The AOCE and WB have moderate overall forecasts for the metals in 2025 inline with IMF forecasts for a decline in economic growth and inflation, although we see the probability of a stagflationary scenario as still reasonably high.Read More

The past year was a difficult one overall for the metals, with the main standouts to the upside being a geopolitical risk-driven gain in gold, a China-driven rise in iron ore and a surge in uranium on broadening global support for nuclear power (Figure 1). A jump in global interest rates to near two-decade highs saw recession fears persist all year, and while one still did not actually eru...Read More

This year the post-global health crisis boom was brought to an end by a surge in inflation to forty-year highs, a major rise in global interest rates in an attempt to curb the rising prices and surging geopolitical risk after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While precious metals held up reasonably well as markets turned to them as a risk hedge, by Q2/22 the higher interest rates put an end t...Read More

Chile is the world leader in copper production, at 28.5% of the total in 2020, and this looks set to continue, with the country having the largest global reserves, at 23.0% of total. It is also the global leader for molybdenum, which is often found along with copper, and is a major lithium player, holding 51.1% of global reserves. Read More

Newfoundland has become a gold exploration hotspot over the past few years, with the sector seeing some of its strongest activity ever. While the province remains a small contributor to Canadian gold production, it has a substantial mineral industry well supported by the government, focused on iron ore, copper and nickel, and the surge in exploration suggests that gold output from the...Read More

Nevada is the core of the U.S. gold output, accounting for by far the majority, at 75.4% on average for the past year. The state looks set to remain a dominant player in U.S. gold, as it accounts for 49% of total U.S. reserves, with Alaska slightly ahead with 51% of reserves, but just 8.6% of current production. The U.S. accounts for 6.1% of global gold output, making Nevada one of the largest gol...Read More

The Golden Triangle in northwestern British Columbia has historically been a major site of Canadian gold production, beginning as early as the mid 1800s. There was a wave of production in the 1990s which cooled as the gold price declined, but larger scale production resumed in 2017, and the area has seen surging exploration interest over the past year, given that the region has some of the largest...Read More

In this report we outline the Quebec gold mining industry, including its major producers, and a survey of many of the junior miners focused on the province. Quebec accounts for 34% of Canadian gold production (second to Ontario, with 44%) and remains a major focus for both producers and junior miners.Read More

Red Lake has been one of the most prolific gold mining districts in Canada and the world, with exploration having started in the 1920s, and production, which began in the 1930s, continuing to the present day. The district is known for the high grade of its gold, its infrastructure, and strong institutional support, given the long history of mining in the area.Read More

It's not been good lately for the Censorship Industrial Complex.The machine has been built and put into action over nearly a decade but largely in secret. Its way of doing business has been via surreptitious contacts with media and tech companies, intelligence carve-outs in "fact-checking" organizations, payoffs, and various other clever strategies, all directed toward boosting some sources of inf...Read More

As I watch from afar, I wonder how Americans can take it. Seriously, American taxpayer largesse pays for untold amounts of charity, though it's coerced from them through tax. I don't know who said it, but he was right: the profits of capitalism pay for the follies of socialism.How do we measure such things?It seems that deficits still don't matter to most; in fact, too many people profit from them...Read More

There has been a lot reported in recent days about the return of currency wars. This story arises in the context of a likely Trump election victory in the November presidential elections.Trump badly bungled his transition after first being elected president in 2016. He wasn’t ready with a long list of loyal appointees.Many of his senior appointments such as Rex Tillerson as secretary of stat...Read More

Moore's Law: the theory that computational power doubles every other year.In brief, that computational power accelerates at an accelerating rate an exponential rate.We begin to suspect that a sort of social Moore's law is in effect.That is, that societal change is accelerating at an accelerating rate.This directional movement we hesitate to label it progress is likely the child of technologi...Read More

Just when you thought trading couldn't get any crazier, meme stocks have suddenly reappeared - along with some of the more prominent speculators from the Covid Bubble era."Roaring Kitty" - the infamous trader who made a killing by starting the grassroots short-squeeze movement that gave birth to some of the wildest runs in stock market history - suddenly reappeared on Twitter/X late Sunday followi...Read More

I've previously said that gold could reach $15,000 by 2026. Today, I'm updating that forecast.My latest forecast is that gold may actually exceed $27,000.I don't say that to get attention or to shock people. It's not a guess; it's the result of rigorous analysis.Of course, there's no guarantee it'll happen. But this forecast is based on the best available tools and models that have proved accurate...Read More

Fascism became a swear word in the U.S. and the U.K. during the Second World War. It's been ever since, to the point that the content of the term has been drained away completely. It's not a system of political economy but an insult.If we go back a decade before the war, you find a completely different situation. Read any writings from polite society from 1932-1940 or so and you find a consensus t...Read More

AI is like the powerful character in an action movie who looks invincible until they turn around, revealing a fatal spear embedded in their back.The spear in AI’s back is the American legal system, which has been issuing free passes to tech companies and platforms for decades on the idea that limiting innovation will hurt economic growth, so we’d best let tech companies run with few re...Read More

If you're under the age of about 60, you've never experienced stagflation. Back in the '70s, everyone experienced what happened and people spoke openly about it. The term itself "stagflation" was a shorthand term to describe what was clearly and painfully a broad, national economic unwind.Throughout the decade, the rate of inflation crept up and people saw it in daily life. Food became more ex...Read More

Here is a run of recent headlines:"Is the United States on the Verge of Stagflation?"…"It’s Looking More and More Like Stagflation"…"Stagflation Fears Come Back With a Vengeance"…"The U.S. Economy May Be Barrelling Toward Stagflation, an Outcome Worse Than Recession"…"JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon Can't Shake the Worry America Is Headed for a Repeat of 1970s-Style Stagflatio...Read More

The United States savings rate runs to 3.20% down from 3.60% one month prior.As history has it, 8.47% is par.Meantime, 36% of Americans carry more credit card debt upon their shoulders than emergency savings in their pockets.Mainstream economists inform us it is not a symptom of economic distress. It is rather a symptom of economic vigor.For example, Ameriprise Financial's Russell Price:Consumer...Read More

When it comes to investing, I've been a wimp most of my life.I always had "the next crash" on my mind. Inevitably, there hasn't been a crash since 2008. (I don't count the Covidiocy Crash of 2020 because it lasted about five seconds.)That permabearish attitude, while seemingly safe, has come at a cost. I wasn't taking risks, but the opportunity costs are significant. How much wealth did I potentia...Read More

Most economists don't believe we could have stagflation today. The prevailing view is that recessions are characterized by higher unemployment and reduced spending, and inflation is triggered by full employment and increased spending and therefore they cannot both happen at the same time.This prevailing view is wrong, as I explain today. Yet it's a powerful narrative that blinds most analysts to s...Read More

Two weeks ago, the Congress passed (and President Biden signed) four key pieces of legislation related to national security.Three of the bills provided assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. They received the most attention. The one that got the least attention was a mixed bag of provisions, such as a forced divestiture of TikTok.Included in that bill was something called the REPO Act that auth...Read More

A dicey April pullback has given way to a fresh rally as the market's former momentum leaders gain traction.The bears might have gotten a little too cocky during the April swoon, leaving the door open to an unexpected snapback as investors refuse to sell in May and go away...Facts are facts... and we can't deny what's happening in the markets right now. While we were all expecting a bigger correct...Read More

Consider the defining characteristics of a ghetto:1. The residents can’t afford to live elsewhere.2. Everything is a rip-off because options are limited and retailers/service providers know residents have no other choice or must go to extraordinary effort to get better quality or a lower price.3. Nothing works correctly or efficiently. Things break down and aren’t fixed properly. Maint...Read More

You may have heard of the "Overton window."The concept of the Overton window caught on in professional culture, particularly those seeking to nudge public opinion, because it taps into a certain sense that we all know is there.There are things you can say and things you cannot say, not because there are speech controls (though there are) but because holding certain views makes you anathema and dis...Read More

"Why are we gambling with America's future?"This is the question of New York Times columnist David Brooks. More from whom:America is expected to spend $870 billion, or 3.1 percent of gross domestic product, this year on interest payments on the federal debt. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the government will spend more on interest payments than on the entire defense b...Read More

My goodness, I didn't think I could hate the present administration more than I already do. It's a fountain of idiotic ideas, starting with shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline to just sending $61 billion to Ukraine.You may as well just set the money on fire.Everything Boneheaded Biden has done has made things more expensive. And don't give me, "Well, inflation has come down!"If a product costs...Read More

The silver spot price is above $26 per ounce today. It peaked above $28 on April 19, so it's pulled back a bit. But that's no big deal.Like the rising gold price, which is over $2,300 per ounce, it looks like there's more yet to come. In other words, precious metals are rapidly repricing.Right away, this tells me that Wall Street and the City of London have lost control over the price for gold and...Read More