➡ The article discusses the increasing importance of silver, not just as a commodity, but as a strategic asset in a global geopolitical contest. The volatility of silver prices is seen as an early warning of this deeper conflict. The struggle for control over Latin American supply chains, where silver and other metals are mined, is now linked to geopolitical issues involving Taiwan. The article also mentions the rise of gold prices alongside silver, suggesting that the market is recognizing these broader strategic conflicts.
➡ The article discusses the potential impact of U.S. control over Venezuela on global oil prices and China’s economy. It suggests that if the U.S. gains control, it could increase oil prices, negatively affecting China. The article also mentions possible increased tariffs on China by Mexico and the influence of Latin America in these matters. The information is intended for informational purposes and not as financial advice.

Part 1 of Metal Wars argues that silver’s extreme volatility is not speculative excess at all, but an early warning signal of a deeper geopolitical contest. Margin hikes, export controls now being discussed openly, and direct mine prepayments, as Samsung has done, reflect silver shift from commodity to strategic asset. Welcome to the Morning Markets and Metals with Vince Lancey, where each morning Vince brings you the financial and precious metals news to get you ready for your day. And now, here’s Vince. Good morning, everyone. I’m Vince Lancey, this is the Golf It’s Market Rundown.

Silver is flashing war signals as great power competition shifts from price to resource availability, with Latin America and Taiwan now linked through metals. Supply chains, and we’ll soon see deal political risk. First, our business. Buy a hat, please, and support independent media. Make gold-grade again on the left, make silver-grade again on the right, comes in gray with a black bag, or comes with black with a black bag, with a gold-fix logo, tastefully affixed. Here’s our home page. The top center story is the most popular story we’ve ever posted, with over 300 subscribers alone coming from it.

It lays out the situation about silver and why this is not a one and done thing. This is a global metals war, with a personal comment and podcast form as well. This is a big picture post that takes you through the immediate past of why and how we got here. And when you read this post, you understand that this is not a one process that will go on for years. And the conclusion is you don’t care about day-to-day price. You do not sell your physical. Before we continue, let’s do the markets.

Tenure yields are down a little bit. The dollar is up 12. The S&P 500 is up 37. The NASDAQ is up 205. Gold and silver are closed in China. The gold is up $68.4387. Silver is $73.73, up $2.10. That’s 3%. Copper is $5.65, give or take, up 3.5 cents. WTI is $56.99, down 50 basis points, 50 cents, I should say. Natgas is down 8 cents. Bitcoin is up 700 and change. Ethereum is up 50 and change. Palladium is up 36. Platinum is up 71. Gold silver is down 87. And grains are mixed with corn bucking the trend.

So silver is on the highs for the year, as is gold, as are stocks. I don’t know how you look at it. It could also be on the lows if you’re really bullish, which we kind of are. Before we actually read this, give you the background on this story, we’d like to just throw something out there editorially. Global conflict risks are far higher than we are being led to believe. What we are seeing is silver is a price story. Sure. It’s a natural resource war centered on influence over Latin American supply chains.

The mainstream media is just getting to that now. And that’s great. But that struggle matters far more to China than metals alone, or even energy alone, as we’ve been bargaining Venezuelan oil from getting to them, as Eric Young and I had discussed. It ties directly into Beijing’s most sensitive geopolitical objective, Taiwan, their line in the sand. Gold is now rallying alongside silver because the market is beginning to recognize that the fight for silver supply is a proxy for a wider strategic conflict with China. You may not see it clearly yet, but the linkage is real and we will show it to you.

And if you understand how Chinese diplomacy works at the UN level, as we do, why Taiwan is not negotiable, as we’ve learned, and why Latin America matters not just for resources, but for UN votes, alliances, and trade routes, implications become unavoidable. Now, specifically in part one of these two part stories we’re putting out, part one of metal wars argues that silver’s extreme volatility is not speculative excess at all, but an early warning signal of a deeper geopolitical contest, margin hikes, export controls now being discussed openly, and direct mine prepayments, as Samsung has done, reflect silver shift from commodity to strategic asset.

Is it a small market? No. The silver market is not a small market. Is it big like oil? No, it’s not big like oil. It’s strategic. It’s a small futures market because the contract size is too big. It’s a small market like housing is a small market when it trades, it trades in chunks, but it doesn’t trade continuously. Just keep that in mind. And it’s a proxy. If you’re mining silver, you’re mining every other metal in Latin America. All right. So with inventories thin, industrial demand, not discretionary, and stress surfacing, it’s silver.

We say that beneath the market action lies a broader struggle for control of Latin American supply chains. Now directly tied, believe it or not, to Taiwan’s calculus. This is very big. And when you start seeing oil rise along with this, start getting concerned. But that’s part one right there. And it’s an exclusive story. And it builds on another exclusive story that we had last week, which is now being picked up by the Wall Street Journal. And before that, the news coming from Chris Marcus at Arcadia about China and India coming to Latin America to secure supply routes, to secure critical minerals that CNBC is picking up now.

So you can do the math. Coming soon will be part two of the metal war struggle. And it’s about Taiwan for China. There’s the chat. It’s already started out very lively. We’ll be seeing you guys today, hopefully. And today is the last day of the week, January 2nd. There’s nothing scheduled. There is one other news item we want to bring up, that zero hedge covered this morning. CEO says Samsung is back in a rare remark, sparking a stock surge. Samsung shares in South Korea jumped the most in nearly six years to a record high after its co-CEO Jun Yong-hui quoted customers as saying Samsung is back.

In a New Year’s memo to employees, Jun said customers have praised differentiated competitiveness of its next generation high bandwidth memory. HBM or HBM 04 say it’s even earning an assessment from customers that Samsung is back. We also say that Samsung is in the pipeline with a solid state battery that would revolutionize charging for EVs and make them more practical, maybe not less expensive, but more practical. While simultaneously, China is working on silver use in chargers, which would make the gas stations or charging stations, as much as they are, on par with filling up a gas tank, a couple minutes, not a couple hours.

So there is a lot going on. Let’s take a look at the charts. If you’re day trading this or an hourly or 15-minute chart, you’re probably doing well, as it’s been really honoring the technicals. Now, there’s the gold chart. Now, we’ve seen this pattern before. We’re seeing it an awful lot. But although we can’t tell you why it happens, we can’t tell you how it happens. You know why it happens. But here’s your ledge. We pierced it on occasion. And now we’re above it. It’s early on. And these ledges lead to higher moves.

OK, so maybe there’s some selling in the hole. You have another long way down here. But these ledges lead to liar moves. These are not natural formations. We have them here. Well, we have them in a lot of places. I’m not going to go all the way back. But we’ve been talking about it for about a year now. Silver is more defined, which is rare. Usually silver is less defined than gold. There you go. Remind you, this is where the buy will not back off, at least not yet. And this is where the selling appears to be real.

Everything that be here is tourism country. You’ve got people buying it because they think they can’t get access. And they’re kind of probably financial people covering their shorts. And then you’ve got logs puking because they see something on a 15-minute chart that’s making them sell. So this is the market. Hopefully, what you’re going to see come out of this, not hopefully, but possibly what you’re going to see come out of this is a wedge, another wedge with a flat bottom. Because you have the big volatility initial reaction. Then you have things getting under control.

And then you have the volatility being rung out of it, the weaker hands getting out. And then the stronger hands get in. And maybe the stronger hands say, well, we’ve got enough over here. Let’s buy some down here. Maybe they won’t. Maybe the selling that’s up here will say, we can sell it again here. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll ratchet higher. I will tell you this. In the past, over the last, say, past 10 years, if there was selling there the first time, there was selling there the second and third time. But this time, there seems to be cap and trade.

If it goes back above it, it stays above it. So keep that in mind. The outcomes, the news items that will make this not a dip buy, in my opinion, from my own trading, are if the market drops in concurrent with a news item about peace talks, whether it be out of Ukraine, whether it be out of tariff talks with China, whether it be out of Latin American negotiations, whether it be out of tariff changes, which by the way, they’re getting worse. Mexico is discussing increasing tariffs on China. It’s all about Latin American influence now.

It’s one road doctrine stuff. And silver is the one that’s easiest to see. But oil is the bigger one. Can you imagine what happens if the US gets control of Venezuela? China benefits from one thing with all these supply chains, weaker oil prices. Do you think we want to give China weaker oil forever? Once we get Venezuela, and we’re friends with Saudi Arabia, we’re going to tap them on the shoulder, say, how’d you like oil to go up in price? And boom, China’s not going to be happy. This is how wars start. And if you think the Saudi Iranians are in line with China, no.

Saudi Arabia is a mafia, right? They all do business with whoever’s giving them the best price or the best jets or the best security. Of its, come back and see us tomorrow. Well, thanks for watching this morning’s markets and metals with Vince Lancey. We sure appreciate you tuning in and starting your day with us here. Hope you enjoyed the show and we’ll see you again tomorrow. Please note that this video is not intended as legal license, financial trading advice, and is to be used for informational purposes only. Please contact your financial advisor before making any decisions.

And thanks for watching. [tr:trw].

See more of Arcadia Economics on their Public Channel and the MPN Arcadia Economics channel.