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

A fascinating experiment is taking place.A startup named Nof1 gave 6 top AI models $10,000 each.They gave models access to a crypto exchange, a data feed, and let each model build its own trading and risk management strategy. The "Alpha Arena" competition started Oct 17th and the first "season" will conclude Nov 3rd.The AIs can use up to 40x leverage. With that much juice, a 2.5% move in the wrong...Read More

I was in Minnesota last week, in the storied "Iron Range" north of Duluth. In fact, I was out in the field on Friday, looking at Precambrian rocks, and missed the white-knuckle excitement of the market selloff for gold, silver, other metals, miners and more. It's amazing what happens when I leave town, eh?Good morning from northern Minnesota. BWK photo.I spent all day Saturday traveling home and m...Read More

I opened my portfolio this morning already wincing, knowing an ugly number would materialize.Oof. It's a red day for those of us with beefy allocations to gold and silver miners. Game of Thrones style.Precious metal miners are correcting sharply. The SILJ junior silver miner ETF is down about 8.5% as of 12:40 PM. The GDX gold miner ETF is down about 7.8%. These are my preferred benchmarks for the...Read More

During a conference call with investors last week, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon made a memorable response to a question from Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo about the collapse of a subprime auto lender called Tricolor that cost the bank $170 million. Tricolor went bankrupt due to allegations of fraud, including double-pledging of collateral, which led lenders to halt financing."Mike, you should assume t...Read More

I remember getting my offer letter from Lehman Brothers in early 1997, a full 11 years before they went bankrupt, I hasten to add. For a whopping $34,000, I was theirs, green as a Granny Smith apple. My job was in a division called Global Corporate Equity Derivatives, and I was going to help the traders keep their trading books reconciled with the general ledger. It was my first, and last, account...Read More

During the dotcom boom, fiber optic cabling was a scorching-hot sector.This is the wiring the internet runs on. The arteries and veins of the data world.Corning (NYSE: GLW) was the darling of fiber optics in the 1990s and into 2000. This classic American company had been a leader in specialized glass and ceramic materials for more than a century.Starting in the 1960s, they invested heavily in the...Read More

There are 'policies' that seem to work…and some that don't seem to work.But the policy that always works best is no policy at all. That is, left alone, people do the best they can with what they have. Only they know what they want and what they have to work with. The feds, who have aims of their own, can make us do things differently; they can't make us do things better.Doing 'better' is dri...Read More

For around 3,000 years, China maintained an airtight monopoly on silk.China's silk empire began in approximately 2400 BC, and the entire process was a state secret. From raising and processing silkworms, to weaving and dying threads.Imperial workshops were vertically integrated and tightly controlled.The punishment for revealing any silk secrets was death. Export of silkworm eggs and mulberry seed...Read More

Legend has it that in November 2004 Taylor Swift was "discovered" in Nashville. A youngster at the time, merely 14 years old, she was playing guitar and singing at the Bluebird Caf? when a music promoter heard her, took a look, and decided that this gal was going places. And as you surely know, today she's a huge mega-star.Taylor Swift in Nashville, but no I didn't see her. Courtesy billboard.com....Read More

It's been a wild ride over the past few trading days...On Friday, President Trump started a mini-crash by threatening China with new 100% tariffs.Stocks slid, crypto crashed, and miners dipped.But yesterday, President Trump strapped on his Superman cape and saved the day. He struck a more conciliatory tone after China replied to his tariff threat with a hard-nosed retort.As a result, markets opene...Read More

The dramatic rise in gold and silver is finally starting to attract attention from the general public.Last September, we were shocked to learn that in 2023, 71% of financial advisors had 0-1% exposure to gold.That 2023 data came from Bank of America's fund manager survey. And in the most updated version of that survey, we're starting to see a pickup in gold ownership among professional investors....Read More

Greetings from beautiful downtown Nashville! It's my first time here, and I already love it.Music City is well named. Everywhere you go, talented musicians abound.I'm down here for the Paradigm Shift Summit, our company's big investment conference.More than 700 subscribers made the trip, and I've already met a bunch of them.A fine group of people. And happy, too.The timing for this meeting couldn'...Read More

Patterns. Patterns. Patterns.In addition to the boom-bubble-bust cycle of the stock market, there is also the Primary Trend…in which gold and stocks teeter-totter over long periods of time. Stocks hit an all-time peak in 1999, at more than 40 ounces of gold to the Dow. Thereafter it was down, down, down (even as nominal prices rose!) to less than 12 ounces today.We don't know, of course, if...Read More

"Big storm coming…" was how our builder greeted us. Back in Ireland, dark clouds rushed in from the Atlantic. Treetops rustled… rain came down, lightly… the big blast was still ahead.He was putting plywood over the window openings…and battening down the hatches.The stock market is a lot trickier than the earth-bound weather. Here in Ireland, a meteorologist can look into th...Read More

Silver is trading at $47.98 per ounce as I write this.The all-time intraday high here in the U.S. was $50.36 way back in January of 1980. That was the peak on New York's COMEX (commodity exchange).However, silver has never closed a trading day above $50. And that's the official measure of an all-time high.Once silver briefly surpassed $50 in 1980, New York's COMEX essentially killed the momentum....Read More

Is it time to sell?Over the past few weeks, I have received multiple inbounds asking what to do about our precious metals exposure. As of the start of Q3, gold (XAU) is up over 45% while gold miners (GDX) are up over 100%. Most charts bare the resemblance of a hockey stick. Understandably, some of you might be getting a little nervous.So, here's my take.On a purely technical basis, it is true that...Read More

There’s a scene that plays out in nearly every investment seminar: Someone in the audience asks if it’s possible to consistently beat the market.The speaker – usually quoting Eugene Fama, father of the Efficient Market Hypothesis – smiles and says: “Sorry, but research shows you can’t.”Except that’s not quite what Fama said.In fact, the Nobel Prize-w...Read More

Here in the Sharp household, a bathroom remodel is underway. We held off for the first 12 years in this house, so the master bath was in its original 1987 state for 38 years.All our friends and neighbors had long since upgraded their bathrooms.But it was hard to justify a remodel because everything worked fine, even if it looked dated. But over the past year, the tile started to chip and the tub l...Read More

For more than 80 years, American aircraft carrier strike groups have projected raw military power around the globe.U.S. naval and air power were unrivaled. And with more than 850 military bases around the world, the American empire still has unparalleled reach.Along with military might, the dollar remains a key pillar of the American Empire.But let's be frank. Both monetary and military power are...Read More

Last Saturday, as I was waiting for Pam and Micah to arrive back from visiting Pam's sister in Belgium, I went through the Daily Reckoning's mailbag for any responses to my articles.One stood out, and I want to reprint it so you can read it as well.Sean,I read you every day. Most of the time, I appreciate your perspective. This one is not only wrong but absolutely disgusting. There is an entire ge...Read More