The precious metals all soared in 2025, and while a continued monetary expansion and geopolitical risk could still drive gains especially for gold in 2026, a pullback in silver, platinum and palladium is possible after recent partly speculative surges.Read More

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

Inflation is so universally despised that its mere mention evokes fear, uncertainty, and, most importantly, anger.Wanna piss off an entire country? Make things expensive there.Beyond its textbook definition, inflation lights up deep emotional, social, and psychological layers that explain why people hate it so much.Let's be honest. Kamala would be having a much easier time if her boss had not open...Read More

During a critical stage of the Manhattan Project in 1942, its organizers ran into a problem while attempting to build those first atomic bombs.They had figured out a way to enrich uranium using electromagnets, but it was a highly resource-intensive process.Thousands of tons of copper were needed to create electromagnetic coils, but the metal was in short supply due to its use in weapons production...Read More

What Went Wrong With Capitalism?Author Ruchir Sharma has authored a work bearing that very title.His answer is that nothing went wrong with capitalism. Instead, capitalism itself was wronged.Wronged, that is, by tinkerers and meddlers.In its childhood capitalism was seized by the boundless energy and ambition of youth.Before it rose a vast vista of endless possibility. Into this seeming infinity i...Read More

All eyes are on gold's record-breaking run.The gold bull is in full swing this month as the yellow metal extends to new highs... again. Gold has been on an absolute tear since breaking out above $2,500 for the first time ever back in September, jumping almost double-digits on its run above $2,700.I've recently discussed how the financial media was largely ignoring gold's impressive rally to new hi...Read More

Should the U.S. national debt be considered an actual crisis? Does it have the destructive power of a hurricane, tornado, earthquake or other crisis?The short answer is yes but the full explanation requires a financial history lesson.The first point to understand is that debt can be good or bad. Deciding which depends on two criteria: What is the cost of the debt relative to the returns that can b...Read More

Thanks to recency bias, we tend to think the world has always been more or less as it is today. Tectonic shifts beneath the veneer of everyday life escape us unless we make a concerted effort to peel back the veneer of normalcy.For example, consider the rise of finance as the dominant force in our socioeconomic/political status quo. Statista gives us a rough picture of the dominance:In 2023, the f...Read More

Speaking with a friend about the migrant crisis in the United States, she made an interesting observation. Many of the most prosperous Western nations in the world today are facing the same problem.They're flooded with migrants who are overwhelming the system, infuriating the citizenry, adding fiscal burdens, disrupting public order and leading to possible political instability.Interesting questio...Read More

Is the election over already?Sure, Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. But the election is happening in real-time and will mostly be over by the end of this week because of early voting, mail-in ballots, drop boxes and ballot harvesting.These votes won't be counted until Election Day, but they are being cast now, so hopefully somebody will be watching this time.It goes state by state, so different st...Read More

As I look out the window of my new study, I thank the Good Lord I can live in the middle of rural Italy and still do my job.My parents are downstairs watching television, while my wife just made me a fantastic lunch. My son, Micah, is at school, and we'll pick him up shortly.It's truffle season here in Il Piemonte, and I've already sampled the goods. Since the weather has cooled, we lit up my fire...Read More

"You can't have free immigration and a welfare state."So argued the very late Milton Friedman.We believe there is vast justice in his claim.If the world's impoverished swamp a nation's shores and are thrown upon public relief they impose impossible burdens upon the nation.Yet the government of the United States is out to disprove old Milton... evidently.Both free immigration and a welfare stat...Read More

It's important to understand that the boom phase of a commodity cycle doesn't kick off overnight.While there have been some green shoots record gold prices, and copper (briefly) spiking into new all-time highs in 2024, we're still not in what I'd consider 'boom conditions.' That applies especially to junior mining stocks, many of which still trade close to all-time lows.So, how does China's rece...Read More

Have you ever been caught in a set of gnarly waves at the ocean? The kind where you get smashed by a breaker, come up for air and there's another big one waiting for you at the surface?This is a solid metaphor for inflationary periods. They don't happen like a single big tsunami.They are typically processes that play out in stages over a decade or more. Policymakers try various fixes, and most fai...Read More

Economist Richard Duncan is credited with fabricating the term "creditism."Many still insist ours is a capitalist system. Yet Mr. Duncan tells them to have another guess.He argues that the capitalist system went into the grave when the gold standard went into the grave.They share a common plot.Credit that is, debt took over. Credit is king of the post-capitalist system.All economic growth, in...Read More

I'm not superstitious.I don't cross my fingers or avoid stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. I don't turn my baseball cap inside out to help my team eke out a win in extra innings (RIP Orioles World Series hopes). And I certainly don't wear a lucky pair of socks to help improve my trading results.Yet despite my focus on price and all things real and tangible on my stock charts, it would be foolish...Read More

Janet Yellen gave a speech on Sept. 26 at the 2024 U.S. Treasury Market Conference in New York. The speech was largely about risks in the banking system and the market for U.S. Treasury debt.In a pre-speech interview with Politico, Yellen was asked about risks related to a smooth presidential transition in this election cycle. While that may seem like a straightforward question, it contained a par...Read More

"We lose total control…" she said.Hillary Clinton was recently on CNN calling for censorship of social media. Here's her full quote:We should be, in my view, repealing something called Section 230, which gave, you know, platforms on the internet immunity because they were thought to be just pass-throughs, that they shouldn't be judged for the content that is posted.But we now know that that...Read More

During the misnamed and mostly preposterous debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a moderator fact-checked Trump's claim that crime is up.In contrast to Trump's claim, moderator David Muir said that the FBI reports that crime is down, a claim that likely struck every viewer as obviously wrong.Shoplifting was not a way of life before lockdowns. Most cities were not demographic minefields o...Read More

Over the past century, monetary systems change about every 30-40 years on average. Before 1914, the global monetary system was based on the classical gold standard.Then in 1944, a new monetary system emerged at Bretton Woods. Under that system, the dollar became the global reserve currency, linked to gold at $35 per ounce. In 1971 Nixon ended the direct convertibility of the dollar to gold. For th...Read More

In Tuesday's reckoning we argued with our tongue plastered to our cheek that a libertarian dictator may best serve the United States at this time.That is because the stability of the American constitutional order, a fantastic virtue when the nation is in whack, becomes a vicious vice when the nation is out of whack.In our telling the nation is presently out of whack. And the inefficient govern...Read More

"It's only a few AK-47s!" will one day be up there with "I only had one!"Let me explain.Chick Baller Arrested For Pot in RussiaWhen Griner was arrested in Russia in 2022, I wrote a Rude Awakening piece called "From Russia with Mowie Wowie." I thought it'd be fun to write about two things I don't give a toss about: cannabis and women's sports. I presciently concluded that article with this wrap-up...Read More