Willem Middelkoop: Silver in Short Squeeze, Price Can Go "Much Higher"
Summary
Silver Short Squeeze: Guest argues a violent, ongoing short squeeze is driving silver higher, with potential continuation well beyond $100 due to large open interest and physical delivery constraints.
Price Discovery Shift: The locus of price discovery is moving from COMEX to Shanghai, evidenced by an 8–10% China premium and larger intraday moves during Asian hours.
Producers’ Leverage: Despite soaring silver, miners have not outperformed yet; margins are expanding and valuations remain low, with examples like Barrick (GOLD) and Newmont (NEM) trading at sub-15 forward P/Es.
Supply Constraints: New mine supply is slow (17-year average from discovery to production; even longer in the U.S.), while major producers face depletion, limiting a rapid production response.
Gold Outlook: Long-term gold target raised to at least $8,000 amid fiat debasement, persistent inflation, safe-haven demand, and potential monetary system changes led by BRICS.
Demand Dynamics: Investment demand for silver is accelerating; even if industrial demand dips in a recession, investor buying and a large structural deficit support prices.
Metal Wars: The guest frames a new era of “metal wars,” where the East weaponizes commodities in response to dollar weaponization, reinforcing bullion demand and strategic stockpiling.
Critical Minerals Strategy: Western efforts to catch up in small markets like rare earths may help, but China’s refining dominance and broad structural deficits suggest a multi-decade commodities bull market.
Transcript
[music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Will Middlecope, founder of Commodity Discovery Fund. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Great to be back and everybody is so positive now this year. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's we're at VR for context for the audience. It is a very positive atmosphere. What have you been hearing down on the show floor? >> Well, it's hard to get in rooms. It's standing room only and I gave a presentation uh myself yesterday on the silver short squeeze and there was a packed room and I remember one or two years ago u I gave a presentation the same room and it was half full at that time. So different vibe. >> Yeah, I think people are waking up. I've never seen such long lineups to to get in. So, let's let's start with silver because silver hit a very important milestone just a few days ago at this point getting to the $100 level. It's kept going since then. So, I want to we'll get into what's going to come next, but for you when you look at what's going on with silver, what's the primary driver that you would identify? >> Uh, I call this move a silver short squeeze, which is like a technical term known within financial markets and trading. And you get violent fishes um short squeeze when certain actors in the market are short a position and they need to buy it back in in the market because the price starts to rise and they're losing money a every day. So um and once you have a short squeeze developing nobody knows where the top will be. So 100 seems expensive now. That's a large move. But we shouldn't forget we broke the $50 mark. Uh what was it in in December, early December and and that was after we broke from this triple top of $50 which we reached first 45 years ago. And after you break such a triple top, you can expect a violent move. And that's I think that's why the shorts became very nervous. maybe are even panicking some of them. And nobody knows where this will end, but I I I'm afraid it won't end with $100. We're we're already at 110 today. And this could bring us to $200, $300. Nobody knows, but I I think we we'll see much higher numbers in in the months and years to come. >> We've got a lot to break down there. And I wonder if we can talk a little bit more about the short squeeze situation because there's been so much talk in the past about manipulation in the silver market. And I wonder are we getting to the point where manipulation comes to an end. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> So >> that's that's that's why this move is so so f violent. >> Uh we know that certain actors, let's say the big banks, they sold a lot of unallocated silver positions to their clients. We know that from circumstantial evidence that sometimes people asked for delivery and they couldn't get delivery. Um so it's well documented by certain researchers. Ted Butler, one of them, he passed away last year. He'd been writing about this I think for 40 years predicting that one day we get would get this huge short squeeze. So it's it's it's sad that he's he's not around because he really predicted this. Um I became aware of this because I started to follow uh GATA which is like uh I always call them the financial green peas. Uh they um calling for more transparency in in precious metals markets and I started to follow them in the late 90s and met met their board members. So I was aware of this for for the last 25 years. I've been very vocal about it, been writing about this in my book. And that's why I always called for $100 silver, $5,000 gold. We reached that now. But we're in the first innings, I think, of this short squeeze. So, it's not over yet. So, there's more to come. >> Yeah, I think this is what people are wondering about, especially when it comes to silver. So, we're seeing the end of manipulation. And a question that I know our audience is asking is, is this a new price paradigm for silver? Have we set a new floor at the 100? Yeah. Okay. >> During my presentation, I said we're entering a new era for the metals. And I call these the metal wars, the start of the metal wars because we see the price discovery mechanism moving from Chicago, from the west, from the ComX to Shanghai. This is all uh well documented. If you look at the intraday price swings, the largest swings are now during the Asian trading hours and not the west is following the east. Now you see a premium in the east 8 to 10% for silver. So as long as this premium persists uh the short squeeze ain't ain't over and I think certain actors in the west uh are panicking and they have to close positions and they can only close positions by buying back physical silver and I think you need to pay a much higher price to get enough silver in into the market and as as you know as well it's very hard to grow the silver production worldwide. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we can talk a little bit more about that premium in China. I'm hearing a lot about it. And so you said if this persists then the short squeeze continues. Do you see it? Do you see it continuing? >> Well, the premium is a great indicator and as of now the premium exists. though the short squeeze is continuing and I also expect the short squeeze to continue because um if you study the numbers which Ted Butler always published um and I looked at a chart um from uh gold charts Rus and and that's about the open interest outstanding open positions and and and they're still huge in silver and also in gold but especially in silver it almost takes 140 days to cover those positions. So that tells me the covering um the short covering is just beginning. We're at the beginning of the end and not um this is not the end. >> It's really interesting you say that because when at this conference we've gotten to the tripledigit milestone and I'm seeing some people at least talking about well now that we got here I need to sell I need to take profits. So what what do you think about that? Is that something you would consider or or not at this point? >> No, no, no, no. We took a I run a fund, Commodity Discovery Fund. We have almost 400 million Canadian dollars now under management. Um, and we took some profits, which I think is normal as a fund manager, but but on my PA on my personal level, I haven't been selling. I've quite a bit of physical silver because I always expected this move. I haven't been selling and people who are calling me friends I tell them to wait some of them have sold already because people think oh this this is it no I think it's just a start >> okay and another question I see being asked a lot here is what about the silver stocks so we've seen this big move in the silver price when do we get that outperformance in the equities >> great question and because we don't see any outperformance yet they've gone But the silver price has gone up >> this the same p percentage and uh so the margins for the producers are exploding but look if you look at the valuations of the sil the ETF it's the same rock bottom valuation as early 16 as 2024. So that also tells me we're we're early in this game. We also see that with the inflow into our fund uh there's there's some healthy inflow but we have that every year it's not there's not an incredible inflow which you normally see at the end of bull markets. So all these signs um point to the start of a very strong new bull market and actually the bare market the valuation for commodities uh the last top of of the valuation in commodities in in in the largest cycle was in 1980. So we had 45 years of declining valuation for commodities and um and and I expect this boom market to take decades not years. >> Wow. And when it comes to the silver stocks, so we'll see that outperformance at some point. I know we had to wait when the gold price was moving. We had to wait some time for it to catch up. Where where would be so your fund is focused on discoveries but if people want to take advantage of this coming silver stock rise where should they focus is it >> well you should always build a portfolio and I would say that's what we do ourselves you take the best producers and you take the best discoveries um but significant silver discoveries are very rare I only know about five worldwide uh and they've gone up already quite a bit. Um I I would concentrate more on the producers maybe because um as I said their margins are exploding and their valuation is still not that that rich. And if you look at silver or gold producers as well, Bareric and Newman their price earnings ratio which shows the valuation is sub 15 based on forward earnings. So it's it's still cheap. >> And you talked a little bit about silver supply. So, I would imagine that producers would want to bring on more supply right now while the price is up. Companies at the smaller levels might want to speed up what they're doing to bring supply online, but it it takes a long time in the mining industry to do that. So, how how how long might it take to get that supply response? >> Well, from discovery till the start of the mine on average takes 17 years. In US it takes 27 years. Even in the US we have some new silver discoveries. Hercules Metals is one name that comes to mind. Um there are few more but most aren't that that that that large. If if we look at a country like Peru, Peru is an important silver producers. The silver production has been coming down for years. Uh we see the same for copper in Chile. Uh so higher prices doesn't mean that the production numbers go up right away. uh it takes a lot of uh time and energy to find new zones to open new uh mines and don't forget the larger existing mines are getting depleted. So you need newer minds just to come up uh um for for the depletion of the older mines. So I I don't expect the silver production to really start moving much higher. uh if we look at the worldwide silver production, >> do you have any concerns about the demand side for silver? Because it's got its precious investment side and the industrial side and you know for the industrial demand there I hear concerns about if there's a recession that could go lower. We're starting to hear about replacement of silver because the high price. So any anything you're thinking about there? >> Well, investment demand has been very um well slow over the last few years. is really picking up now. So any decline in demand from the industry would um be picked up I think by by investors worldwide. And this is such a small market and and the production deficit is so large. Worldwide um demand last year was uh 1.3 billion ounces of silver. Worldwide production is less than 850 million ounces. So there's a huge gap. We we've done some studies supply and demand um based on historical numbers. We've been in production deficit almost every year since the 1970s actually. So uh I'm afraid that distress in the physical silver market will persist and silver is a given good and um that means that demand for silver just like gold grows when the price is going higher and that's that's different from other goods. Normally when a car gets more expensive, the demand for that car goes down. But in gold and silver, we see increased demand when the prices rise. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, and let's make sure we talk about gold as well. So, we've got a pretty good idea of your outlook for silver. You mentioned you've had this 5,000 number for gold for years at this point. So, where where do we go from here? >> Yeah, that 5,000 was my goal for the last 15 years, I think. So have to come up with the new goal. Uh I think we'll reach a minimum of 8,000 in this cycle, but I wouldn't be surprised when we go when we'll see much higher numbers and and the reason why is um we see more and more people starting to flee out of fiat money. Uh the basement of currency is uh so large that we have this permanent high inflation. Um and and people are starting to wonder where they can flee uh to hatch themselves against the inflation and then well gold and silver are great safe havens and and there's so much money in this world 400,000 billion is in financial assets. So when more and more of that money starts to fleet towards gold and silver because it's such a perfect hatch and and and we're reaching a point that we'll get a monetary reset and gold might even be reintroduced into the system. Maybe that will be coming from the east from the BRICS countries there. There's I could envision scenarios where gold is trading much much higher. Yeah, it definitely sounds like it's getting more and more realistic at this point. And I know that you pay close attention to the geopolitical side and I think that is maybe part of what's waking up more average people because they see the news cycle just moving so quickly. So I wonder what what flash points are you watching most closely right now? What's really key for gold? Well, you have you have all this um instability and and tension and pressure building up geopolitically, but also within the US. We're near civil war in the US. Um economy is going um down. Real estate is starting to correct. Uh I expect the start of a suffering depth crisis very soon. Japan is showing the first signs of that. Um, but I if we look at at at the yeast, I think what's happening within the BRICS alliance and China as its leader, the ddollarization I is is is a consequence of the US using the dollar as a weapon. The weaponization of the dollar by the US is now followed by the weaponization of of commodities of precious metals in the east. So that's why I call this the start of the metal wars. So um it's a new era. >> Yeah, I think it definitely is and we're we are continuing to see that distrust of the US. One one viewer question that we had right in is about Germany and looking to repatriate gold from the US. Is there anything you'd share on that note? >> Oh, yeah. I've been calling for the repatriation of Dutch gold since the uh early 2000s and the US and the Netherlands. Um they repatriated I think onethird of their holdings, but there are still a large part here in Canada in Ottawa because the Dutch royal family flat here in 1940 and they took the gold with them and it's still here. It's great story. Uh there's still a lot of Dutch gold in uh with the Federal Reserve in New York and we know um US has played tricks by well using stored silver for all kind of financial engineering. We [snorts] know that because Germany asked uh their um gold holdings back a few years um what was over a decade ago and it took the US seven years to return their gold. Uh and now um Germany wants to um repatriate the the last gold bars which are still in the US and it shows a trend that there's a huge distrust. Uh Europe doesn't trust us anymore. Uh and this is all this all helps to um increase the demand for gold and silver. So there's so much it's like the perfect storm. Now >> I want to go back to the metals war idea that you mentioned. So we can see how gold and silver play in there. There's the critical minerals angle. Which metals do you think will end up being most important as that's playing out? Well, if you ask the US, if you ask the Trump administration, 60 of the metals are critical now. And that's out of all, well, we only have 12 20 different metals and elements uh in our um in our natural system. So uh when half of the metals are be being called critical, it shows that um let's forget about the inflation and the debasement of the currency. Let let's forget about the geopolitics just on supply and demand. We we we just have one earth and we're depleting our natural resources. And and if we look at the supply and demand studies we've done inhouse around 2030 and onwards there are permanent production deficits in many of these metals and and we we knew this for the last 10 15 years and we started to invest accordingly but it's only now in the last one or two years that the western countries are starting to wake up to that to those facts and I think China was aware of this a bit earlier and Russia as well. So they're in a much better position now. And and all the actions by the Trump administration, Latin America are are connected in a way to this these um metal wars, these resource wars. >> How well do you think the US is doing in terms of catching up because definitely China, Russia are ahead. They've been working on this for years. >> Well, they're very serious now and you can make the difference in in small markets. Let's say in the rare earth elements. These are very small markets. So if you can open a few mines or old production facilities, you can really um um close the gap with China. Although that's very difficult because in many of those metals, China had more or less a monopoly in not not in the mining but in the refining capacity and production capacity. But if you look at at at at larger markets like lithium or or copper or gold or and even silver, it will be very hard for the US to um to become self-sufficient. And and uh if I look at Europe, because I I live in Europe, um what Europe is doing is all too little too late. And um uh well and that's why Europe still relies heavily uh on on on the US. >> Yeah. Well, I know I need to get you back out to the conference, but before I let you go, any final thoughts you'd leave investors with maybe on how they can express these themes we've been talking about in their portfolio. >> Well, most investors are almost uh day traders. They they want to switch every day. They should they should look at the larger trends. And I always focus on the larger trends because the short term nobody can predict. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. But you can predict what will happen in 10 to 20 years if you look at the major trends because you know um we still have an increase of the population. We still see an increase of the people who are moving to the middle class. So you can predict the larger waves, you know the demographics and based on these trends uh and when you listen to guys well like me or people who write books on this stuff you can you can become a specialist u with some self-study in a few years time. That's the way I educated myself. I didn't know anything about commodities 30 years ago because in Europe we were just weren't interested in this. Canada has always been a very um well important country in in the world of resources. So I come here to learn. I still learn every day. >> Yeah, me as well. Thank you so much for for coming on to talk. This was great. Always nice to have you on. >> Thank you. >> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Will Middlecope. >> [music]
Willem Middelkoop: Silver in Short Squeeze, Price Can Go "Much Higher"
Summary
Transcript
[music] I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Will Middlecope, founder of Commodity Discovery Fund. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you. >> Great to be back and everybody is so positive now this year. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's we're at VR for context for the audience. It is a very positive atmosphere. What have you been hearing down on the show floor? >> Well, it's hard to get in rooms. It's standing room only and I gave a presentation uh myself yesterday on the silver short squeeze and there was a packed room and I remember one or two years ago u I gave a presentation the same room and it was half full at that time. So different vibe. >> Yeah, I think people are waking up. I've never seen such long lineups to to get in. So, let's let's start with silver because silver hit a very important milestone just a few days ago at this point getting to the $100 level. It's kept going since then. So, I want to we'll get into what's going to come next, but for you when you look at what's going on with silver, what's the primary driver that you would identify? >> Uh, I call this move a silver short squeeze, which is like a technical term known within financial markets and trading. And you get violent fishes um short squeeze when certain actors in the market are short a position and they need to buy it back in in the market because the price starts to rise and they're losing money a every day. So um and once you have a short squeeze developing nobody knows where the top will be. So 100 seems expensive now. That's a large move. But we shouldn't forget we broke the $50 mark. Uh what was it in in December, early December and and that was after we broke from this triple top of $50 which we reached first 45 years ago. And after you break such a triple top, you can expect a violent move. And that's I think that's why the shorts became very nervous. maybe are even panicking some of them. And nobody knows where this will end, but I I I'm afraid it won't end with $100. We're we're already at 110 today. And this could bring us to $200, $300. Nobody knows, but I I think we we'll see much higher numbers in in the months and years to come. >> We've got a lot to break down there. And I wonder if we can talk a little bit more about the short squeeze situation because there's been so much talk in the past about manipulation in the silver market. And I wonder are we getting to the point where manipulation comes to an end. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> So >> that's that's that's why this move is so so f violent. >> Uh we know that certain actors, let's say the big banks, they sold a lot of unallocated silver positions to their clients. We know that from circumstantial evidence that sometimes people asked for delivery and they couldn't get delivery. Um so it's well documented by certain researchers. Ted Butler, one of them, he passed away last year. He'd been writing about this I think for 40 years predicting that one day we get would get this huge short squeeze. So it's it's it's sad that he's he's not around because he really predicted this. Um I became aware of this because I started to follow uh GATA which is like uh I always call them the financial green peas. Uh they um calling for more transparency in in precious metals markets and I started to follow them in the late 90s and met met their board members. So I was aware of this for for the last 25 years. I've been very vocal about it, been writing about this in my book. And that's why I always called for $100 silver, $5,000 gold. We reached that now. But we're in the first innings, I think, of this short squeeze. So, it's not over yet. So, there's more to come. >> Yeah, I think this is what people are wondering about, especially when it comes to silver. So, we're seeing the end of manipulation. And a question that I know our audience is asking is, is this a new price paradigm for silver? Have we set a new floor at the 100? Yeah. Okay. >> During my presentation, I said we're entering a new era for the metals. And I call these the metal wars, the start of the metal wars because we see the price discovery mechanism moving from Chicago, from the west, from the ComX to Shanghai. This is all uh well documented. If you look at the intraday price swings, the largest swings are now during the Asian trading hours and not the west is following the east. Now you see a premium in the east 8 to 10% for silver. So as long as this premium persists uh the short squeeze ain't ain't over and I think certain actors in the west uh are panicking and they have to close positions and they can only close positions by buying back physical silver and I think you need to pay a much higher price to get enough silver in into the market and as as you know as well it's very hard to grow the silver production worldwide. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we can talk a little bit more about that premium in China. I'm hearing a lot about it. And so you said if this persists then the short squeeze continues. Do you see it? Do you see it continuing? >> Well, the premium is a great indicator and as of now the premium exists. though the short squeeze is continuing and I also expect the short squeeze to continue because um if you study the numbers which Ted Butler always published um and I looked at a chart um from uh gold charts Rus and and that's about the open interest outstanding open positions and and and they're still huge in silver and also in gold but especially in silver it almost takes 140 days to cover those positions. So that tells me the covering um the short covering is just beginning. We're at the beginning of the end and not um this is not the end. >> It's really interesting you say that because when at this conference we've gotten to the tripledigit milestone and I'm seeing some people at least talking about well now that we got here I need to sell I need to take profits. So what what do you think about that? Is that something you would consider or or not at this point? >> No, no, no, no. We took a I run a fund, Commodity Discovery Fund. We have almost 400 million Canadian dollars now under management. Um, and we took some profits, which I think is normal as a fund manager, but but on my PA on my personal level, I haven't been selling. I've quite a bit of physical silver because I always expected this move. I haven't been selling and people who are calling me friends I tell them to wait some of them have sold already because people think oh this this is it no I think it's just a start >> okay and another question I see being asked a lot here is what about the silver stocks so we've seen this big move in the silver price when do we get that outperformance in the equities >> great question and because we don't see any outperformance yet they've gone But the silver price has gone up >> this the same p percentage and uh so the margins for the producers are exploding but look if you look at the valuations of the sil the ETF it's the same rock bottom valuation as early 16 as 2024. So that also tells me we're we're early in this game. We also see that with the inflow into our fund uh there's there's some healthy inflow but we have that every year it's not there's not an incredible inflow which you normally see at the end of bull markets. So all these signs um point to the start of a very strong new bull market and actually the bare market the valuation for commodities uh the last top of of the valuation in commodities in in in the largest cycle was in 1980. So we had 45 years of declining valuation for commodities and um and and I expect this boom market to take decades not years. >> Wow. And when it comes to the silver stocks, so we'll see that outperformance at some point. I know we had to wait when the gold price was moving. We had to wait some time for it to catch up. Where where would be so your fund is focused on discoveries but if people want to take advantage of this coming silver stock rise where should they focus is it >> well you should always build a portfolio and I would say that's what we do ourselves you take the best producers and you take the best discoveries um but significant silver discoveries are very rare I only know about five worldwide uh and they've gone up already quite a bit. Um I I would concentrate more on the producers maybe because um as I said their margins are exploding and their valuation is still not that that rich. And if you look at silver or gold producers as well, Bareric and Newman their price earnings ratio which shows the valuation is sub 15 based on forward earnings. So it's it's still cheap. >> And you talked a little bit about silver supply. So, I would imagine that producers would want to bring on more supply right now while the price is up. Companies at the smaller levels might want to speed up what they're doing to bring supply online, but it it takes a long time in the mining industry to do that. So, how how how long might it take to get that supply response? >> Well, from discovery till the start of the mine on average takes 17 years. In US it takes 27 years. Even in the US we have some new silver discoveries. Hercules Metals is one name that comes to mind. Um there are few more but most aren't that that that that large. If if we look at a country like Peru, Peru is an important silver producers. The silver production has been coming down for years. Uh we see the same for copper in Chile. Uh so higher prices doesn't mean that the production numbers go up right away. uh it takes a lot of uh time and energy to find new zones to open new uh mines and don't forget the larger existing mines are getting depleted. So you need newer minds just to come up uh um for for the depletion of the older mines. So I I don't expect the silver production to really start moving much higher. uh if we look at the worldwide silver production, >> do you have any concerns about the demand side for silver? Because it's got its precious investment side and the industrial side and you know for the industrial demand there I hear concerns about if there's a recession that could go lower. We're starting to hear about replacement of silver because the high price. So any anything you're thinking about there? >> Well, investment demand has been very um well slow over the last few years. is really picking up now. So any decline in demand from the industry would um be picked up I think by by investors worldwide. And this is such a small market and and the production deficit is so large. Worldwide um demand last year was uh 1.3 billion ounces of silver. Worldwide production is less than 850 million ounces. So there's a huge gap. We we've done some studies supply and demand um based on historical numbers. We've been in production deficit almost every year since the 1970s actually. So uh I'm afraid that distress in the physical silver market will persist and silver is a given good and um that means that demand for silver just like gold grows when the price is going higher and that's that's different from other goods. Normally when a car gets more expensive, the demand for that car goes down. But in gold and silver, we see increased demand when the prices rise. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, and let's make sure we talk about gold as well. So, we've got a pretty good idea of your outlook for silver. You mentioned you've had this 5,000 number for gold for years at this point. So, where where do we go from here? >> Yeah, that 5,000 was my goal for the last 15 years, I think. So have to come up with the new goal. Uh I think we'll reach a minimum of 8,000 in this cycle, but I wouldn't be surprised when we go when we'll see much higher numbers and and the reason why is um we see more and more people starting to flee out of fiat money. Uh the basement of currency is uh so large that we have this permanent high inflation. Um and and people are starting to wonder where they can flee uh to hatch themselves against the inflation and then well gold and silver are great safe havens and and there's so much money in this world 400,000 billion is in financial assets. So when more and more of that money starts to fleet towards gold and silver because it's such a perfect hatch and and and we're reaching a point that we'll get a monetary reset and gold might even be reintroduced into the system. Maybe that will be coming from the east from the BRICS countries there. There's I could envision scenarios where gold is trading much much higher. Yeah, it definitely sounds like it's getting more and more realistic at this point. And I know that you pay close attention to the geopolitical side and I think that is maybe part of what's waking up more average people because they see the news cycle just moving so quickly. So I wonder what what flash points are you watching most closely right now? What's really key for gold? Well, you have you have all this um instability and and tension and pressure building up geopolitically, but also within the US. We're near civil war in the US. Um economy is going um down. Real estate is starting to correct. Uh I expect the start of a suffering depth crisis very soon. Japan is showing the first signs of that. Um, but I if we look at at at the yeast, I think what's happening within the BRICS alliance and China as its leader, the ddollarization I is is is a consequence of the US using the dollar as a weapon. The weaponization of the dollar by the US is now followed by the weaponization of of commodities of precious metals in the east. So that's why I call this the start of the metal wars. So um it's a new era. >> Yeah, I think it definitely is and we're we are continuing to see that distrust of the US. One one viewer question that we had right in is about Germany and looking to repatriate gold from the US. Is there anything you'd share on that note? >> Oh, yeah. I've been calling for the repatriation of Dutch gold since the uh early 2000s and the US and the Netherlands. Um they repatriated I think onethird of their holdings, but there are still a large part here in Canada in Ottawa because the Dutch royal family flat here in 1940 and they took the gold with them and it's still here. It's great story. Uh there's still a lot of Dutch gold in uh with the Federal Reserve in New York and we know um US has played tricks by well using stored silver for all kind of financial engineering. We [snorts] know that because Germany asked uh their um gold holdings back a few years um what was over a decade ago and it took the US seven years to return their gold. Uh and now um Germany wants to um repatriate the the last gold bars which are still in the US and it shows a trend that there's a huge distrust. Uh Europe doesn't trust us anymore. Uh and this is all this all helps to um increase the demand for gold and silver. So there's so much it's like the perfect storm. Now >> I want to go back to the metals war idea that you mentioned. So we can see how gold and silver play in there. There's the critical minerals angle. Which metals do you think will end up being most important as that's playing out? Well, if you ask the US, if you ask the Trump administration, 60 of the metals are critical now. And that's out of all, well, we only have 12 20 different metals and elements uh in our um in our natural system. So uh when half of the metals are be being called critical, it shows that um let's forget about the inflation and the debasement of the currency. Let let's forget about the geopolitics just on supply and demand. We we we just have one earth and we're depleting our natural resources. And and if we look at the supply and demand studies we've done inhouse around 2030 and onwards there are permanent production deficits in many of these metals and and we we knew this for the last 10 15 years and we started to invest accordingly but it's only now in the last one or two years that the western countries are starting to wake up to that to those facts and I think China was aware of this a bit earlier and Russia as well. So they're in a much better position now. And and all the actions by the Trump administration, Latin America are are connected in a way to this these um metal wars, these resource wars. >> How well do you think the US is doing in terms of catching up because definitely China, Russia are ahead. They've been working on this for years. >> Well, they're very serious now and you can make the difference in in small markets. Let's say in the rare earth elements. These are very small markets. So if you can open a few mines or old production facilities, you can really um um close the gap with China. Although that's very difficult because in many of those metals, China had more or less a monopoly in not not in the mining but in the refining capacity and production capacity. But if you look at at at at larger markets like lithium or or copper or gold or and even silver, it will be very hard for the US to um to become self-sufficient. And and uh if I look at Europe, because I I live in Europe, um what Europe is doing is all too little too late. And um uh well and that's why Europe still relies heavily uh on on on the US. >> Yeah. Well, I know I need to get you back out to the conference, but before I let you go, any final thoughts you'd leave investors with maybe on how they can express these themes we've been talking about in their portfolio. >> Well, most investors are almost uh day traders. They they want to switch every day. They should they should look at the larger trends. And I always focus on the larger trends because the short term nobody can predict. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. But you can predict what will happen in 10 to 20 years if you look at the major trends because you know um we still have an increase of the population. We still see an increase of the people who are moving to the middle class. So you can predict the larger waves, you know the demographics and based on these trends uh and when you listen to guys well like me or people who write books on this stuff you can you can become a specialist u with some self-study in a few years time. That's the way I educated myself. I didn't know anything about commodities 30 years ago because in Europe we were just weren't interested in this. Canada has always been a very um well important country in in the world of resources. So I come here to learn. I still learn every day. >> Yeah, me as well. Thank you so much for for coming on to talk. This was great. Always nice to have you on. >> Thank you. >> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Will Middlecope. >> [music]