If you’re a user of Social Media X, find me VBL’s ghost. Sore in the K. Long story. Follow me there. And then subscribe to a feed that I have called News Headlines. News Headlines. There it is right there. Finance Geopolitical Bloomberg Reuters type feeds. Minimal links. No links. Some links. No ads. No selling. Just headline news in real time. Very similar to a Social Media version of a Chiron. Subscribe to that and that will answer your questions as news comes up. Similar to something crawling across the bottom of your screen while you’re watching TV or at least when you watch.

There’s our home page. We’ll discuss that in a second. Let’s do the markets. Tenure yields are $4.06 down almost seven basis points. The dollar is $1.066. Mind you, this is after the reopen last night. 101.68 down two. That’s almost 2%. The S&P 500 is 54.80 down over 1%. The VIX is 26.36 up five vols or 22% in vol terms. Gold is 30.75 down 1.85%. Silver is 31.94 down almost 6%. Copper is 483 down almost 3%. WTI is 67.15 down over 5%. Natural gas 413. Not relevant for this moment. Bitcoin off the lows 82.500 unchanged.

Palladium down almost 2%. Platinum down over 1.25%. Gold silver 95. Breaking higher. Soybeans down over 2%. Corn down almost 2%. Wheat down 1.25 to 1.5%. The front page. Last night we put out two stories, the special gold fix PM, which was really a quick interpretation of what markets did and whether it made sense or not. It made sense. And also a little bit of a plan. So we’d encourage you to read that. That is unlocked. Top left-hand corner special voice note for premium subscribers. Puts a little more meat on the bone and explains things a little bit better for people.

You can see on the right-hand side we’ve changed our screen. We have the big boy gold fix screen now and that’s essentially all markets spot and futures so you can see the comparisons there. Today we’re going to walk through what happened in cursory fashion, how the markets reacted, and attempt to give you a candle to light the darkness. A way to frame what’s coming both strategically and in terms of how to interpret market signals. You’ll know better whether things are trending one way or another as a basis point. An answer key if we get it right.

Our focus will be two-fold. Micro, meaning what’s happening right now and what caused it. Second, we’ll focus on the secular, meaning the big picture which will give us an idea of why it was done the way it was done and what is going forward. A sign of success or failure. We will not be discussing macro other than possible supportive policies that the Fed or the Treasury will take to mitigate the risks domestically. Here are the questions we’ll address. What happened yesterday? How did the markets react and how are they reacting now? What is happening globally in response to the announcement? What is the actual goal of this action? What is the risk to the world and to the US from this action? What might make the United States back off from this behavior? What might make the United States double down on this behavior? What are some likely monetary and fiscal responses as this continues? And someone also asked, please interpret some market moves this morning, which of course will do.

This won’t be long. It won’t be lengthy. It’s intended to give you a basis to move forward and hopefully a way to filter out the noise of the explanations of why this or why that or what have you. Macro doesn’t matter right now. That’s all narrative. What matters is what the markets are doing and whether they’re in line with the goals of the people that are pulling the triggers the way they’re pulling them. All right, so what happened yesterday? The US tariffed the world. United States President Trump said for nations that treat the US badly, the US will calculate the total rate charged, including non-monetary barriers, and will charge them half of that rate and therefore won’t be reciprocal.

Accordingly, he announced the US is to apply a 20% tariff on imports from the EU, a 34% tariff on imports from China, a 26% tariff on imports from India, a 25% tariff on imports from South Korea, 10% tariff on imports from the UK, and 24% tariff on imports from Japan. Trump also stated that the baseline tariff is 10% and announced 25% auto tariffs, while Canada and Mexico were not subject to reciprocal tariffs for now. Thank you very much to New Squawk for that. They put it out very concisely and saved me a lot of writing time.

All right. There’s a lovely picture of Donald Trump holding his Ross Perot style chart. How did markets react and how are they reacting now? All right, equities were down, economic commodities were down, bonds were up, the dollar is down, gold was stable, now it’s weakening, and that’s a comment on the success actually of the plan. All right, starting with crude. Crude is significantly lower, rent is down 250 as the complex is swept away by the negative risk tone following US President Trump’s tariff announcement. Pressure since the European morning has continued and oil continues to slide lower, down 5% as we mentioned.

Spot gold climbed to a fresh record high of US 3167 in reaction to the tariff turmoil owning to its haven status. As a reminder for everyone, gold, silver, copper, aluminum, and steel are all exempt from the tariffs. Essentially, as I mentioned last night, if we need it or it hurts someone we care about, we’re not going to tariff it. And you’re not really going to tariff gold, at least not now. Base metals are entirely in the red. Let’s pull the markets up again. There you go, Donald. Base metals are entirely in the red on the trade front.

Trump excluded steel, as I mentioned, aluminum, copper, silver, and gold from reciprocal tariffs, providing some relief to domestic buyers who are already paying 25% duties on these key metals used in industries like automobiles and appliances. So that’s question two. Question three, what is happening globally in response to the announcements? Well, it’s really simple. Whether it’s public or not, it’s either capitulation or retaliation. Nations are already lining up to renegotiate. They are starting to come to the table. Now, some will not come to the table. So for example, the EU is going to that they’re going to push back and they may push back.

Smaller nations, emerging markets like Vietnam, like Indonesia, like Thailand will start to come to the table and remove their tariffs. So it’s a race. Either you retaliate or you capitulate. What is the actual goal of action? To set the table for manufacturing growth and to remind trade partners of our contribution to the global pie, to pave the runway for America’s role in a new economy. Big picture. The rest of the world has kind of gone on strike against the US, right? The dollarization, a rejection of US treasuries. And so the US is saying, all right, if you’re not going to buy our treasuries, if you’re not going to loan us money, then we’re not going to buy your stuff or put it this way, we’re going to extract revenue from you one way or the other.

And you’re either going to pay with by buying treasuries or we’re going to tariff you. That’s the biggest picture. This sets the table for manufacturing growth, and it reminds trade partners of our contribution to the global pie, as I just mentioned, right? So this is all part of a rebalancing. Multi-polar, multi-currency also means a level playing field on the trade side. So fiscal and monetary balance out. What is the risk to the world? Well, add to the US from this action. Global recession, global depression, or worse, what might make the United States back off from this behavior? This is where you’re probably not going to hear this anywhere else.

Because we’re looking for indicators now to help guide you through this. Is it working? Is it not working? Well, you’re not going to feel like it’s working, you know, when you look at the prices of goods at the store domestically, or when you look at the potential layoffs, or the restructuring of jobs in the US. But if you’re looking to see how it’s working at the governmental level, higher oil prices and a stronger US dollar, inflation and disagreement between the Treasury and the Fed, and what China does next. So in terms of markets, if oil goes up, or if the dollar goes up, Trump is going to be potentially backing off.

How China pushes back, that’s also the biggest part of this. Over the long haul, it becomes a bad policy decision for inflation and when elections come by. But for now, that’s it. If you’re looking at stocks, don’t worry about stocks. If you’re hoping for Trump to succeed, stocks will find an equilibrium. And I think Powell and Besant have a cord of sorts. Now, I know, don’t quote me on that. But I think that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re isolating the US. What might make the US double down? Well, the opposite of what I just mentioned, in terms of currency and in terms of commodities.

And as you can see, the dollar’s down and oil’s down. So right now, this is what they want. Small nations will capitulate, peeling off the periphery from China. This is about China. Peeling off the periphery from China, the US grows more confident of a domino effect. And time will go on going with that. What might make the US double down? We mentioned that. Oh, here we go. Please interpret some market moves from this morning. Okay. Let’s do that. We’ve got the big one here. All right. Try to make sense from market point of view.

A little bit of tape watching. US S&P 500, the middle is the bond market, top middle, top right is the dollar. Lower left is crude, lower middle is copper, lower right is gold. Okay. At 4 p.m., when the announcement happened, stocks dropped. Bond yields dropped as people bought bonds. The dollar weakened. Crude oil confirming the stock market dropped, cratered, copper cratered, gold spiked, and now it’s cratering. Now, if you’re looking for interpretation of gold, we’ll put that there for you. A little bit less busy. Gold rallied because the tariffs are a safe-hated thing.

Gold futures rallied more. Everyone was euphoric about that because everyone thought gold was being tariffed. Gold was not being tariffed, and so gold futures tumbled on the reopen, and now spot is also coming off. The whole complex for precious metals is dropping. Keep in mind, if it’s economic, it’s going to go down. If it’s not economic, it’s going to go down less. To the extent that gold anticipated this, it’s buy the rumor, sell the news. Now, that’s a macro statement. I don’t mean it continues dropping, then that’s a sign that countries are coming to the table and negotiating with the U.S.

If gold turns around in rallies again, well, that’s a sign that things are getting worse. Now, there are a lot of other shoes that have to drop here. Switching to silver on the daily chart, you may be asking yourself, well, why is silver down more than copper? Because this is just a snapshot. Silver has enjoyed precious buying. Silver has enjoyed purchasing because of an expectation of tariffs on the actual metal, but there are no tariffs on the metal, so that allows the world economy slowing down to really affect silver. Silver is dropping because gold is dropping, and silver is dropping before copper is dropping.

It’s actually the worst of both worlds right now. Now, going forward, these metals will go higher, but I’m not here to blow smoke up your ass. The bottom line is that with tariffs on silver and copper, the price goes up or stabilizes. To the extent that companies bought or front-loaded their risk while they don’t have to buy now, anyone who speculated that there would be tariffs on U.S. futures is now puking, and that’s why you’re seeing silver futures and silver spot are converging again. In a sense, the LBMA would be getting bailed out right now, so futures are normalizing against spot, and that’s pretty much it.

The mods and ends. Here are the tariff rates for our major trade partners. Cambodia, 49 percent, Vietnam, 46 percent, Sri Lanka, 44 percent, China, 34 percent, but I think that’s with an additional 20 percent, so it’s 54 percent, I believe. At least that’s what someone reported. Pakistan, 30 percent, India, 26 percent, Japan, 24 percent, Israel, 17 percent, and Canada, 25 percent. Okay, that’s the tariff rates for the major trade partners, and there’s President Trump again, and here’s a tariff grid. You can look at those yourself. We’ll include those in the post.

Just going out, we would encourage you to read the special gold-fixed PM to give you some perspective. What we said last night remains true today. I’m Vince. Have a great day. Well, thank you to Vince for this morning’s report. Sure hope you enjoyed that one at home, and I will just say I sure enjoy watching Vince myself, and darn grateful that it’s worked out with this setup that we have here, and glad to have all of you joining us every day, and hopefully it’s been helpful along your journey as we watch the medals continue to rally, and certainly started last year, and continuing on, and before we wrap up, I would just like to thank Fortuna Mining, who was our proud sponsor of today’s show, and Fortuna actually just updated their mineral reserves and mineral resources estimate, which included inferred mineral resources of 2.2 million gold equivalent ounces, measured and indicated resources exclusive of reserves of 1.5 million gold equivalent ounces, which were increases of 29 and 36%, which were the result of infill drilling, and the discovery of the new inferred resource that represents 741,000 gold equivalent ounces.

Proven Improbable came in at 2.7 million gold equivalent ounces, which was down 11% on the year, although the driver for that was the production that they had in 2024, which was record production for them, and also that depletion offset by the upgrading of resources to reserves, representing 204,000 gold equivalent ounces, although fortunately, in terms of finding some more gold out there, Fortuna had some more news, as they have intersected 7.2 grams per ton gold over 31.5 meters at their kingfisher prospect in the Sibuela mine, and they also mentioned it at the sunbird deposit, which is really one of the most promising ones they have there, and they are getting closer towards mining, and they’re the deep exploration drilling, tested the southern extent, and has returned to excellent results, including 4.2 grams per ton gold over a true width of 23.1 meters.

So I will leave the link to both of these in the description field below, and for a little more color on the update to the mineral reserves and mineral resources estimate. Well, that one is coming your way now. Please note that this video is not intended as legal licensed 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!
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