China is digitizing gold warrants, we believe, for use as repo collateral, effectively turning gold into a new liquidity instrument. Softgen’s data suggests Russia may be withholding output while China builds the system to use it. Together, these moves could mark the start of a gold-based funding network outside the US dollar system. And now, here’s Vince. 45,000 gold space bar key to employee. It’s a little bit of a lighter story there, but it’s kind of interesting. It’s a comment on the culture. A couple other things, too. Silver tightness. Markets. 10-year yields are down 4 at 407.70. Dollar is up 14 at 99.60.

The S&P 500 is 6873, up 24. And that is 25.700, up 155. The VIX is 17 and change. Down 15, gold is 4126. Down a buck or so. Silver is 5161, up 42 cents, dancing to its own tune. Copper is 505, up 2 and change. WTI is down 86. At 6031, natural gas is 417. Down 2, after just a rip for the last three weeks or so. Bitcoin, dancing around between 101 and 106 now. Trading 104.80 last. Ethereum, 35.50. Platinum, palladium, both down 13 and 1. Palladium and then platinum, I should say. Gold, silver. In the 70s now, breaking 80.

Right? That should happen. Okay. Seems like two months ago, I was saying below 90. That’s, anyway, I’m pretending I’m a technician now. And grains are mixed with soy up. Okay, here we go. Why has Russia stopped selling gold? Russia’s gold exports have vanished. Between 2022 and 2024, shipments moved quietly through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the UK and Switzerland. But in 25, that route stopped around 330 tons of gold worth approximately $24 billion are now missing. Not reportedly missing, just missing from export and reserve data. At the same time, China is digitizing gold warrants.

We believe for use as repo collateral, effectively turning gold into a new liquidity instrument. Soft Gen’s data suggests Russia may be withholding output while China builds the system to use it. Together, these moves could mark the start of a gold-based funding network outside the US dollar system. We have synthesized that. Soft Gen’s focus is on trying to figure out where the gold went. And we have opined that the destination of the gold is with the China warrant situation. We think that that gold is going to be earmarked for HQLA and repo at a new competitor with US treasuries in the collateral market, which would be consternating.

All right, that continues in the premium post just sent out. Why has Russia stopped selling its gold? Next, Chinese tech firm gives $45,000 in gold, literally a gold space bar key to employees. In Shenzhen, Chinese tech firm Insta360, if you’re not familiar, their GoPros competition is turning employee bonuses into gold literally. Celebrate program each day, the camera maker handed out 21 solid gold keyboard caps, including a 35-gram space bar worth about $45,000. It’s the fourth straight year of this golden tradition, earning Insta360 the nickname, The Gold Factory. The company also gives gold coins to weddings and births, making wealth appreciation part of its culture and its brand.

That continues in Chinese firm gifts, $45,000 gold space bar to employee. That’s a lot. Related posts, last night, you may remember yesterday, we said gold has to get above a certain level. Well, we capped what happened yesterday in last night’s gold fix PM. What we didn’t note is that during the day, we saw gold selling into strength and silver buying into strength as the markets were moving up. As the day went on, gold stopped at that level. My alarm did not go off, but gold stopped at that level and silver continued.

Observationally, someone is selling gold to buy silver, or someone is selling gold and someone else is buying silver. And we were a little bit confused by that at this juncture. And then a gold fix down there showed us the actual lease rates. And we said, oh, there you go. The thing that we’ve been saying is that LBMAs problem being solved is temporary. They didn’t get all that metal shipped to them. When you’re in a jam, you get some of that metal leased. You say, I’ll lease that metal. This way, you can report that you have it and you can ship it from that place if you need it.

And we did have metal flyover from the US, presumably from China as well, but I know some metal was leased out of China. And what has happened since then? Well, Chinese silver stores and vaults that are available have disappeared. They’ve just started emptying their vaults, putting them into their big private companies, which are essentially state proxies. And they’re telegraphing to the world that the silver that was made available to bail LBMA out last month may not be available next month. So the question is, how long were their leases? And I figured they’re probably through to the end of the year.

Depends on who you’re dealing with. So I think what we’re seeing now is the lease rates starting to creep up. Silver is reacting to it. The EFP, which is a proxy for demand versus futures, has stabilized at a higher level than it should be normally with silver at this level. As silver goes up, the futures are supposed to run away from the spot, but they’re not, which is implying that the physical shortage is getting nervous and chasing as well, which is not something you normally see when you have patient physical buyers.

We think that’s important. Gold’s true value, finally explained. And Founders AM, that was a first look at something very important. Chat room. Well, I mean, it’s great. We appreciate the participation. And we threw some interesting insights and things that we saw during the day in there. We get something that comes across the desk that’s worth sharing, we will. We’ll do that. All right. And CPI is Thursday, and PPI is Friday. So you have to, while we’re looking at a chart here, you have to keep that in mind. We haven’t had real data for the regular traders to lean on.

So there might be a big pile in of people doing things like that. Maybe someone was low on gold and when it rallied yesterday, they said, okay, I’ll get out and I’ll put it in silver because I think inflation is going to be lower. And if you look at data that we’ve been getting as a substitute from like Zero Hedge, who’s been aggregating some data in other places, two things are becoming apparent. Inflation seems to be staying cool for a little bit, which gives the Fed room to cut 25 or 50 basis points.

And job data is showing, what’s the word I would use for it? Dumping of jobs. So companies are just saying 10,000 are fired, 5,000 are fired. It’s like, it’s pretty bad. And it’s not showing up in the headlines, although I’m surprised considering that the mainstream media, the legacy media, I should say, doesn’t like the present. But that’s what’s starting to happen now. You’re starting to see mass layoffs as companies say, I don’t need to hire people. I’m going to use AI. Meanwhile, AI isn’t profitable. Okay. And China is announcing less expensive versions of it, whether it’s real or not.

I don’t know. But the point is, it’s like, there are three things attacking the stock market. And I think, I think pal could actually do his 50 basis point cut this time. Based on how the data is going. Again, if CPI comes in, if CPI comes in low tomorrow, forget it. We’re probably going to run. I mean, we should just run. I mean, you should buy gold, and then buy stocks, and then buy bonds, and then sell dollars. I’m making it up. You should do whatever you want to do. But the idea is, hyperbolically speaking, if they cut 50 basis points, that’ll stabilize stocks.

It’ll make the AI bubble stop deflating so fast. Everything should do well, which is why I would say, if I had to bet tomorrow on CPI, and I didn’t know if it was going to be hot or cold. Right now, I would just buy miners. I’ve done these trades before, but not today. Buy miners and sell tech. That’s what I would do. Because if the miners are in play now, and if CPI comes in cool, both will run. You’ll probably lose a little money on your tech versus miners rally. But miners are doing well and things like that.

If CPI comes in hot, tech’s going to go to zero. I mean, jokingly. And miners will go to less than zero. You don’t know what gold’s going to do. I think there’s a ratio in there where you want to be long miners and short tech for CPI tomorrow as a coin flip trade. Anyway, I think there’s a little bit of asymmetry in that. So there’s the market. There’s the gold market. So there’s the line. My alert is up here to recap. The selling, the echo of the selling, the bottom, the line that I thought might be the middle.

I guess it really is in the middle. I guess I should delete that again. I feel like I’m doing the same thing I did like six months ago with these lines. And we bumped up against that, and we’re here. So my prognosis on the bull side is gold goes like this. Just bounces around at the ceiling. Doesn’t really test that level. Silver remains strong. So what we’re seeing now, CPI comes out and whether the number is hot or cold or whatever, the market gets above here and doesn’t stop. The bearish scenario is we stay here.

I mean, the really bearish scenario, in my opinion, is we stay here. CPI comes out, the market peaks above it, and then rips back down for some reason, right? So the way to play it is this little channel that I just drew, which is actually kind of working right now. This is where we should be if we’re poised to go higher. And if we get back in here, well, the net selling over here is really big. Gold and silver are not the same market anymore, again, because of the physical stuff.

So who the heck knows? Maybe they’re taking turns. I’m Vince. Have a great day. I hope you enjoyed the show. 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].

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