Move Coming in SILVER – 'We Need $180' For REAL All-Time High: Clive Thompson
Summary
Silver Bull Market: The guest argues silver's rally is fundamentally driven by multi-year supply deficits and rising industrial demand from EVs and solar, with room for volatility and pullbacks.
Silver Miners: He is bullish on producers, seeing equities priced as if silver were ~$25, favoring majors over juniors due to cash burn risk and highlighting the leverage miners have to higher silver prices.
Market Mechanics: Discussion of shrinking LBMA inventories, high leasing rates, and a CME outage; he downplays conspiracies but notes tight physical markets support higher prices.
Gold Outlook: He sees the gold bull market in its late-beginning phase, supported by US fiscal deficits, expected rate cuts, geopolitics, and sustained central bank buying.
Digital Euro: A detailed warning on the coming Digital Euro, wallet limits, auto-sweeps, possible negative rates, and a two-tier currency risk; he recommends owning gold beforehand as protection.
AI: He views AI as potentially overvalued, with indices dependent on a handful of mega-caps, rising competition, and psychology-driven downside risk despite uncertain timing.
Crash Dynamics: In a broad selloff, gold, silver, and miners may fall with everything due to margin calls, but he expects them to recover first as investors re-seek safe assets.
Portfolio Approach: His benchmark-beating strategy avoided AI, miners, and crypto, focusing on profitable, cash-generative companies selected via multi-factor screening and fundamental due diligence.
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where we break down commodities markets, sound money principles and geopolitics all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodities sector. Today is December 1st, 2025 and I'm thrilled to welcome Clive Thompson to the program. A former director of wealth management with 47 years of experience in trusts, wealth management, and private banking. Silver continues to break out now at around $57 an ounce. And Clive thinks that although we may see pullbacks along the way, we are still in the early stages of a generational bull market that could see prices soar into triple digits. Clive is also very bullish on silver miners and he provides his top picks in the sector along with diving deep into the gold market, the strategy for his winning beat the benchmark portfolio and the sinister truth behind the coming rollout of the digital euro. All of this and so much more ahead. So, strap yourselves in for my conversation with Clive Thompson. Clive Thompson, it is great to have you back on Commodity Culture. I want to kick the conversation off with silver today as the metal recently broke out to new all-time highs, currently sitting at around $57 an ounce. What are your thoughts on the recent price action in silver? And do you think the metal still has a long ways to run from here or should stackers and investors potentially consider taking profits at these levels? >> Well, the size of the move that we've seen has been unprecedented. Um, having said that, uh, unlike the bull market we saw when the Hunt brothers were buying silver and took it up to $50 back in the it was I think the early8s or late '7s, um, which was a speculative mania. This one is driven by fundamentals. Uh we're seeing uh well we've seen for the last five years a deficit in mind production compared with the industrial demand. Um and that industrial demand is set to increase uh partly from electronic electric vehicles where the amount of silver required is about double what you need for a conventional combustion engine. And of course we've got an an accelerating uh move towards solar panels which also are big consumers of silver. Um so there's a there's quite a large deficit in silver and the only way to suck out that deficit is through higher prices. But obviously those prices have moved um very fast and that kind of makes it um at least in the short run kind of speculative. Now it doesn't mean to say that the bull market is over. Not at all. Uh but often when these things happen, you do get a sharp and unexpected full pullback uh before the bull market can resume and go to all another all-time high. But you know, if we were to take the uh speculative boom of the Hunt brothers, the the and I think there was there was another one a bit later which wasn't so much speculative, but both of them took it silver to around $50. And so this time we've gone to $50. But if we adjust it for inflation, um the figure I've heard quoted, and I haven't double checked myself, is we'd have to go to $180 this time around to kind of make a peak similar to the ones we've had before. Um so, you know, when you have large bull markets like this, they can often overshoot. So, it'd be a fool. I'd be a fool if I said it's going to turn around tomorrow. I'm not saying that. uh it could easily shoot up again tomorrow and the day after, but at some point um when you've got this sort of move, uh there has to be a full a pullback. Uh and I think from here on it's uh not so much of a um steady rise as we have perhaps seen over the last few years. Um we now go into a phase where the moves are more violent. Uh perhaps two steps forwards, one and a half steps back, two steps forwards, one and a half steps back. Um, and of course, if you're a a person who doesn't feel he's got enough silver, the way to play the game is to ease in gently a little bit now, which is painful cuz you're buying at the all-time high. Uh, but keep some in reserve so you can buy some perhaps in 10 days or 30 days time. Might be higher, might be lower, but either way, you can't be sad that you paid everything at the highest price. >> Yeah, that's a great perspective. And certainly tripledigit silver, you mentioned $180 there. I believe that statistic is using government inflation data. So perhaps if we're talking real world inflation, the price could be even higher to get back to that previous all-time high. In real terms, you posted a video to your YouTube channel which was rather prophetic about 3 months ago and it was titled, "Silver miners, the prices are about to go crazy. I name my top silver miner picks for huge gains." And silver mining stocks have indeed done very well this year with the SIL ETF up over 130% year to date. Do you think there's still more upside to come for silver miners? Is are those prices of the silver miners? Obviously, they're very correlated to the silver price as well. So, do you kind of have the same prognosis for the equities? And could you share those silver stock picks that you're most bullish on? Well, first of all, I haven't studied the entire market as I did three or four months ago when I did that video that you have to buy silver miners. Uh, but I have been looking in the last few days at a number of the silver miners and revaluing them. The ones I looked at, uh, I consider still to be very undervalued at today's silver price. Um, I would say they're probably pricing at a silver price of $25 at the moment. um not $50 or now we're 54 $57, aren't we? Um so if this price holds and I think we we we'll we'll have the up and down but I think uh we there's a floor uh in the range of 45 to 55 at the moment and uh and then we move up into the higher levels. Um but let's assume that that range holds. those silver miners are going to be on extremely or very low price earnings multiples next year when we're talking about the 2026 profits uh with and probably a higher price from than today's price. So in a doubling of the silver price from 25 to 50 doesn't mean to say the shares double. It means they do a lot more than doubling. Um, so when I did my calculations uh on a number of silver miners, they all look like they got many multiples higher to go. And I I you and you asked me to name some of them. Um, well, there's a there's a lot I like. There's um Majestic Silver, there's uh Pan-American Silver, there's Silver Crest, Heckler, and by the way, I don't own many of these. I own one or two of them. um uh Discovery Silver Andian Precious Metals, which is all gold and silver. Um Kingsgate Consolidated Gold and Silver. Um Silver X is one of my favorites. It's a fairly uh new producer. Um but it's got a very very leveraged upside. Uh that's been one of the best performers, but I think it's going to be an absolutely phenomenal performer going forwards. Uh and this is not investment advice. It's just my personal opinion. I've done my maths my way with my assumptions about what the silver price was. And the when I did the maths, I assumed the silver price would be $50 in 2027. That's a rather conservative estimate. It could be a lot higher, but I I used a $50 price and worked out um what will the earnings of these companies be in 2027? And if the earnings are that and I put a price earnings ratio, a modest price earnings ratio by the way and use 10 times on these companies, where do I think the share price will be? Then I compare that share price with what it is now. And there's many multiples upside. Another one which I particularly like is called silver corp. Uh that's a particularly good one. But you know, you can't really go wrong if you buy um the silver the silver mining ETFs or the silver judia minings ETF. I at this f at this point I'd probably go for the um the mainstream silver miners rather than the juniors. Um even though the juniors potentially have a well I say like lots of juniors have huge upsides upside the problem is lots do not uh because they're going to run out of cash. So if you're buying individual companies and and this is my my what I would recommend to anyone who's trying to buy silver miners unless they really really know what they're doing and I wouldn't say I know enough about about uh Julius but unless you really know what you're doing you should stick with the majors and the ones which are either already producing or just starting to produce. Then you know what's coming out of the ground. You can do some maths on that. You can look at how many ounces they they're producing and they say they'll produce. You can look at what the silver price is, uh, what you think they'll get, and that's your number. You can put $50, $70, $20, whatever you like. And then you look at the cost per ounce coming out of the ground. And now you have a gross profit before other expenses. The other expenses are easy to see on the website. Just deduct them. And you now have net earnings. Divide that by the number of shares, and you've got an earnings per share. Multiply that earnings per share by the multiple that you want. I use 10 times, but lots of people might use 15 or 20 times. Uh, and you get to a future share price. Uh, if you can't do it yourself, get AI to do it for you. There's some very good AIs out there. Perplexing will do it. Grock will do it. Um, Manis AI will do it. I'm guessing that Chat GPT will have a very good go at it, but Chat GPT I find is sometimes a bit lazy and only does half the job. So, I'm not really happy with it at the moment. The sponsor of today's episode is Ark Silver Gold Osmium. Owner Ian Everard is praised even by his competitors as one of the most honest and level-headed bullion dealers in the United States. [music] They have some great prices. You can see some of them displayed right now on screen. Take advantage of these specials today by reaching out to Ian at 3072649441 [music] or by email at ianarchsg.com. Make sure to tell them of course that commodity culture sent you. And now back to the interview. >> That's uh a lot of nuggets of wisdom there. Um firstly about making sure you do the work and understand what it is you're investing in when picking individual stocks. I go the ETF route because I don't have the expertise in the silver sector. Um, but as many viewers know, and if there's any new ones watching, you don't just buy stocks that you hear an expert recommend on a show because unless you understand deeply what you're investing in and you have conviction, you won't know what to do if it drops and you won't know what to do if it goes up. If it drops, should you buy more? Should you sell? If you don't understand the fundamentals of the company, it's just it's basically a lottery ticket at that point. Um, >> by the way, the quick one, the worst thing anyone can do is Google for companies with the word silver in it because there are far more companies with the word silver in the name which are not making profits than there are companies making profits. So, if you just Google for a list of companies with the word silver, you'll get a huge list of silver inverted commas silver companies. And if you buy that collection, you're probably going to find that most of them aren't making any profits and probably never will. And many of them will run out of money before they dig up a hole. >> Yes. And failure is the norm. That that's what's to be expected, especially when it comes to junior mining. But the mining industry as a whole is a very, very tough business. Um, we've been hearing a lot of talk about continued stress on LBMA silver inventories with many analysts seeing it as a major issue that could be one of the catalysts currently driving the silver price. I'd love to get your thoughts. Do you see there currently being a supply squeeze on at the LBMA? and if so, what could the implications be on the silver market moving forward? >> Um, I've seen a number of estimates of the uh shortage of silver at the L LBA. One estimate said there's only 6 weeks supply ahead and another one said there's 4 months. So, that's quite a big difference. But the the bottom line is it does see that seem that silver inventories at the LBMA have been uh shrinking for years and of course uh what's left is going to be very much spoken for in terms of uh it's leased out or it's held by it an institution which has no plans to ever sell it at any price. Um so when you have a situation like that it and if the demand continues to be higher than the supply coming in and by the way there has recently been a report a report I haven't read into it but report of big shipments from America to London of silver but if the supply is not coming in you then get a a kind of leveraged situation when people want silver but it's in short supply because the leasing rates at one point I heard was were up to 40% a year uh which kind of means that [clears throat] uh people will say you need silver borrow it from us and we'll charge you a lot of money. Um so it kind of implies that there were some real real problems at the LBMA. Um but you know one of the funny things about uh high if you have a high leasing rate silver will flow in uh you know because people say I want to take advantage. So it I I don't know that it's the end of the game for LBMA, but what what is clear is there's a shortage of silver in the market across the board. That's absolutely clear. There's no doubt about it. And that's why the price is going higher and it has to go higher to suck out the recycled silver because if you didn't have recycled silver, there wouldn't be enough to go around. >> We saw a freeze on all trading at the CME last week, I believe it was Friday, on what was described as a cooling issue. Are their systems really this susceptible to technical problems? Many people online are not buying it, and a lot of people were pointing to the rising silver price as the cost. Of course, we know silver bugs love to be conspiratorial-minded. I'm one of them, so I totally get it. Um, but people were saying, "Okay, they they took a break so that the shorts were able to get out of their positions. Um, they're running cover for the bullion banks." I mean, there was all sorts of of chatter out there on social media about what was actually happening. What are your thoughts? Do you think this really was a technical failure or or do you suspect something more sinister lurks behind the curtain? >> Well, I'll tell you what I think in a second, but let's just start by saying it's never a great idea to trade a conspiracy theory. >> Yeah. >> So, now in this case, it obviously was rather convenient that things broke down just at the high point, just it was hitting a peak. And uh in a way, one could say that maybe gave the shorts some kind of breathing space to figure out what they're going to do without uh getting margin calls while the silver price was hitting all-time highs. So, they can't send out a margin call in the middle of the day uh or think about a margin call if there if there's no price to make a margin call. But what we did see which was quite interesting uh during the period when the shorts could no longer roll over their shorts or do what or initiate new shorts the spot price rose sharply. I think it went up by 5.7% on the day. Um, so in one sense that kind of shows us what the real supply and demand might be if it weren't for what everyone suspects is market manipulation. And I I want to stress I'm not I'm not part of the conspiracy group. I don't uh really believe that there's market manipulation going on, but I you know I have to accept that it is a possibility. Um but I think this overheating was just convenient and not necessarily sinister. Um, but what causes overheating? Why did why why that day and why not any other day? I don't know. You know, there's got to be there's got to be a nagging suspicion. Um, but I'll put it down to randomness. >> Okay. Well, I want to shift to the gold sector. Now, obviously, both gold and gold miners have also been performing exceptionally well this year. What would you say are the main catalysts that brought us here? A lot of people are pointing to central bank buying as some people people even say that's the number one reason. Others point to rising geopolitical risks, debasement of the US dollar. I mean, take your pick that there's so many theories out there. So, what are your thoughts and would you say we are closer to the beginning or the end of this bull market as it stands today? >> Well, I certainly don't think we're at the um end or even the middle of it. I think this is uh late beginning. Um in terms of what's driving it, well, we've got a lot of things driving it at the moment. Some of them uh have been around for a few years and some of them relatively new. We've got the um fiscal deficits in the United States. And let's face it, what happens in the United States is very important to the value of gold and silver because the less confidence people have in the US dollar, the more they're going to look for alternatives. Um and at the moment there doesn't seem to be um enough actions to address those deficits which are set to be the largest ever on record this year. This year starting in uh started in October that's the fiscal year for the United States. Um so it's going to be over it's going to be at least 2 trillion of deficit the highest ever. Um we've got lower rates coming from the Federal Reserve. Um or at least that's the opinion at the moment. Uh now that can change cuz I know it's not 100% certain they'll lower rates in December. Um but the opinion at the moment is we still got lower rates coming. Then we've got central bank buying uh at record levels for the last three years. So central banks have shown over the last three years buying a thousand tons of gold a year on a uh on average over the last three years. They've basically shown that they don't care [clears throat] about what the price is. They just want more gold. And there's a good reason to want more gold. And that is um we've seen a certain weaponization of the dollar and it doesn't really matter whether you're friends or enemies with the United States. You've got to think what if I suddenly can't get my hands on or I can't deploy my dollars for some reason. You know it it there's been a lot of surprises in the last 11 months uh if you know what I mean. uh surprises that people never saw coming and a lot of seesaw, you know, whip swinging back, you know, let uh they call it the taco thing, you know, the taco trade Trump which is out. But it's not really that. But the point is you don't know where you stand from one day to the next. One day you got a tariff, next day you don't, then you do um and and then there's a retaliation from another country. So things are a bit chaotic um when it comes to um investing and particularly relying on the dollar. I think people are looking for something which can't be restricted. It can't go to zero. So in that respect, gold is is is coming in. So then we've got the geopolitical um events going on. Um that's not new. Geopolitical events have always been there. But obviously people think that there's a heightened tension at the moment. And that again is a reason why people would want to lay their hands on on gold. uh when I say people, I'm talking about countries. Uh and a lot of the buying has been coming from third world countries, you know, like China, Kazakhstan, Poland, those sort of things. I I don't mean to be derogatory to call them third world countries. They're called not not not the not the not the western countries, should we say. Um that's kind of what I meant. Um so that's kind of where the buying is coming from. countries which are uh maybe not as of today the greatest friends of the United States. Uh they're not enemies either particularly, but you know they're just well maybe some of them are, but they're just sort of saying let's get some just in case. Um but I think there's also something going to continue to drive it in the next few years. Um probably out to 20 27 28 29 um and that's the coming digitization of currencies. Uh we've got uh starting next year the roll out uh to start with of the digital euro and that will go fully live the year after that. Um now I I I don't want to go into too many details cuz it's it's a very very long topic but the long and short of it is I think you better get your gold before you've got the the digital euro arrives. I think that's that's my and if anyone wants to know why, look at my last video. But really, get your digital go get get your real gold before the digital euro arrives because you will perhaps find that you will no longer be able to deploy your assets the way you want your your money in the bank in the way you want to. >> That's very interesting. Actually, I'd love to dive a little bit deeper into that. Um, now first of all, do you think the EU will actually be able to roll out the digital euro on time? Because just to give one example, for years now they've been trying to roll out this new airport security at all EU member states where they're going to take your biometrics and this was announced year after year. It's coming next year. It's coming next year. It was supposed to be coming in October or November of this year and then they said it's coming at the end of 2026 now or 2027. So do you think they're actually going to be on time and on budget when it comes to the roll out of the digital euro first of all? And second of all, what are the implications that you see if they do roll it out in in the way that they are intending? Um what why is it that we need to have our hands on gold? What what are we protecting ourselves from in that situation? >> Well, I don't know where they are um other than what they've said, which is they're going to roll it out. Um obviously, I'm not a software engineer in that respect. And I I'll just comment on this airport security thing. I mean, saying that it's not working properly. Uh I I wonder what they're playing at because I mean the technology fa facial recognition works 100% perfectly. I I was in China um about a month ago for 2 weeks and I had to get my face scanned uh to go into the apartment block where I stay. So as you walk into the area, it recognizes your face. The doors open. It knows who you are by your face. As you get to the building, the door unlocks because it sees your face. You don't have to press a button. You don't have to look at the You don't have to look at the screen. It knows who you are. And as you go to the building, it knows what floor you're going to. And the floor light on the lift, the floor lights up. You can't press another button. It knows. So, facial recognition works 100% perfectly. It can't make a mistake. So, I don't know what what the problem is in the airports. I really don't. Uh so anyway, do I think it's going to come? Uh they say it will. So you got to go with what they say. Um and the the real problem here is I guess there's lots of problems, but let me talk about one. Uh the limit of what you'll be able to put into your wallet will be €3,000 or it might change slightly, but it's going to they say it's going to be €3,000. Um that doesn't sound like a lot. And so as extra money comes into your wallet, there'll be an auto sweep into your bank account. And if you spend more than €3,000 from your wallet, there'll be an auto sweep out of your bank account into your digital wallet. Now, we've got to remember that digital euros are not the euros in your bank. There it's it's it's like changing um Irish euros for German euros. Looks like the same thing, but well, they technically are. or 100 cents for a dollar. It's It looks like the same thing, but it's not. The digital euros are a direct liability of the central bank. The euros that you hold in your bank are created by a roundabout method by the banks themselves where they said it round hundreds of times. And the reason you can know that for sure is the amount of uh bank deposits is how it's many many tens or hundreds of multiples of the money which has been issued by the Federal Reserve. The liability on the balance sheet. So what you're going to get with digital dollars is a liability of the federal of the central bank to you. Now, I'm just making a point here which I'll come back to. It's not the same thing, digital dollars and dollars in your bank, but you won't be able to put more than €3,000 in your bank, but you will have this automatic sweep where it's one to one and you have no wor no worries for the time being. The first problem which might arise is when the small savers in in France or Germany, Italy start to withdraw their deposits from the smaller banks. So the smaller banks deal with small people, you know, usually they're free services, their online services. So a lot of money we were drawn by people filling up their wallets with all they got in the amount of €1,000 or €2,000. The estimates are that that €3,000 limit will still take 10% of all the deposits in the banking system. But if most of those withdrawals come from the smaller banks, it's going to create a liquidity problem for the smaller banks because they've let their money out long-term on car loans and hi-fi loans and to some extent mortgages. Now, the ECB knows this. It's not like they're in cloud ku land. They know this is a real danger. So the the plan is to uh incentivize people to do what's necessary to save the banking system if it if it becomes necessary. What they don't know is will all that money move into the wallets or will people just say not having any they won't touch it. But they have a plan if it does happen and the plan relates to incentives to ensure that you don't you put money back in the bank if it becomes problematical. negative rates. Basically, the the real plan is negative rates if necessary. So, you'll find money goes in your your wallet, you say, "Oh my god, they paid me negative rate. I'll put it back in my bank. Thank you very much." But then down the line, what will come will be a law and this won't be immediately. It'll be a year or two's time. Uh which basically says all transactions have to flow through your digital wallet. Whether you're buying a house or a car or uh going to eat your lunch, uh it the money will fly out of your bank, tune into your wallet, go through your wallet, and you buy what you want or you go back into your wallet and then back to your bank. They'll say that's necessary to make sure everyone's paying their taxes, to make sure there's no money laundering, to make sure there's no terrorism. And you know, we'll all cheer that. Oh yeah, quite just fine. We don't want any of that, do we? Um, but the problem with that is now there's a potential control. We we let's say we run into a crisis. Let's say we get into this sort of banking crisis where everybody's putting their money in the digital wallet and the some of the smaller banks are starting to have funding problems cuz the big banks say we won't lend you to you, we can't trust you. Then the big banks stop trusting each other. We're back in a 2008 situation where no bank trusts each other. Then we have a financial crisis. So they have to bring in emergency rules. So, what's that emergency rule going to be? It's going to be a limitation on what you can do with your digital wallet. So, you want to you want to buy a car? Well, sorry, this week just just temporarily you can't move more than €1,000 into your digital wallet or zero to deal with this emergency. Whatever the we don't know what the emergency be could be lots of things. We now have two currencies. the digital euro liability of the central bank and the old euro liability of your bank. So if you can't spend your old euro, how much is it worth? Nothing. So on day one, when they put in this temporary restriction, you'll be lucky to get 70 cents uh on the black market or the uh alternative market, whatever they whatever people decide to call it. 3 months later you'll be lucky to get 20 cents for your euros in the bank and a year later you won't get anything and that would be absolutely brilliant for the government because effectively their entire debt is in the old euro it's not in central bank it's not in f it's not in liabilities of the central bank so their entire debt the government's debt which is way too high and unmanageable at the moment effectively becomes worthless so they can now start borrowing again in the new euro the digital euro with a debt to GDP ratio of the new euro of zero without defaulting on the old one cuz they're going to repay you in worthless worthless euros which you can't spend a kind of debt jubilee. Now to what extent it plays out like I've just described there's many scenarios but the bottom line is if you have euros in the bank one way or another either through high inflation or through confiscation or through a forced buying of government bonds or a bailin or something else or uh a splitting of the currency into two currencies where you've got the digital euro and the other euro which isn't worth as much. We don't know how it's going to work. Uh but something has to happen because the debt is too high and it can't be sustained at these levels. And I'm not talking about just Europe. I think Europe would potentially be the first. But behind that we've got the UK, USA potentially and many many other countries which might go down the same kind of routes. But all these western countries have got the same problem which is one of too much debt. It's not going to it's not going to last. So something breaks at some point. We don't know when or how or where. But when it breaks in one place, everybody in every other country is going to say, "Are we next?" >> Yeah, great summary and great outline of some of the potential scenarios that people can prepare themselves for. >> That's why you should get your goal now. You get your goal while you can. That's what I'm saying. >> Absolutely. I I want to talk about the AI revolution and what many are calling a bubble in the stock market driven by AI. um there's so much hype behind AI but in terms of real world applications it feels like much of the sector is trading on hopes for the future especially when we consider profitability as one of the requirements um you know you mentioned uh using AI to evaluate companies I do it to break down earnings reports sometimes and and it's a very useful tool in that sense you can make cool videos and graphics but in terms of world changing um dynamics I don't think we've seen a lot yet perhaps replacing some entry-level positions Um, but the idea that, you know, AI is going to put everybody out of the workforce and take over the world, do you think that's a realistic proposition or do you think we're kind of, you know, it's a house of cards potentially at this point? And if so, do you expect it to to collapse in in in the either weeks, months, years ahead? >> Um, well, there's two things there. One one, what's the effect on the workforce? to um what's what's going to happen to the share prices of these uh companies. Uh we have the entire stock markets of the world, not just the USA, relying on a very small handful of companies, the top 10 US companies if you like, or top 10 AI companies in America. Um and those companies have some very optimistic assumptions. And when I say they have, the world has very optimistic assumptions about them. optimistic about the margins they'll be able to make in the future, optimistic about the growth and optimistic about what the where the demand is going to lie. So these companies are all priced to a large extent on future hope and which is why we're seeing price earnings at multiples of around let's say 40 for example. Um so the global indices really are relying on these 10 stocks. So what these 10 stocks do is what the world indices are going to do up or down. Um, now I'm not one to say that because something's overpriced it has to go back to fair value. Uh, there's no such rule in the stock market and never has been. Uh, it at some point it does. Uh, but it it's not I mean the classic example of why it doesn't is go back to the irrational exuberance expression of Alan Greenspan in 1996. Uh, he was three and a half years too early. So stocks were crazy crazy prices in 1996 just way way too high you know every company which came out before that was get an email address the price goes up then you get a.com uh you get a domain and your price goes up uh so prices were going crazy on the do they call it the.com bubble at the end because companies were coming out and inventing themselves with no revenue and adding.com at the end and so that was absolutely totally crazy but uh in the earlier stages these were companies which were making profits did have revenue years were still seeing their share price go through the go to the roof because they got an email address or because they got a domain name. And uh Alan Greenspan quite rightly called it irrational exuberance. Yet the market didn't crack. It carried on for I think three and a half years and you would have made several hundred% and a lot more if you'd been in NASDAQ stocks. But you' have made several hundred% just being in the S&P 500 after stocks were way too high. So if I'm say if I tell you that they're overpriced, which is the case, I'm not saying they're not going to go up for another two and a half, three years. We don't know. Um so will will they crash? Yes, we could easily go back to um at some point uh some sort of normality, especially if these uh growth expectations uh don't come to a fruition. Uh if we take the largest company OpenAI which owns Chat GPT uh their revenues last year were but a tiny fraction of their costs. I think you you'd have to so the average fee for a person like you and I on ChatB is about $20 a month. I think you'd have to be paying about a hundred bucks a month if you want chatb to make a profit. And don't forget there's all these other competitors to chap GPD which are also getting better day by day. Uh you know from Grock to Perplexity to uh Maners to uh Copilot to Gemini and and loads of others and there's going to be a lot more in the future. So competition is a big thing. So even though there's more and more of us using AI on a day-by-day basis that th those new users are getting divided up amongst a larger uh array of companies which are offering these AI services. Uh so perhaps the growth won't whilst there'll be a huge growth in in end users going into AI the growth for each company doing it may not be that as high as they're pricing it at the moment. Uh so when reality sets in um we could easily have uh a collapse in share prices. Uh but I want to get stress this is going to be driven by psychology. It's not because something's overpriced that it goes down. That's that you know that's just not the way the markets work. Markets are driven by psychology. So when the psychology changes if the psychology changes um and it always does at some point uh that's when we get the crash. Of course when we when that happens uh gold I mean I think you people will say well what's going to happen to gold and silver? Well I can tell you when a crash happens anywhere on the planet when something fails everything on the planet goes down. There's no there's nothing escaping from it. But then the most solid assets recover first. So I think that you know in the if if we do have a sudden you know 30% crash for example at some point uh gold and silver and uh obviously miners even more so will be taken down with it because margin calls literally do not care whether your stock is good or bad. A margin call is a margin call. You have to sell. There is no choice. So everything gets sold. Uh but when the recovery comes now people have got cash. they'll go for the safe assets and the safe asset will be gold and well especially gold and pro I am guessing silver as well but I think they'll go for the for gold and of course when that happens the huge drop we'll have seen in gold and silver miners will will come back very sharply but is it tomorrow um statistics say no if you know those who those who bet on a crash are usually wrong >> you recently posted on LinkedIn the results of your 2025 beat the benchmark portfolio which is currently ly up around 37% year to date. It it's constructed with 40 stocks and contains quote no AI stocks, no mag 7 or fang stocks. There were no gold or silver mining companies. There was no exposure to Bitcoin or other crypto stocks. Now, you posted the whole list of companies on LinkedIn. So, I recommend people follow you there. I'll put a link in the description below and they can check that out. But could you shed some light on how you constructed that portfolio and why you think it managed to outperform the broad market this year? >> So I've been doing this for many many years. Um well I've been investing in stocks for 50 odd years. Um and it uh and I a couple years ago I started publishing my portfolio uh uh call it beat the benchmark 2024, beat the benchmark 2025 and so forth on LinkedIn uh as opposed to the platforms I used previously which was more with my clients. Um the it takes a lot of courage to come out and publish a portfolio at at the start of the year because people can you could people can make a fool of you if it underperforms. they can say, "Oh, look, this guy did that, you know." Haha. Uh, but I've had a lot of success in beating the benchmark over the decades, and I had enough confidence to say if I don't, it won't be that bad. Um, and let's just say I usually beat the benchmark, and I aim to beat every benchmark. Now, how do how do how do I do it? Uh, well, first of all, I try not to buy companies which are going to be driven by speculation. So that's why there was no gold or gold mining, no no Bitcoin or Bitcoin mining or and uh and no um AI stocks. I I wanted stocks, companies which make genuine products or do things which everybody wants which aren't in the aren't in the spotlight of uh investors um investor media which could go either way of course. Um I just wanted companies which are increasing their turnover, increasing their profits, have good cash flow, have a lot of safety overall. Uh so I was looking for a lot of features like that. Um and uh the way the way I did it, I described it in a video I did about 8 days ago. Um, so if people want to go to my channel, which is Clive Thompson on YouTube, just look up Clive Thompson and uh look up perhaps the words beat the benchmark for example, and you'll find that video. There's a video called uh how to build a beating a benchmark beating portfolio in 2026 or something like that. So beat the benchmark and Clive Thompson. I think you'll find it. Um I describe in words of one syllable how to pick the stocks yourself. Um I'm using uh a free application on the internet. uh at least it's free for up to 10 stocks uh with so it's basically a filtering system where you uh pick certain attractive features and I describe what those attractive features are. I describe how to use the tool that's called simply Wall Street uh and you can go in there and you can then filter down to find stocks which have those attractive features. There's one more step you need to do after you find those a list of attractive companies by feature. So one feature might be high growth, another feature might be high momentum, another feature might be low uh very cheap, another feature might be high. There's lots of features you got. Another feature might be insider buying. And I I never do one feature on its own. I have I use combination of features, several features. But the last step you need to do is when you've got your list to go and look at the website of each company to see if there's any news which you need to be aware of before you make your final decision. But the good news is your starting point is you got a list of highquality companies which meet good criteria for investment to start with. And if you look at the website and you see the news, you could then say, "Ah, I didn't want to buy that one cuz it's being taken over by another company. Therefore, the upside is limited, for example." So because that that the when you're filtering it won't it won't spot that there's a takeover progress in takeover in progress or it won't spot that a company has been suspended for example because maybe there's been a regulatory failure or something. >> Great. Well I'm going to put a link in the description to your YouTube channel as well. Um Clyde this has been a great conversation. For those who want to follow your work is the best place to go LinkedIn and YouTube. Uh is there any other platforms that people should be aware of? >> Nope. just uh uh look for Clive Thompson on on LinkedIn. I publish twice a week uh with an article about finance, about gold, about silver, about platinum, about Bitcoin or about stocks. I mean, also sometimes the daily news um and YouTube it's about twice a week with a video on a topic. One of the favorite topics amongst my viewers is from time to time I do videos for complete beginners in stock market investing. So for those who've never invested in stocks before or don't understand how to get pick the best stocks, there are videos I'm putting up about that and a lot of people are showing those videos to their children because they think their children not getting any financial education with the schools and they want their children to be aware of finance because one day they're going to inherit their mom and dad's fortune and the sooner they learn the better. >> Absolutely. And and that's fantastic. I've been following your YouTube channel for a while now. great content. As I mentioned, link will be in the description to both Clive's YouTube channel as well as LinkedIn. So, I recommend people follow you there as well. Clive, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your knowledge with the audience. >> Thanks very much and bye-bye to all my listeners and all your listeners. >> Thank you for joining us today. This episode is brought to you by Ark Silver, Gold, Osmium. Their prices are appearing on your screen right now. These are all while supplies last and subject to change. Reach out to owner Ian Everard today to take advantage at 307-264-9441 or by email at ianarchcsggo.com. And make sure to tell him that Commodity Culture sent you and pick up your Commodity Culture merch. Rep the show in style. Everything backed by 100% quality guarantee. Use the link in the description below and I'll see you guys in the next episode. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up tod date with the latest episodes.
'Violent' Move Coming in SILVER – 'We Need $180' For REAL All-Time High: Clive Thompson
Summary
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where we break down commodities markets, sound money principles and geopolitics all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodities sector. Today is December 1st, 2025 and I'm thrilled to welcome Clive Thompson to the program. A former director of wealth management with 47 years of experience in trusts, wealth management, and private banking. Silver continues to break out now at around $57 an ounce. And Clive thinks that although we may see pullbacks along the way, we are still in the early stages of a generational bull market that could see prices soar into triple digits. Clive is also very bullish on silver miners and he provides his top picks in the sector along with diving deep into the gold market, the strategy for his winning beat the benchmark portfolio and the sinister truth behind the coming rollout of the digital euro. All of this and so much more ahead. So, strap yourselves in for my conversation with Clive Thompson. Clive Thompson, it is great to have you back on Commodity Culture. I want to kick the conversation off with silver today as the metal recently broke out to new all-time highs, currently sitting at around $57 an ounce. What are your thoughts on the recent price action in silver? And do you think the metal still has a long ways to run from here or should stackers and investors potentially consider taking profits at these levels? >> Well, the size of the move that we've seen has been unprecedented. Um, having said that, uh, unlike the bull market we saw when the Hunt brothers were buying silver and took it up to $50 back in the it was I think the early8s or late '7s, um, which was a speculative mania. This one is driven by fundamentals. Uh we're seeing uh well we've seen for the last five years a deficit in mind production compared with the industrial demand. Um and that industrial demand is set to increase uh partly from electronic electric vehicles where the amount of silver required is about double what you need for a conventional combustion engine. And of course we've got an an accelerating uh move towards solar panels which also are big consumers of silver. Um so there's a there's quite a large deficit in silver and the only way to suck out that deficit is through higher prices. But obviously those prices have moved um very fast and that kind of makes it um at least in the short run kind of speculative. Now it doesn't mean to say that the bull market is over. Not at all. Uh but often when these things happen, you do get a sharp and unexpected full pullback uh before the bull market can resume and go to all another all-time high. But you know, if we were to take the uh speculative boom of the Hunt brothers, the the and I think there was there was another one a bit later which wasn't so much speculative, but both of them took it silver to around $50. And so this time we've gone to $50. But if we adjust it for inflation, um the figure I've heard quoted, and I haven't double checked myself, is we'd have to go to $180 this time around to kind of make a peak similar to the ones we've had before. Um so, you know, when you have large bull markets like this, they can often overshoot. So, it'd be a fool. I'd be a fool if I said it's going to turn around tomorrow. I'm not saying that. uh it could easily shoot up again tomorrow and the day after, but at some point um when you've got this sort of move, uh there has to be a full a pullback. Uh and I think from here on it's uh not so much of a um steady rise as we have perhaps seen over the last few years. Um we now go into a phase where the moves are more violent. Uh perhaps two steps forwards, one and a half steps back, two steps forwards, one and a half steps back. Um, and of course, if you're a a person who doesn't feel he's got enough silver, the way to play the game is to ease in gently a little bit now, which is painful cuz you're buying at the all-time high. Uh, but keep some in reserve so you can buy some perhaps in 10 days or 30 days time. Might be higher, might be lower, but either way, you can't be sad that you paid everything at the highest price. >> Yeah, that's a great perspective. And certainly tripledigit silver, you mentioned $180 there. I believe that statistic is using government inflation data. So perhaps if we're talking real world inflation, the price could be even higher to get back to that previous all-time high. In real terms, you posted a video to your YouTube channel which was rather prophetic about 3 months ago and it was titled, "Silver miners, the prices are about to go crazy. I name my top silver miner picks for huge gains." And silver mining stocks have indeed done very well this year with the SIL ETF up over 130% year to date. Do you think there's still more upside to come for silver miners? Is are those prices of the silver miners? Obviously, they're very correlated to the silver price as well. So, do you kind of have the same prognosis for the equities? And could you share those silver stock picks that you're most bullish on? Well, first of all, I haven't studied the entire market as I did three or four months ago when I did that video that you have to buy silver miners. Uh, but I have been looking in the last few days at a number of the silver miners and revaluing them. The ones I looked at, uh, I consider still to be very undervalued at today's silver price. Um, I would say they're probably pricing at a silver price of $25 at the moment. um not $50 or now we're 54 $57, aren't we? Um so if this price holds and I think we we we'll we'll have the up and down but I think uh we there's a floor uh in the range of 45 to 55 at the moment and uh and then we move up into the higher levels. Um but let's assume that that range holds. those silver miners are going to be on extremely or very low price earnings multiples next year when we're talking about the 2026 profits uh with and probably a higher price from than today's price. So in a doubling of the silver price from 25 to 50 doesn't mean to say the shares double. It means they do a lot more than doubling. Um, so when I did my calculations uh on a number of silver miners, they all look like they got many multiples higher to go. And I I you and you asked me to name some of them. Um, well, there's a there's a lot I like. There's um Majestic Silver, there's uh Pan-American Silver, there's Silver Crest, Heckler, and by the way, I don't own many of these. I own one or two of them. um uh Discovery Silver Andian Precious Metals, which is all gold and silver. Um Kingsgate Consolidated Gold and Silver. Um Silver X is one of my favorites. It's a fairly uh new producer. Um but it's got a very very leveraged upside. Uh that's been one of the best performers, but I think it's going to be an absolutely phenomenal performer going forwards. Uh and this is not investment advice. It's just my personal opinion. I've done my maths my way with my assumptions about what the silver price was. And the when I did the maths, I assumed the silver price would be $50 in 2027. That's a rather conservative estimate. It could be a lot higher, but I I used a $50 price and worked out um what will the earnings of these companies be in 2027? And if the earnings are that and I put a price earnings ratio, a modest price earnings ratio by the way and use 10 times on these companies, where do I think the share price will be? Then I compare that share price with what it is now. And there's many multiples upside. Another one which I particularly like is called silver corp. Uh that's a particularly good one. But you know, you can't really go wrong if you buy um the silver the silver mining ETFs or the silver judia minings ETF. I at this f at this point I'd probably go for the um the mainstream silver miners rather than the juniors. Um even though the juniors potentially have a well I say like lots of juniors have huge upsides upside the problem is lots do not uh because they're going to run out of cash. So if you're buying individual companies and and this is my my what I would recommend to anyone who's trying to buy silver miners unless they really really know what they're doing and I wouldn't say I know enough about about uh Julius but unless you really know what you're doing you should stick with the majors and the ones which are either already producing or just starting to produce. Then you know what's coming out of the ground. You can do some maths on that. You can look at how many ounces they they're producing and they say they'll produce. You can look at what the silver price is, uh, what you think they'll get, and that's your number. You can put $50, $70, $20, whatever you like. And then you look at the cost per ounce coming out of the ground. And now you have a gross profit before other expenses. The other expenses are easy to see on the website. Just deduct them. And you now have net earnings. Divide that by the number of shares, and you've got an earnings per share. Multiply that earnings per share by the multiple that you want. I use 10 times, but lots of people might use 15 or 20 times. Uh, and you get to a future share price. Uh, if you can't do it yourself, get AI to do it for you. There's some very good AIs out there. Perplexing will do it. Grock will do it. Um, Manis AI will do it. I'm guessing that Chat GPT will have a very good go at it, but Chat GPT I find is sometimes a bit lazy and only does half the job. So, I'm not really happy with it at the moment. The sponsor of today's episode is Ark Silver Gold Osmium. Owner Ian Everard is praised even by his competitors as one of the most honest and level-headed bullion dealers in the United States. [music] They have some great prices. You can see some of them displayed right now on screen. Take advantage of these specials today by reaching out to Ian at 3072649441 [music] or by email at ianarchsg.com. Make sure to tell them of course that commodity culture sent you. And now back to the interview. >> That's uh a lot of nuggets of wisdom there. Um firstly about making sure you do the work and understand what it is you're investing in when picking individual stocks. I go the ETF route because I don't have the expertise in the silver sector. Um, but as many viewers know, and if there's any new ones watching, you don't just buy stocks that you hear an expert recommend on a show because unless you understand deeply what you're investing in and you have conviction, you won't know what to do if it drops and you won't know what to do if it goes up. If it drops, should you buy more? Should you sell? If you don't understand the fundamentals of the company, it's just it's basically a lottery ticket at that point. Um, >> by the way, the quick one, the worst thing anyone can do is Google for companies with the word silver in it because there are far more companies with the word silver in the name which are not making profits than there are companies making profits. So, if you just Google for a list of companies with the word silver, you'll get a huge list of silver inverted commas silver companies. And if you buy that collection, you're probably going to find that most of them aren't making any profits and probably never will. And many of them will run out of money before they dig up a hole. >> Yes. And failure is the norm. That that's what's to be expected, especially when it comes to junior mining. But the mining industry as a whole is a very, very tough business. Um, we've been hearing a lot of talk about continued stress on LBMA silver inventories with many analysts seeing it as a major issue that could be one of the catalysts currently driving the silver price. I'd love to get your thoughts. Do you see there currently being a supply squeeze on at the LBMA? and if so, what could the implications be on the silver market moving forward? >> Um, I've seen a number of estimates of the uh shortage of silver at the L LBA. One estimate said there's only 6 weeks supply ahead and another one said there's 4 months. So, that's quite a big difference. But the the bottom line is it does see that seem that silver inventories at the LBMA have been uh shrinking for years and of course uh what's left is going to be very much spoken for in terms of uh it's leased out or it's held by it an institution which has no plans to ever sell it at any price. Um so when you have a situation like that it and if the demand continues to be higher than the supply coming in and by the way there has recently been a report a report I haven't read into it but report of big shipments from America to London of silver but if the supply is not coming in you then get a a kind of leveraged situation when people want silver but it's in short supply because the leasing rates at one point I heard was were up to 40% a year uh which kind of means that [clears throat] uh people will say you need silver borrow it from us and we'll charge you a lot of money. Um so it kind of implies that there were some real real problems at the LBMA. Um but you know one of the funny things about uh high if you have a high leasing rate silver will flow in uh you know because people say I want to take advantage. So it I I don't know that it's the end of the game for LBMA, but what what is clear is there's a shortage of silver in the market across the board. That's absolutely clear. There's no doubt about it. And that's why the price is going higher and it has to go higher to suck out the recycled silver because if you didn't have recycled silver, there wouldn't be enough to go around. >> We saw a freeze on all trading at the CME last week, I believe it was Friday, on what was described as a cooling issue. Are their systems really this susceptible to technical problems? Many people online are not buying it, and a lot of people were pointing to the rising silver price as the cost. Of course, we know silver bugs love to be conspiratorial-minded. I'm one of them, so I totally get it. Um, but people were saying, "Okay, they they took a break so that the shorts were able to get out of their positions. Um, they're running cover for the bullion banks." I mean, there was all sorts of of chatter out there on social media about what was actually happening. What are your thoughts? Do you think this really was a technical failure or or do you suspect something more sinister lurks behind the curtain? >> Well, I'll tell you what I think in a second, but let's just start by saying it's never a great idea to trade a conspiracy theory. >> Yeah. >> So, now in this case, it obviously was rather convenient that things broke down just at the high point, just it was hitting a peak. And uh in a way, one could say that maybe gave the shorts some kind of breathing space to figure out what they're going to do without uh getting margin calls while the silver price was hitting all-time highs. So, they can't send out a margin call in the middle of the day uh or think about a margin call if there if there's no price to make a margin call. But what we did see which was quite interesting uh during the period when the shorts could no longer roll over their shorts or do what or initiate new shorts the spot price rose sharply. I think it went up by 5.7% on the day. Um, so in one sense that kind of shows us what the real supply and demand might be if it weren't for what everyone suspects is market manipulation. And I I want to stress I'm not I'm not part of the conspiracy group. I don't uh really believe that there's market manipulation going on, but I you know I have to accept that it is a possibility. Um but I think this overheating was just convenient and not necessarily sinister. Um, but what causes overheating? Why did why why that day and why not any other day? I don't know. You know, there's got to be there's got to be a nagging suspicion. Um, but I'll put it down to randomness. >> Okay. Well, I want to shift to the gold sector. Now, obviously, both gold and gold miners have also been performing exceptionally well this year. What would you say are the main catalysts that brought us here? A lot of people are pointing to central bank buying as some people people even say that's the number one reason. Others point to rising geopolitical risks, debasement of the US dollar. I mean, take your pick that there's so many theories out there. So, what are your thoughts and would you say we are closer to the beginning or the end of this bull market as it stands today? >> Well, I certainly don't think we're at the um end or even the middle of it. I think this is uh late beginning. Um in terms of what's driving it, well, we've got a lot of things driving it at the moment. Some of them uh have been around for a few years and some of them relatively new. We've got the um fiscal deficits in the United States. And let's face it, what happens in the United States is very important to the value of gold and silver because the less confidence people have in the US dollar, the more they're going to look for alternatives. Um and at the moment there doesn't seem to be um enough actions to address those deficits which are set to be the largest ever on record this year. This year starting in uh started in October that's the fiscal year for the United States. Um so it's going to be over it's going to be at least 2 trillion of deficit the highest ever. Um we've got lower rates coming from the Federal Reserve. Um or at least that's the opinion at the moment. Uh now that can change cuz I know it's not 100% certain they'll lower rates in December. Um but the opinion at the moment is we still got lower rates coming. Then we've got central bank buying uh at record levels for the last three years. So central banks have shown over the last three years buying a thousand tons of gold a year on a uh on average over the last three years. They've basically shown that they don't care [clears throat] about what the price is. They just want more gold. And there's a good reason to want more gold. And that is um we've seen a certain weaponization of the dollar and it doesn't really matter whether you're friends or enemies with the United States. You've got to think what if I suddenly can't get my hands on or I can't deploy my dollars for some reason. You know it it there's been a lot of surprises in the last 11 months uh if you know what I mean. uh surprises that people never saw coming and a lot of seesaw, you know, whip swinging back, you know, let uh they call it the taco thing, you know, the taco trade Trump which is out. But it's not really that. But the point is you don't know where you stand from one day to the next. One day you got a tariff, next day you don't, then you do um and and then there's a retaliation from another country. So things are a bit chaotic um when it comes to um investing and particularly relying on the dollar. I think people are looking for something which can't be restricted. It can't go to zero. So in that respect, gold is is is coming in. So then we've got the geopolitical um events going on. Um that's not new. Geopolitical events have always been there. But obviously people think that there's a heightened tension at the moment. And that again is a reason why people would want to lay their hands on on gold. uh when I say people, I'm talking about countries. Uh and a lot of the buying has been coming from third world countries, you know, like China, Kazakhstan, Poland, those sort of things. I I don't mean to be derogatory to call them third world countries. They're called not not not the not the not the western countries, should we say. Um that's kind of what I meant. Um so that's kind of where the buying is coming from. countries which are uh maybe not as of today the greatest friends of the United States. Uh they're not enemies either particularly, but you know they're just well maybe some of them are, but they're just sort of saying let's get some just in case. Um but I think there's also something going to continue to drive it in the next few years. Um probably out to 20 27 28 29 um and that's the coming digitization of currencies. Uh we've got uh starting next year the roll out uh to start with of the digital euro and that will go fully live the year after that. Um now I I I don't want to go into too many details cuz it's it's a very very long topic but the long and short of it is I think you better get your gold before you've got the the digital euro arrives. I think that's that's my and if anyone wants to know why, look at my last video. But really, get your digital go get get your real gold before the digital euro arrives because you will perhaps find that you will no longer be able to deploy your assets the way you want your your money in the bank in the way you want to. >> That's very interesting. Actually, I'd love to dive a little bit deeper into that. Um, now first of all, do you think the EU will actually be able to roll out the digital euro on time? Because just to give one example, for years now they've been trying to roll out this new airport security at all EU member states where they're going to take your biometrics and this was announced year after year. It's coming next year. It's coming next year. It was supposed to be coming in October or November of this year and then they said it's coming at the end of 2026 now or 2027. So do you think they're actually going to be on time and on budget when it comes to the roll out of the digital euro first of all? And second of all, what are the implications that you see if they do roll it out in in the way that they are intending? Um what why is it that we need to have our hands on gold? What what are we protecting ourselves from in that situation? >> Well, I don't know where they are um other than what they've said, which is they're going to roll it out. Um obviously, I'm not a software engineer in that respect. And I I'll just comment on this airport security thing. I mean, saying that it's not working properly. Uh I I wonder what they're playing at because I mean the technology fa facial recognition works 100% perfectly. I I was in China um about a month ago for 2 weeks and I had to get my face scanned uh to go into the apartment block where I stay. So as you walk into the area, it recognizes your face. The doors open. It knows who you are by your face. As you get to the building, the door unlocks because it sees your face. You don't have to press a button. You don't have to look at the You don't have to look at the screen. It knows who you are. And as you go to the building, it knows what floor you're going to. And the floor light on the lift, the floor lights up. You can't press another button. It knows. So, facial recognition works 100% perfectly. It can't make a mistake. So, I don't know what what the problem is in the airports. I really don't. Uh so anyway, do I think it's going to come? Uh they say it will. So you got to go with what they say. Um and the the real problem here is I guess there's lots of problems, but let me talk about one. Uh the limit of what you'll be able to put into your wallet will be €3,000 or it might change slightly, but it's going to they say it's going to be €3,000. Um that doesn't sound like a lot. And so as extra money comes into your wallet, there'll be an auto sweep into your bank account. And if you spend more than €3,000 from your wallet, there'll be an auto sweep out of your bank account into your digital wallet. Now, we've got to remember that digital euros are not the euros in your bank. There it's it's it's like changing um Irish euros for German euros. Looks like the same thing, but well, they technically are. or 100 cents for a dollar. It's It looks like the same thing, but it's not. The digital euros are a direct liability of the central bank. The euros that you hold in your bank are created by a roundabout method by the banks themselves where they said it round hundreds of times. And the reason you can know that for sure is the amount of uh bank deposits is how it's many many tens or hundreds of multiples of the money which has been issued by the Federal Reserve. The liability on the balance sheet. So what you're going to get with digital dollars is a liability of the federal of the central bank to you. Now, I'm just making a point here which I'll come back to. It's not the same thing, digital dollars and dollars in your bank, but you won't be able to put more than €3,000 in your bank, but you will have this automatic sweep where it's one to one and you have no wor no worries for the time being. The first problem which might arise is when the small savers in in France or Germany, Italy start to withdraw their deposits from the smaller banks. So the smaller banks deal with small people, you know, usually they're free services, their online services. So a lot of money we were drawn by people filling up their wallets with all they got in the amount of €1,000 or €2,000. The estimates are that that €3,000 limit will still take 10% of all the deposits in the banking system. But if most of those withdrawals come from the smaller banks, it's going to create a liquidity problem for the smaller banks because they've let their money out long-term on car loans and hi-fi loans and to some extent mortgages. Now, the ECB knows this. It's not like they're in cloud ku land. They know this is a real danger. So the the plan is to uh incentivize people to do what's necessary to save the banking system if it if it becomes necessary. What they don't know is will all that money move into the wallets or will people just say not having any they won't touch it. But they have a plan if it does happen and the plan relates to incentives to ensure that you don't you put money back in the bank if it becomes problematical. negative rates. Basically, the the real plan is negative rates if necessary. So, you'll find money goes in your your wallet, you say, "Oh my god, they paid me negative rate. I'll put it back in my bank. Thank you very much." But then down the line, what will come will be a law and this won't be immediately. It'll be a year or two's time. Uh which basically says all transactions have to flow through your digital wallet. Whether you're buying a house or a car or uh going to eat your lunch, uh it the money will fly out of your bank, tune into your wallet, go through your wallet, and you buy what you want or you go back into your wallet and then back to your bank. They'll say that's necessary to make sure everyone's paying their taxes, to make sure there's no money laundering, to make sure there's no terrorism. And you know, we'll all cheer that. Oh yeah, quite just fine. We don't want any of that, do we? Um, but the problem with that is now there's a potential control. We we let's say we run into a crisis. Let's say we get into this sort of banking crisis where everybody's putting their money in the digital wallet and the some of the smaller banks are starting to have funding problems cuz the big banks say we won't lend you to you, we can't trust you. Then the big banks stop trusting each other. We're back in a 2008 situation where no bank trusts each other. Then we have a financial crisis. So they have to bring in emergency rules. So, what's that emergency rule going to be? It's going to be a limitation on what you can do with your digital wallet. So, you want to you want to buy a car? Well, sorry, this week just just temporarily you can't move more than €1,000 into your digital wallet or zero to deal with this emergency. Whatever the we don't know what the emergency be could be lots of things. We now have two currencies. the digital euro liability of the central bank and the old euro liability of your bank. So if you can't spend your old euro, how much is it worth? Nothing. So on day one, when they put in this temporary restriction, you'll be lucky to get 70 cents uh on the black market or the uh alternative market, whatever they whatever people decide to call it. 3 months later you'll be lucky to get 20 cents for your euros in the bank and a year later you won't get anything and that would be absolutely brilliant for the government because effectively their entire debt is in the old euro it's not in central bank it's not in f it's not in liabilities of the central bank so their entire debt the government's debt which is way too high and unmanageable at the moment effectively becomes worthless so they can now start borrowing again in the new euro the digital euro with a debt to GDP ratio of the new euro of zero without defaulting on the old one cuz they're going to repay you in worthless worthless euros which you can't spend a kind of debt jubilee. Now to what extent it plays out like I've just described there's many scenarios but the bottom line is if you have euros in the bank one way or another either through high inflation or through confiscation or through a forced buying of government bonds or a bailin or something else or uh a splitting of the currency into two currencies where you've got the digital euro and the other euro which isn't worth as much. We don't know how it's going to work. Uh but something has to happen because the debt is too high and it can't be sustained at these levels. And I'm not talking about just Europe. I think Europe would potentially be the first. But behind that we've got the UK, USA potentially and many many other countries which might go down the same kind of routes. But all these western countries have got the same problem which is one of too much debt. It's not going to it's not going to last. So something breaks at some point. We don't know when or how or where. But when it breaks in one place, everybody in every other country is going to say, "Are we next?" >> Yeah, great summary and great outline of some of the potential scenarios that people can prepare themselves for. >> That's why you should get your goal now. You get your goal while you can. That's what I'm saying. >> Absolutely. I I want to talk about the AI revolution and what many are calling a bubble in the stock market driven by AI. um there's so much hype behind AI but in terms of real world applications it feels like much of the sector is trading on hopes for the future especially when we consider profitability as one of the requirements um you know you mentioned uh using AI to evaluate companies I do it to break down earnings reports sometimes and and it's a very useful tool in that sense you can make cool videos and graphics but in terms of world changing um dynamics I don't think we've seen a lot yet perhaps replacing some entry-level positions Um, but the idea that, you know, AI is going to put everybody out of the workforce and take over the world, do you think that's a realistic proposition or do you think we're kind of, you know, it's a house of cards potentially at this point? And if so, do you expect it to to collapse in in in the either weeks, months, years ahead? >> Um, well, there's two things there. One one, what's the effect on the workforce? to um what's what's going to happen to the share prices of these uh companies. Uh we have the entire stock markets of the world, not just the USA, relying on a very small handful of companies, the top 10 US companies if you like, or top 10 AI companies in America. Um and those companies have some very optimistic assumptions. And when I say they have, the world has very optimistic assumptions about them. optimistic about the margins they'll be able to make in the future, optimistic about the growth and optimistic about what the where the demand is going to lie. So these companies are all priced to a large extent on future hope and which is why we're seeing price earnings at multiples of around let's say 40 for example. Um so the global indices really are relying on these 10 stocks. So what these 10 stocks do is what the world indices are going to do up or down. Um, now I'm not one to say that because something's overpriced it has to go back to fair value. Uh, there's no such rule in the stock market and never has been. Uh, it at some point it does. Uh, but it it's not I mean the classic example of why it doesn't is go back to the irrational exuberance expression of Alan Greenspan in 1996. Uh, he was three and a half years too early. So stocks were crazy crazy prices in 1996 just way way too high you know every company which came out before that was get an email address the price goes up then you get a.com uh you get a domain and your price goes up uh so prices were going crazy on the do they call it the.com bubble at the end because companies were coming out and inventing themselves with no revenue and adding.com at the end and so that was absolutely totally crazy but uh in the earlier stages these were companies which were making profits did have revenue years were still seeing their share price go through the go to the roof because they got an email address or because they got a domain name. And uh Alan Greenspan quite rightly called it irrational exuberance. Yet the market didn't crack. It carried on for I think three and a half years and you would have made several hundred% and a lot more if you'd been in NASDAQ stocks. But you' have made several hundred% just being in the S&P 500 after stocks were way too high. So if I'm say if I tell you that they're overpriced, which is the case, I'm not saying they're not going to go up for another two and a half, three years. We don't know. Um so will will they crash? Yes, we could easily go back to um at some point uh some sort of normality, especially if these uh growth expectations uh don't come to a fruition. Uh if we take the largest company OpenAI which owns Chat GPT uh their revenues last year were but a tiny fraction of their costs. I think you you'd have to so the average fee for a person like you and I on ChatB is about $20 a month. I think you'd have to be paying about a hundred bucks a month if you want chatb to make a profit. And don't forget there's all these other competitors to chap GPD which are also getting better day by day. Uh you know from Grock to Perplexity to uh Maners to uh Copilot to Gemini and and loads of others and there's going to be a lot more in the future. So competition is a big thing. So even though there's more and more of us using AI on a day-by-day basis that th those new users are getting divided up amongst a larger uh array of companies which are offering these AI services. Uh so perhaps the growth won't whilst there'll be a huge growth in in end users going into AI the growth for each company doing it may not be that as high as they're pricing it at the moment. Uh so when reality sets in um we could easily have uh a collapse in share prices. Uh but I want to get stress this is going to be driven by psychology. It's not because something's overpriced that it goes down. That's that you know that's just not the way the markets work. Markets are driven by psychology. So when the psychology changes if the psychology changes um and it always does at some point uh that's when we get the crash. Of course when we when that happens uh gold I mean I think you people will say well what's going to happen to gold and silver? Well I can tell you when a crash happens anywhere on the planet when something fails everything on the planet goes down. There's no there's nothing escaping from it. But then the most solid assets recover first. So I think that you know in the if if we do have a sudden you know 30% crash for example at some point uh gold and silver and uh obviously miners even more so will be taken down with it because margin calls literally do not care whether your stock is good or bad. A margin call is a margin call. You have to sell. There is no choice. So everything gets sold. Uh but when the recovery comes now people have got cash. they'll go for the safe assets and the safe asset will be gold and well especially gold and pro I am guessing silver as well but I think they'll go for the for gold and of course when that happens the huge drop we'll have seen in gold and silver miners will will come back very sharply but is it tomorrow um statistics say no if you know those who those who bet on a crash are usually wrong >> you recently posted on LinkedIn the results of your 2025 beat the benchmark portfolio which is currently ly up around 37% year to date. It it's constructed with 40 stocks and contains quote no AI stocks, no mag 7 or fang stocks. There were no gold or silver mining companies. There was no exposure to Bitcoin or other crypto stocks. Now, you posted the whole list of companies on LinkedIn. So, I recommend people follow you there. I'll put a link in the description below and they can check that out. But could you shed some light on how you constructed that portfolio and why you think it managed to outperform the broad market this year? >> So I've been doing this for many many years. Um well I've been investing in stocks for 50 odd years. Um and it uh and I a couple years ago I started publishing my portfolio uh uh call it beat the benchmark 2024, beat the benchmark 2025 and so forth on LinkedIn uh as opposed to the platforms I used previously which was more with my clients. Um the it takes a lot of courage to come out and publish a portfolio at at the start of the year because people can you could people can make a fool of you if it underperforms. they can say, "Oh, look, this guy did that, you know." Haha. Uh, but I've had a lot of success in beating the benchmark over the decades, and I had enough confidence to say if I don't, it won't be that bad. Um, and let's just say I usually beat the benchmark, and I aim to beat every benchmark. Now, how do how do how do I do it? Uh, well, first of all, I try not to buy companies which are going to be driven by speculation. So that's why there was no gold or gold mining, no no Bitcoin or Bitcoin mining or and uh and no um AI stocks. I I wanted stocks, companies which make genuine products or do things which everybody wants which aren't in the aren't in the spotlight of uh investors um investor media which could go either way of course. Um I just wanted companies which are increasing their turnover, increasing their profits, have good cash flow, have a lot of safety overall. Uh so I was looking for a lot of features like that. Um and uh the way the way I did it, I described it in a video I did about 8 days ago. Um, so if people want to go to my channel, which is Clive Thompson on YouTube, just look up Clive Thompson and uh look up perhaps the words beat the benchmark for example, and you'll find that video. There's a video called uh how to build a beating a benchmark beating portfolio in 2026 or something like that. So beat the benchmark and Clive Thompson. I think you'll find it. Um I describe in words of one syllable how to pick the stocks yourself. Um I'm using uh a free application on the internet. uh at least it's free for up to 10 stocks uh with so it's basically a filtering system where you uh pick certain attractive features and I describe what those attractive features are. I describe how to use the tool that's called simply Wall Street uh and you can go in there and you can then filter down to find stocks which have those attractive features. There's one more step you need to do after you find those a list of attractive companies by feature. So one feature might be high growth, another feature might be high momentum, another feature might be low uh very cheap, another feature might be high. There's lots of features you got. Another feature might be insider buying. And I I never do one feature on its own. I have I use combination of features, several features. But the last step you need to do is when you've got your list to go and look at the website of each company to see if there's any news which you need to be aware of before you make your final decision. But the good news is your starting point is you got a list of highquality companies which meet good criteria for investment to start with. And if you look at the website and you see the news, you could then say, "Ah, I didn't want to buy that one cuz it's being taken over by another company. Therefore, the upside is limited, for example." So because that that the when you're filtering it won't it won't spot that there's a takeover progress in takeover in progress or it won't spot that a company has been suspended for example because maybe there's been a regulatory failure or something. >> Great. Well I'm going to put a link in the description to your YouTube channel as well. Um Clyde this has been a great conversation. For those who want to follow your work is the best place to go LinkedIn and YouTube. Uh is there any other platforms that people should be aware of? >> Nope. just uh uh look for Clive Thompson on on LinkedIn. I publish twice a week uh with an article about finance, about gold, about silver, about platinum, about Bitcoin or about stocks. I mean, also sometimes the daily news um and YouTube it's about twice a week with a video on a topic. One of the favorite topics amongst my viewers is from time to time I do videos for complete beginners in stock market investing. So for those who've never invested in stocks before or don't understand how to get pick the best stocks, there are videos I'm putting up about that and a lot of people are showing those videos to their children because they think their children not getting any financial education with the schools and they want their children to be aware of finance because one day they're going to inherit their mom and dad's fortune and the sooner they learn the better. >> Absolutely. And and that's fantastic. I've been following your YouTube channel for a while now. great content. As I mentioned, link will be in the description to both Clive's YouTube channel as well as LinkedIn. So, I recommend people follow you there as well. Clive, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your knowledge with the audience. >> Thanks very much and bye-bye to all my listeners and all your listeners. >> Thank you for joining us today. This episode is brought to you by Ark Silver, Gold, Osmium. 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