Throughout history, few investments have rivaled investing in gold for popularity as a hedge against many economic problems, from inflation, to economic upheaval or currency fluctuations, to war.

When you think about investing in gold, don’t restrict yourself to just buying physical gold, like coins or bullion. Alternatives to invest in gold include buying shares of gold mining companies or gold Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). You can also invest in gold by trading options and futures contracts.

Physical Gold

Investing in physical gold can be challenging for investors more accustomed to trading stocks and bonds online. When it comes to physical gold, you’ll generally be interacting with dealers outside of traditional brokerages, and you’ll likely need to pay for storage and obtain insurance for your investment. The three main options to invest in physical gold are bullion, coins and jewelry.

Buying Gold Miner Stocks

Companies that specialize in mining and refining will also profit from a rising gold price. Investing in these types of companies can be an effective way to profit from gold, and can also carry lower risk than other investment methods.

Investing in Gold ETFs

Investing in gold ETFs  can provide you with exposure to gold’s long-term stability while offering more liquidity than physical gold and more diversification than individual gold stocks. There are a range of different types of gold funds. Some are passively managed index funds that track industry trends or the price of bullion using futures or options.

An investor can also invest  in ETFs that hold a basket of gold mining stocks. An example is the VanEck God Miners ETF (GDX.NYSE) which holds many of the major gold mining producers.  For investors wanting to be more aggressive and buy ore speculative mining companies, the VanEck Junior Gold Miner ETF (GDXJ.NYSE) is available.

It’s All Connected: The Charts Behind My Latest Interview

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This week I joined Jim Goddard on This Week in Money. We covered a lot of ground: oil, diesel, interest rates, bonds, currencies, gold, stocks and DeFi. On air, I promised listeners some charts so they could see what I was describing instead of trying to picture it.

Here they are, in the same order as the interview. Each section includes the timestamp so you can jump back to that part of the conversation.

The common thread is simple: it’s all connected. Oil pushed inflation up. Inflation pushed central banks to raise rates. Higher rates pushed bond yields to multi-decade highs. And those yields are now colliding with a mountain of debt.

[Listen to the full interview ]

1. Oil: a tug-of-war between supply and fear (9:00)

WTI crude, daily. Oil has been climbing in a rising channel since July. The green line is ‘support’, a level where buyers tend to step in. The red line is ‘resistance’, a level where sellers tend to take over. Oil was turned back at the top of the channel near $105 in mid-September and is now testing support around $92–93 (dotted line).

  • Supply improved: Saudi Arabia restarted its East-West pipeline, which moves oil around the Strait of Hormuz. That extra supply initially pushed prices lower.
  • Fear won anyway: Heated threats between the US and Iran at the UN General Assembly sent Brent up about 4% in a single day.
  • The lesson: When supply is already tight, it doesn’t take an actual disruption to move prices. The fear of one is enough.
  • Still disrupted: Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is still running roughly 80% below normal. Libya’s output is offline, and Russian fuel exports are restricted.
  • An analogy: Think of global oil supply as several pipes feeding one big tank. One kinked pipe (the Saudi pipeline) got fixed, but the threats traded between Washington and Tehran more than offset it.
  • The election angle: With US midterms about six weeks away, high pump prices put pressure on Washington. Iran knows it.

2. Diesel: the bigger problem (13:29)

3-2-1 crack spread, weekly. This is the refiner’s profit on each barrel of crude turned into gasoline and diesel. The lower left shows the normal range of $15–20. Today’s margin of about $$60-65 is more than triple that.

What’s a crack spread? Refiners buy crude oil and ‘crack’ it into finished fuels like gasoline and diesel. The crack spread is the difference between what they pay for crude and what they sell the fuel for. In other words, it’s the refiner’s profit margin.

The 3-2-1 example:

  • Cost: 3 barrels of crude at about $95 each = $285
  • Revenue: 2 barrels of gasoline (about $145 each) + 1 barrel of diesel (about $190) = $480
  • Margin: $195 ÷ 3 barrels = about $65 per barrel
  • Normal: Typically $15–20. Today’s margin is almost  triple that.

US diesel vs. crude oil. Crude has risen, but diesel has climbed much faster. That widening gap is the refining shortage in action.

This isn’t really a crude oil shortage anymore. It’s a refining shortage, and diesel is where it shows up worst. US diesel recently hit an all-time high.

Why diesel matters to everyone: It isn’t just for trucks. It powers trains, ships, farm equipment and construction machinery, so it touches the cost of almost everything that gets moved or grown.

Why it’s a global squeeze:

  • Russia: Ukrainian drone strikes have hit Russian refineries roughly every three days on average this year. Russian refinery output has fallen to its lowest level in over 20 years, and Russia has banned its own gasoline and diesel exports.
  • North America: No new US refinery has been built since the mid-1970s. Canada’s last one, in Edmonton in 2017, was its first in 33 years.
  • The key difference: A crude shortage can be eased by releasing oil from strategic reserves. A refining shortage can’t. You can’t build a refinery in a week, so diesel prices can stay high even if crude cools off.

3. Why a diesel export ban could backfire (18:30)

US diesel retail price. Diesel hit a record near $6.50 a gallon, roughly 75–80% higher than a year ago. That’s the pain farmers and truckers are feeling heading into the midterms.

  • The idea: President Trump wants to ban diesel exports so more fuel stays home and prices fall. Farmers and truckers are angry heading into the midterms.
  • The problem: US refiners are running near full capacity because they can sell surplus diesel overseas at high prices. The US market alone can’t absorb it all.
  • What happens next: With exports cut off, refiners would scale back to avoid a glut.
  • The backfire: Remember the 3-2-1 example. The same barrel of crude makes gasoline and jet fuel too. Cut refining to reduce diesel, and gasoline and jet fuel supply drop as well, which pushes those prices higher.
  • Bottom line: Energy Secretary Chris Wright understands this plumbing. You can’t legislate more fuel into existence by restricting where it goes. You can only decide which fuels get squeezed.

4. Rising interest rates: what they mean for you (21:47)

Fed funds rate, since 2019. The Fed cut rates to near zero in 2020, then raised them sharply in 2022–23 to fight inflation. After cutting through 2024 and 2025, it has just raised rates for the first time since July 2023.

Central banks are raising rates because of the energy shock. The Fed just hiked for the first time in three years, and the European Central Bank has hiked twice since the Iran war began. Both cited oil and fuel prices.

  • Mortgages: Variable rates and new fixed rates go up. Renewing now likely means a much higher payment than you budgeted for.
  • Credit cards and lines of credit: Variable rates rise almost immediately by the same amount as the central bank’s hike, so minimum payments rise too.
  • Big purchases: Vehicles, appliances and business equipment all cost more to finance.
  • The silver lining: Savers finally earn a bit more on cash in high-interest savings accounts and short-term deposits.
  • The real worry: Central banks target about 2% inflation a year. The concern isn’t that inflation exists; it’s that it could surge. When people expect higher prices, they buy early and businesses raise prices pre-emptively. That’s how a temporary energy shock becomes a sticky inflation problem.

5. The bond market warning (25:16)

US 10-year Treasury yield, since 1999. For more than 20 years, yields fell steadily (green line), and money got cheaper and cheaper. In 2022 that trend broke, ending the era of cheap money. The yield is now pressing against its 2007 high of about 5.3% (red dotted line), set just before the financial crisis. A break above it would put the 10-year at its highest level in more than two decades.

Big Tech bond issuance. The five biggest AI cloud companies borrowed about $28 billion a year from 2020 to 2024. That jumped to $121 billion last year and has already topped $220 billion this year. Source: BofA Securities via Reuters; Reuters and Bloomberg reporting for 2026.

What’s a bond yield? It’s the interest rate investors demand to lend money to a government or company. When yields rise, borrowing gets more expensive for everyone.

  • Multi-decade highs: The US 10-year yield hit 5.21%, its highest since 2007, just before the financial crisis. The 30-year is around 5.5%, its highest since 2004.
  • Global, not just US: Canada’s 10-year is around 4%, and Japan’s is 3.08%, its highest in about 30 years.
  • Three forces at once: Stronger-than-expected economic data, oil back in the $90–100 range, and a Fed chair saying inflation isn’t cooling fast enough.
  • A new competitor for lenders: The biggest AI cloud companies (Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Oracle) used to issue about $25–30 billion a year in bonds. That jumped to $121 billion last year and has passed $220 billion so far this year to fund the AI buildout. They’re also borrowing in euros, yen, Canadian dollars and pounds, so they compete directly with governments for the same pension funds, insurers and bond funds.
  • Why stocks care: Higher yields make growth and tech stocks less attractive, because their value depends on profits far in the future.
  • The bill coming due: Global debt has topped $365 trillion. The US pays about $1.24 trillion a year in interest on its $40 trillion debt. That reflects an average rate of only about 3.5%, because much of the debt was issued when rates were near zero. If that average climbs toward today’s 5–5.5%, US interest costs could reach $1.7–2 trillion a year, before a single new dollar of borrowing.
  • An analogy: It’s like renewing a mortgage at a much higher rate. More of every paycheck goes to interest before anything else gets paid.

6. Currencies: follow the interest rate gap (34:38)

Canadian dollar, in US cents, daily. The loonie broke its short-term uptrend in mid-September (steeper green line) and has since slid from nearly 73 cents to about 70.7. It’s now approaching its long-term support line, which has held since early 2025 and sits around 70.5. If that line holds, the loonie could stabilize. A clean break below it would be a warning sign for further weakness.

Japanese Yen. A rising line means a stronger yen. After sliding into late July, the yen has climbed in a series of higher lows (green line). It spiked about 5% in early September, gave back more than half of that, and is now bouncing off its rising trendline as talk of government intervention returns. A sharply stronger yen is what could force the carry trade to unwind.

Currencies and interest rates are two sides of the same coin. Money flows to where it earns the most.

  • US dollar: The Dollar Index is at 101, its highest since July. Fed officials are openly talking about more hikes.
  • Canadian dollar: High oil normally helps the loonie, since energy is Canada’s biggest export. But the Fed is hiking while the Bank of Canada isn’t, so the loonie has slipped from about 73 cents US to just over 70.
  • Japanese yen: Japan’s finance minister is voicing concern about yen weakness, and markets are bracing for intervention.
  • What’s the yen carry trade? For years, Japan kept rates near zero. Investors borrowed yen cheaply and bought higher-returning assets elsewhere, from US tech stocks to emerging-market bonds.
  • Why it matters: As the Bank of Japan raises rates, that trade gets less profitable. If investors unwind it, they sell those assets to buy back yen. We got a preview in August 2024, when a much smaller yen move sparked a sharp global sell-off in stocks and crypto within hours.

7. Gold: the neckline broke. Now what? (38:59)

Gold, daily: the head-and-shoulders. Since the January high, gold has formed two lower ‘shoulders’ with a higher ‘head’ on August 25 between them. The line under the shoulders is the ‘neckline’, at about 4,300. Gold closed below it this week, which opens the door to a retest of 3,900–4,000.

Gold, daily: the rising trendline. This line runs from the start of gold’s big run, through the March 23 low, to the August 25 high. It’s acting as resistance. Because it slopes upward, it leaves room for a run toward 4,700–4,800 by mid-October.

What’s a head-and-shoulders pattern? It’s three peaks, with the middle one (the ‘head’) highest and the two on either side (the ‘shoulders’) lower. A line under the shoulders is called the ‘neckline’. A close below it is a bearish signal.

  • What happened: Gold broke below the roughly 4,300 neckline earlier this week and is trading just under 4,290.
  • Why it’s struggling: The Fed’s hawkish rate hike. Gold pays no interest, so higher rates make interest-paying assets look more attractive.
  • Why it’s holding up well: Given how fast yields are rising, gold has barely reacted to the hike.
  • The bullish case: The rising trendline shown in the second chart is acting as resistance. Because it slopes upward, it leaves room for a run toward 4,700–4,800 by mid-October.
  • The big picture: Governments are running enormous deficits. On top of its $40 trillion debt, the US has over $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare. Governments can print currency, but they can’t print gold.
  • My view: Any pullback in gold is a buying opportunity. We’ll flag specific entry points to Trend Letter subscribers.

8. Stocks: making money now vs. promising it later (43:52)

S&P 500, daily. The index has climbed in a rising channel since April (green line = support, red line = resistance, now near 8,000). Since mid-August it has paused in a ‘bull flag’ (shaded area): a short, gentle drift lower after a big run that often comes before the uptrend resumes. It dipped briefly below 7,600 in mid-September, then pushed back up and out of the top of the flag. The yellow line at 7,600, June’s breakout level, is the key support to watch.

  • The dividing line: It’s less about which sector you’re in, and more about whether a business is making money now or is priced on a story about the future.
  • Holding up: Chipmakers and memory makers riding a real shortage (Micron is up over 260% this year), and energy stocks, especially refiners, riding real oil prices.
  • Getting squeezed: Companies priced on distant future growth, as yields rise.
  • Levels to watch: The S&P 500 is around 7,740. It has been climbing in a rising channel since April and chopping between 7,600 and 7,800 for several weeks.
  • Key support: 7,600, the old June breakout level. As long as it holds on a closing basis, the uptrend is intact. A clean break below it would be the first real warning sign.
  • Expect volatility: Valuations are stretched, September is historically the S&P’s worst month, and markets dislike the uncertainty of the midterms.

9. DeFi: Wall Street moves onto the blockchain (48:36)

  • What’s DeFi? Decentralized finance: financial services run on a blockchain instead of through traditional banks and exchanges.
  • What’s tokenization? Creating a digital version of a real-world asset (a stock, bond, building or piece of art) that lives on a blockchain, so it can move faster and settle instantly.
  • NYSE and Blockchain.com: A new agreement lets Blockchain.com users buy tokenized US stocks and ETFs through the NYSE’s digital platform, without first converting their crypto into dollars.
  • Ondo Finance and BlackRock: Ondo is launching ‘intelligent portfolios’, professionally built portfolios packaged as a single token and based on strategies BlackRock developed for on-chain use.
  • Why it matters: The biggest names on Wall Street (BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, BNY Mellon and Franklin Templeton) are now all talking tokenization. This is big.

DeFi Digest is still free, but not for long.

To get on the Defi Digest list, email us at info@thetrendletter.com and ask to be put on the list.  A new issue is coming in the next week or two.

Special offer for This Week in Money listeners

  • Any one service: $250 off
  • Any two services: $600 off
  • All three (Trend Letter, Trend Technical Trader and Trend Disruptors): $1,050 off

[Claim your discount]

Martin

Debt, bonds, gold, oil, bitcoin: it’s all connected this week

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Market Pulse
The Week That Was — Aug 14–21, 2026
Hello Investors,
It’s all connected — and this week proved it again. Bonds, gold, oil, and bitcoin all moved on the same two storylines: Washington’s scramble to control borrowing costs, and Washington’s escalating economic war with Iran. Here’s what mattered.
Bond Yields: Treasury Blinks, Market Doesn’t Buy It
  • The 10-year hit 4.74% on Friday — a fresh 20-month high — even after the Treasury tried to talk yields down mid-week.
  • The 30-year Treasury yield hit 5.33% this week — its highest level in nearly 20 years, last seen in the summer of 2007, just before the financial crisis.
  • Treasury Secretary Bessent announced the department would double its long-bond buybacks to $4 billion next quarter, hoping to cap borrowing costs. It worked for about a day.
  • Fed Chair Kevin Warsh muddied the picture further, signaling a rate hike ‘may not be his preferred tool’ to fight inflation — leaving markets guessing ahead of Jackson Hole.
  • The number behind all of it: US national debt just hit a record $40,060,947,165,774. That works out to $116,507 for every citizen and $360,794 for every taxpayer — up a full trillion dollars in just five months.
  • Bottom line: at a 19-year high of 5.33%, the 30-year yield is tightening the screws on everyone who borrows money. Mortgage rates move higher, corporate borrowing gets more expensive, and the AI buildout — running on cheap debt — suddenly costs a lot more to finance. And a government $40 trillion in debt faces a crushing interest bill that already exceeds defence spending. Higher for longer isn’t just a Fed slogan anymore. It’s the new cost of doing business in America.
Gold: Best Week Since Mid-May
  • Gold broke above $4,600/oz on Friday, its highest level since mid-May, extending weekly gains to roughly 5%.
  • The trigger: growing alarm over US fiscal sustainability after national debt crossed the $40 trillion mark (see above) — the fastest single-trillion increase on record.
  • Central banks aren’t waiting around either — they bought a record 288.9 tonnes in Q2, up 62% year-over-year, buying into weakness, not strength.
  • Bottom line: every time Washington tries to manage its own debt problem, gold gets another bid. That dynamic isn’t going away.
Oil: Iran Tensions Ratchet Up Again
  • Brent settled the week at $94.39, WTI at $87.06 — Brent up 6.4% and WTI up 5.7% on the week, both touching their highest levels since late July.
  • The 60-day window for a US-Iran deal expired Monday with no resolution. Trump has since threatened sanctions on Iran’s trading partners and told his envoys to stand down from talks entirely.
  • The Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut — a fraction of normal tanker traffic is getting through, and Iran says it won’t reopen the waterway until sanctions are lifted and ‘war reparations’ are paid.
  • The oil market’s problem is increasingly not simply access to crude, but the ability to turn that crude into diesel, gasoline and other products.
  • Consequently, refined fuels like diesel are driving broader inflation risks far more than crude prices alone imply..
  • Bottom line: this isn’t a spike-and-fade story anymore. The standoff is structural, and energy markets are pricing that in.
Bitcoin: Biggest Weekly Gain in Two Years
  • Bitcoin ripped roughly 20–22% this week, closing near $77,000 after starting the week around $62,800.
  • The rally lit up Wednesday, the moment Treasury yields pulled back on Bessent’s bond-buyback news — risk assets took the signal and ran.
  • Momentum built further on progress toward crypto market-structure legislation (the Clarity Act).
  • Bottom line: bitcoin traded this week like a high-beta bond proxy. When Washington moves on yields, crypto moves harder.
Canada-US Trade: Deal Collapses at the Midnight Deadline
  • Talks between Ottawa and Washington fell apart late Friday night, just minutes before a midnight deadline — triggering 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods, including hockey equipment, building materials, liquor, and clothing.
  • PM Mark Carney said Washington’s last-minute changes to agreed terms were ‘unfair, uneconomic,’ and called into question the reliability of any deal — and pulled Canada’s negotiators back to Ottawa.
  • The US side blames Canada for walking away from terms it says were already settled. Either way, Canada has vowed to match the tariffs dollar for dollar starting Sept. 8.
  • Energy, potash, and critical minerals were carved out of the new tariffs — worth watching for our uranium and rare-earth positions.
  • Bottom line: this is a fresh, direct hit to cross-border trade sentiment and adds another layer of uncertainty right as bonds, gold, and oil are already repricing risk. For Canadian investors, it’s one more reason hard assets and diversification matter right now.
The thread connecting it all: Washington is trying to manage a debt and inflation problem with one hand, running an open-ended economic war with Iran with the other, and now reigniting a trade fight with its closest neighbour. Gold and bitcoin are pricing the debt story. Oil and bonds are pricing the Iran story. Friday’s tariff news is a direct warning for Canadian investors. Companies that depend on US exports — manufacturers, lumber producers, auto parts suppliers, agricultural exporters — are directly in the crosshairs of new 50% tariffs.
Portfolio Spotlight: The Aug 5 Alert Is Already Paying Off
Trend Letter Open Portfolio: 21 positions, 17 positive, 4 negative, 60.24% average gain
Two weeks ago, we sent subscribers a BUY alert on three names built for exactly this environment — a debasement trade, a uranium supply story, and a geopolitical risk hedge — plus pointed new subscribers to a rare-earths position already sitting in our long-term model portfolio. Here’s how fast it’s already working:
Position Rec. Date Rec. Price Current Gain
Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM) 08/05/26 $224.85 $297.82 +32.45%
iShares Silver Bullion (2nd position) 08/05/26 $28.36 $31.75 +11.95%
Uranium Miners (2nd position) 08/05/26 $52.26 $58.19 +11.35%
We also flagged REMX (rare earths) to new subscribers that same week as a name already sitting in our long-term model portfolio. Since Aug 5, REMX has moved from $72.46 to $80.75 — a gain of +11.44% in the same two weeks.
Two weeks. Four names. Double-digit gains across the board — and gold’s biggest single mover, AEM, is already up over 32%.
This is exactly the kind of setup we build the Trend Letter portfolio around: when the macro backdrop turns — debt worries pushing gold, geopolitical risk pushing uranium and hard assets — we want you positioned before the move, not chasing it afterward.
And it’s not an isolated win. The full open portfolio is averaging a 60.24% gain across 21 active positions, with standouts like VanEck Junior Miners (+274%) and ProShares Ultra Long Gold (+176%) showing what staying with a multi-year thesis can do.
If you’re not already a Trend Letter subscriber, this is the kind of call you’re missing.
Subscribe for only $399.95
Talk soon,
Martin
Note: performance shown reflects Trend Letter model portfolio tracking as of Aug 22, 2026, and is not indicative of individual subscriber results. Past performance does not guarantee future returns.

 

Gold and silver just broke levels we’ve been watching

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Below are the charts we have been showing subscribers for over a month.

Gold and silver have both been fighting the same fight for months — grinding under long-term downtrend lines while bulls waited for a real break. Last week, both charts finally took it.

Gold

Gold broke back above the descending trendline that’s capped every rally attempt since the January top near $5,624. Price is sitting around $4,406 right on top of that broken line and the 50-day average at $4,388 — which is exactly where you’d expect a pause after a move like this.

If gold keeps pushing, the next levels to watch are $4,499, then $4,778.5, then $4,898.5. If it stalls and pulls back to retest the line it just broke — the $4,100–4,150 zone — that’s not a red flag. Retests of a fresh breakout are normal, and it’s actually where the better entries tend to show up. The level that would change the picture is $3,932.8; below that, the bigger support sits at $3,438.7.

Silver

Silver’s doing the same thing at the same time. Price is around $65.26, running into resistance at $65 and its own longer-term downtrend line simultaneously — two ceilings meeting at once, which is why it’s worth watching closely here. A clean break through opens the path to $68.86, then $70.61–70.80. If it doesn’t hold, there’s a long gap down to major support in the $50–53 range.

What’s actually behind this

The technical picture is the easy part to see on a chart. The bigger story is what’s driving it: government debt loads climbing across every major economy at once, currency debasement becoming a mainstream conversation instead of a fringe one, and central banks buying gold for reserves at a pace we haven’t seen in decades. Silver’s got an added push from industrial demand tied to the solar and grid buildout.

We don’t play the multi-year price-target game here — too much can shift between now and whenever that target would hit. What matters is whether the structural case holds, and letting the charts tell us the probabilities from here rather than guessing.

Keep your head up!

Martin

 

Gold: Consolidating After an Extraordinary Run

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Gold put in an exceptional run from mid-2025 through early 2026, rallying from roughly $2,900 to a peak near $5,425 — the level marked as major resistance on the chart. That peak formed a swing high that has now defined the top of a descending channel (the orange parallel lines). Since that top, price has been grinding lower and tightening, oscillating inside this channel with lower highs and lower lows on a weekly basis.

Key levels to watch:

$5,425 — the all-time high and ceiling. A weekly close above it changes everything to the upside.

$4,885 — mid-channel resistance. Gold has been struggling to reclaim it convincingly; it acts as the pivot between a “healthy pullback” narrative and something more concerning.

$4,380 — the most important near-term level. It has acted as support multiple times and the channel’s lower bound is now approaching it. Current price (~$4,334) sitting just below it is a mild short-term bearish signal.

$3,931 — major structural support. This is the level that would need to fail for the long-term bull thesis to be seriously questioned.

50-DMA (~$4,248) and 100-DMA (~$3,545) — both rising steeply and well below current price, confirming the long-term uptrend remains intact. The 50-DMA is close enough to act as dynamic support if the channel breaks down further.

Bottom line: Gold’s long-term structure remains bullish — the moving averages are rising, the baseline is higher, and the 2025 trend was extraordinary. But the near-term picture is consolidation within a descending channel, with price sitting just below the key $4,380 level. The bear case requires a breakdown toward $3,931; the bull case requires a reclaim of $4,380 followed by a push through $4,885. Until one of those resolves, gold is a range trade. If things get particularly challenged and price does work its way down toward the 100-DMA (~$3,545), that should represent an excellent longer-term buying opportunity — the moving average is rising steeply and would likely be met with significant demand from investors who missed the original move.

Stay alert!

The Silver ‘Great Divorce’: Is the COMEX About to Break?

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Silver: A Setup That Often Precedes Potentially Severe  Corrections

There is a lot of noise right now surrounding the physical availability of silver, and it’s creating uncertainty for investors in both the futures and ETF markets. The silver market is entering a period where price behavior may be driven less by fundamentals and more by market structure. When that happens, moves can be fast, sharp, and counter-intuitive.

Right now, conditions are developing that have historically preceded abrupt corrections—even in markets that remain bullish over the longer term.

Too Much Paper, Too Little Ready Metal

As we approach the March delivery window, the amount of silver represented by futures contracts is extremely large relative to the amount of metal that is immediately deliverable.

There are currently contracts representing roughly 380–455 million ounces of silver tied to the March futures month. Against that, COMEX registered inventories—metal ready for delivery—are near 100 million ounces.

This imbalance, by itself, is not unusual. Futures markets always operate on leverage, and most contracts are never settled with physical metal. The system works smoothly as long as most traders roll forward or close positions.

The risk emerges when too many participants begin thinking about delivery at the same time—or when the exchange acts to reduce risk in the system.

The Calendar Matters

February 27 (First Notice Day) is the key date. By then, traders holding March contracts must decide whether to roll forward, close out, or stand for delivery.

In most months, this passes quietly. But when positioning is crowded and sentiment is one-sided, the approach of First Notice Day often becomes a pressure point. Traders who are late to exit can be forced to move all at once.

If delivery demand appears likely to strain inventories, the exchange does not wait for failure. It intervenes.

How These Episodes Usually End

When stress builds, the playbook is familiar:

  • Margin requirements rise
  • Leverage is reduced
  • Speculative longs are forced to liquidate

This is not a judgment on silver’s long-term value. It is simply how futures markets preserve stability. Unfortunately for leveraged participants, these actions tend to trigger sharp price declines, even when physical supply remains tight.

We saw this clearly in 2011, when repeated margin hikes preceded a violent correction. Fundamentals did not change—positioning did.

What We’re Watching Now

Several red flags are aligned:

  • Crowded long positioning
  • A large nearby delivery month
  • Tight registered inventories
  • A fixed, known catalyst in late February

That combination increases the odds of a flush, not a smooth adjustment.

Strategy: Risk First, Opportunity Later

This is not the environment to press leverage. Volatility can expand suddenly, and markets under structural stress often move far more than expected.

For investors, the priority is clear:

  • Protect capital
  • Reduce exposure to forced selling risk
  • Be patient

Corrections driven by positioning tend to create opportunity—but only after the liquidation phase has run its course. Our focus is on surviving the shakeout so we can act when the risk-reward turns decisively back in our favour.

Stay tuned!

How China Is Controlling the Silver Market

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To most investors,  silver might seem like just a shiny metal for jewelry or coins. But in early 2026, something unusual is happening: the price of physical silver (the real metal you can hold) is moving higher than paper silver prices on big exchanges like COMEX in New York. This could create opportunities for investors. Here’s what’s going on, explained simply.

  1. Physical Silver Is More Expensive Than Paper Silver
  • On COMEX, silver trades around $92 per ounce.
  • In Shanghai, China – where a lot of real silver is bought – the spot price (what people pay right now for actual silver) is close to $100 per ounce.
  • Normally, traders would buy cheap in New York and sell high in Shanghai. That’s called arbitrage, and it usually closes price gaps quickly. But this gap has lasted weeks, showing a real shortage of physical silver.

Why the difference? COMEX prices are mostly futures contracts – agreements to buy or sell silver later. They’re easy to trade but don’t always reflect the real-world supply. Right now, getting actual silver fast costs extra.

  1. China Controls Most of the Silver Refining
  • Silver comes from mines around the world, like Mexico and Peru.
  • China handles 60–70% of the world’s refining, turning raw silver into usable metal.
  • Starting January 1, 2026, China limited exports. Only 44 companies can send silver abroad through 2027, and priority goes to China’s own factories.

The effect:

  • Less silver reaches the US and Europe.
  • Factories that need silver immediately must pay more, pushing physical prices higher.
  1. Why Factories Can’t Wait
    Silver isn’t just for investors – it’s essential for modern technology:
  • Solar panels: Silver conducts electricity. Green energy growth drives demand.
  • Electronics & data centers: Phones, computers, and AI servers rely on silver wiring.
  • Electric vehicles (EVs): EVs use up to twice as much silver as regular cars.

These industries can’t delay purchases, so they pay higher prices. This “inelastic demand” keeps silver costs high even when prices rise.

  1. What This Means for Investors
  • Real prices now matter more than COMEX futures.
  • The gap shows physical shortages, not hype.
  • Strong demand from factories + limited supply could fuel a long-term bull market.

Investing options include:

  • Silver ETFs (easy way to invest in silver prices)
  • Physical coins or bars
  • Silver mining stocks
  1. A New Era for Silver Prices
  • The old system focused on paper trades.
  • Now, physical demand drives prices.
  • If US and European stockpiles shrink while China limits exports, buyers outside China may pay Shanghai-level prices.

In short: Silver’s impressive rally is grounded in genuine supply shortages and exploding industrial demand -not just trader hype or speculation. For investors, this is an excellent real-world lesson in how supply, demand, and global policies (like China’s export limits) truly drive prices. That said, even the strongest bull runs aren’t straight up – expect normal pullbacks and corrections along the way as the market catches its breath. In a bull market like this…

  • Big upward spikes (rallies) can sometimes weaken things short-term –  people take profits, and momentum pauses.
  • But price dips (sell-offs) usually make the market stronger in the long run – they clear out shaky investors, so when prices bounce back, the buyers who remain are more committed.

Support levels to watch:

  • Initial support sits near $84–$86 (a key area from recent channels, moving averages, and prior resistance-turned-support  – watch for potential bounces here on short-term dips).
  • Deeper/major support lies around $70–$75 (psychological levels and longer-term trendlines that could hold if selling pressure builds).

Always use these levels as guides, not guarantees – silver can swing fast.  Stay tuned to news on industrial trends and China for the bigger picture – this fundamentals-driven move has real staying power.

Stay tuned!

Silver Spiked, Crashed – What Should Investors Do?

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Silver Market Update: What’s Really Happening as 2025 Ends

This is a follow-up to our post on Monday regarding the wild action with silver.  Today (Wednesday, December 31, 2025), marks the end of one of the most volatile years ever for silver. Earlier this week, prices surged over $83, an all-time high. Since then, silver has dropped sharply – twice in just three days – not because demand disappeared, but because exchanges stepped in to cool the market.

Below is what retail investors need to understand heading into 2026.

Two Silver Markets: Paper vs. Physical

Silver trades in two very different ways.

  • The paper market consists of futures contracts that are usually settled in cash.
  • The physical market involves actual bars and coins.

The paper market is estimated to be 50 to 300 times larger than the amount of real silver available. This works fine – until too many investors want the metal itself. When that happens, prices can move violently because there simply isn’t enough physical supply to meet demand.

Demand Is Growing Faster Than Supply

Silver isn’t just an investment – it’s essential for modern technology. Solar panels, electric vehicles, AI data centers, and electronics all rely heavily on silver.

The problem?

  • The market has been in a supply deficit for five straight years.
  • Demand is being met by draining existing stockpiles, not new mining.
  • Most silver is mined as a by-product of other metals, so higher prices don’t quickly lead to more supply.

In short: demand keeps rising, but supply can’t respond.

Why Prices Dropped This Week

The recent selloff was triggered by exchange actions, not weakening fundamentals.

  • Margin hikes: The CME sharply raised the cash required to hold silver futures -twice in five days.
  • Forced selling: Traders unable to post more cash were forced to sell immediately, pushing prices from the mid $80s into the low $70s. (Note the lower panel of the chart below. This is the Relative Strength Index (RSI) Any reading over 70 is considered overbought. The reading for silver on Monday reached 78, very overbought. Since then, silver has sold off.)

As we noted on Monday, there were unconfirmed rumours that a large US bank needed emergency liquidity after being caught on the wrong side of the rally, adding to the speculation that this pullback was engineered to slow things down.

China Tightens Control

Starting January 1, 2026, China is restricting silver exports by labeling it a strategic mineral. Only approved firms will be allowed to ship it abroad.

Because China requires physical delivery, silver prices there remain higher than in the US. This gap signals real-world shortages, not speculation. Some US tech firms are now reportedly considering direct investments in silver mines to secure supply.

What This Means for Investors

The price drop is a temporary pressure release, not a fix. Margin changes don’t create more silver. The underlying reality remains unchanged:

  • Industrial demand is strong
  • Inventories are low
  • Supply growth is limited

As global debt rises and currencies weaken, investor interest in hard assets like gold, silver, and other commodities continues to grow. Silver’s volatility reflects stress in the system – not a lack of relevance.

Bottom line

Silver is currently in a state of high volatility, characterized by a potential ‘Directional Change’ occurring over the last 72 hours.

  • The Pullback: After reaching the $80+ peaks, the price is retracing
  • The Target: A normal technical pattern would be a retest of the most recent high just under $60.00 (horizontal green line on chart above).
  • The Question: Is this a major long-term high, or simply the first ‘breakout high’ before a move to triple digits? Most indicators suggest this is not a permanent change in trend, but a temporary setback that could last into early January.

Stay tuned!

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Silver’s Pullback Explained: Profit-Taking, Not Panic

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Silver prices slipped slightly during Asian trading and stayed near the lower end of the day’s range. That usually signals there are still sellers at higher prices, which can limit short-term upside.

Price action in context

For more than a year, much of the silver discussion has focused on short sellers — the idea that large players were holding prices down. That story made sense for a long time because the data supported it. But conditions are changing. Evidence suggests many of those short positions have already been closed, even as some commentators are now claiming silver will “break the financial system.” Often, this kind of extreme language appears just as early buyers are locking in gains.

Profit‑taking and tax timing

An important and much simpler explanation for recent weakness is profit-taking. Many investors sitting on strong gains in both silver and gold are waiting until January to sell part of their holdings. By doing so, they delay paying taxes for another year. This does not mean they are abandoning the trade. In most cases, they are simply re-balancing positions after a strong run.

Options market signal

Looking at the options market also supports this view. There is now very little speculative betting against silver, especially in longer-dated options going into 2026. That’s a major change from late 2024 and throughout 2025, when short positioning was much heavier. In plain terms: the big short-squeeze setup in silver is largely behind us.

Ignore the doom talk

Despite this, social media is full of dramatic warnings about silver causing financial collapse. But markets aren’t behaving that way. JPMorgan — often blamed in these narratives — is still trading near record highs, even after a small pullback today.

Bottom line

Recent silver weakness looks like normal consolidation and tax-driven profit-taking, not the end of the bull case. Short positions have largely been cleared, long-term investors are rebalancing, and the loudest doom stories online are likely overstated.

Stay tuned!

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Precious Metals Rally: What’s Driving the Surge?

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Gold, silver, and platinum are all climbing sharply as we head into the new year. This isn’t just speculation or short-term trading — it’s being driven by real demand and tight supply in physical markets.

Gold:


Gold prices are at record highs, but trading activity in futures markets is surprisingly low. That suggests limited supply rather than excessive speculation. Futures prices are only slightly above spot prices, a healthy sign that demand for physical gold remains strong and stable.

Silver:


Silver has been extremely volatile, swinging wildly over short periods. Even so, futures prices are only marginally higher than spot prices, indicating that physical supply is tight but not broken. Much of the buying is coming from Asia and long-term investors, not short squeezes.

Platinum:


Platinum is starting to catch up after lagging behind other metals. Trading volumes are thin, which can exaggerate price moves, but growing investor interest is pushing prices higher.

What’s Driving the Rally?

Several big-picture forces are working together:

  • Heavy buying by central banks

  • Strong inflows into metals ETFs

  • Expectations of lower interest rates

  • Rising government debt and geopolitical uncertainty

  • A gradual move away from reliance on the US dollar

The Takeaway

This rally is built on real supply constraints and long-term demand, not just speculation. That said, price swings are likely to stay large. For retail investors, precious metals can still offer diversification and downside protection, but position size, entry discipline and patience are critical when volatility is this high and the complex so technically overbought.

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Stay tuned!

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‘Key Support Levels Tested Across Stocks, Gold, and Bitcoin”

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S&P 500

The S&P 500 opened sharply lower on Friday, weighed down by heavy losses in European markets. The index quickly stabilized, however, with its session low set within the first five minutes. Early selling pressure was tied to uncertainty over the Federal Reserve’s December decision – whether they act or hold steady – as well as growing chatter that the AI-driven rally may have overheated.

From there, buyers stepped in, lifting the index for most of the day. But a sharp spike in interest rates late in the session erased those gains, leaving the S&P unable to hold its footing into the close.

In yesterday’s update, we noted that the S&P was approaching its short-term trend line (the diagonal line on the chart) and that a break could lead to a test of stronger support at 6535 (the green horizontal line). The index opened below this trend line but managed to close right on it. Monday’s session will be key – holding above this level would signal that upward momentum remains intact.

Gold

Gold dropped more than $90 on Friday, pulling back toward its established uptrend line. As noted previously, a decisive break below this support would set the stage for a retest of the 3900 area.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is now pressing against the lower boundary of its uptrend channel, a level that has held on four separate occasions since October 2023. This makes the current support zone especially important. For buyers to regain the upper hand, Bitcoin needs to rebound and firmly reclaim the psychologically key 100,000 level. A move above that threshold could trigger short covering and fuel a sharp rally.

However, if this support breaks, the door opens to a deeper correction, with next major support near the 77,000 area.

Stay tuned!