➡ The text discusses various economic and financial topics, including the potential impact of AI, shifts in gold and oil trading, and the possibility of war. It also mentions Serbia’s decision to repatriate its gold reserves due to fears of confiscation. The text further discusses the performance of gold and silver markets, and the expansion of Dolly Varden Silver’s drill program from 35,000 meters to 55,000 meters.

➡ Dolly, backed by its shareholders, is set to grow its exploration drilling after a good season start. This will allow them to explore important areas and keep growing the high-quality silver zone and wolf vein. Everyone is eager to see the drilling results. If you’re new to Dolly, Sean provided an overview a few weeks ago.

We’re going to talk about what happened on Friday, but I want to talk about the top right-hand story there. Something happened over the weekend that kind of freaked me out. So let me just give you a quick preamble. Welcome to this morning’s Markets and Metals with Vince Lancey, where each morning he brings you the precious metals news to get you ready for your day. Now, here’s Vince. Good morning, everyone. I’m Vince Lancey, and this is the Gold Fix Market Rundown. It’s 8.10 a.m. I hope you had a good weekend, and we have some new ground to cover here.

The 10-year yield is up 1 at $422. The dollar is $9880, up 11. The S&P 500 is $6269, up 33. The VIX is 19 spot 32, down 1. Gold is $33.69 in change, up $6.5, with a range of down 6 to the highs right here. Silver is $37.31, was strong all night, and now it’s close to or on the highs, up 30. Copper is $4.40, unchanged. It was a lot stronger last night. They were moving in tandem, copper and silver. WTI is $66.45, down $1.50. Natural gas is $3.01, down $4. Bitcoin, $1.14, spot $400, hovering. Ethereum, $35.58, up a little bit.

Pallade and Platinum are down now. They were up last night. Some violent swings into PGMs. Silver is holding. I believe people are buying silver and selling platinum and palladium now. In mass, people are coming into silver from different angles. Silver could be the Goldilocks metal. Well, it’s always been the Goldilocks metal, but maybe they’re just figuring it out now. Grains are mixed. You could see that. All right, front page. Front and center, we had a very nice CFTC talk or coming to traders talk with some very bullish takeaways. So far, so good. Many topics were discussed, and there was some good moments.

There was a lot of participation from the founders with excellent questions, which with insights contributed on Bollinger Bands, moving averages, stop loss areas, and what have you. It was, I would say it was a community-generated master class. It was very good. It was fun to do as well. Okay, so we’re going to talk about what happened on Friday, but I want to talk about the top right-hand story there. Something happened over the weekend that kind of freaked me out. So let me just give you a quick preamble. Last week, Friday, unemployment came out very bad. Not only was Friday’s unemployment number bad, but the revisions for the previous months came out a lot lower too.

So Q2 unemployment or employment, employment was a lot lower than perceived to be. That’s data point number one. The other data point is all week before that, company earnings were beating expectations. These two things together hit an alarm for me. Something I’ve been thinking about for some time, but never saw any current event data to make me feel convinced that I’m potentially right. So let’s go through how the data corroborates the behavior going forward. Simply put, unemployment can spiral higher now. The American labor market is changing. The change is not caused by a typical recession or new business cycle.

It is caused by machines, by artificial intelligence. These systems are being used to cut costs, and the result is clear. Companies are earning more earnings while employing fewer people. Even without a recession, unemployment will rise, we feel. If a recession does come, the damage will be worse in a spiral type of fashion. Companies will turn even faster to automation, and the jobs they cut will not come back. So what we know, the more meat on the bone of what I just talked about. Two facts. First, when the economy slows, companies look for ways to save money.

Second, AI is a tool that helps them do just that by reducing the need for workers. These points are not opinions. They are patterns we have seen before and any good economist will tell you about that. Adoption increases in a downturn. You buy the generic stuff. You don’t get the top-brand stuff. The new element is scale. That’s the new skill. AI works faster, cheaper. I’m not saying it’s better and more broadly than any tool before. Now we get into what the data shows. There are two sets of matters here. The first is from company earnings, putting a little more meat on the bone.

In the second quarter of 2025, more than 80% of large American firms beat their earnings targets. Nearly 80% also beat revenue expectations. These are extremely high marks compared to the last 10 years, which were peaking at 77, 75, 71. This is big because usually when those numbers peaked, employment would get tighter. People were getting higher. The second is from the labor market itself. Job growth came in weaker than expected. As I said, earlier months were revised lower and unemployment was higher. The workforce shrank. Together, these numbers tell a simple story. Profits are rising, jobs are not.

Companies, especially in the tech sector, are becoming more productive while employing fewer people. So what comes next? If the economy worsens, job losses will grow, of course, right? That is what usually happens to begin with. But with AI in the mix, job losses could happen faster and hit harder. The recovery may not bring, the recovery that comes after a recession, may not bring those jobs back. Machines do not need to be rehired and they don’t have pensions. Even if the economy stays flat or grows, let’s assume that GDP, which is a prediction of earnings and earnings have been falling through, remains strong.

GDP and earnings will grow. Jobs will still be cut. Firms won’t cut as aggressively because they can look away from cost cutting because their bottom lines are growing because their top lines are growing, right? Their sales are growing and so they can ignore the fat, which is the extra workers. But smarter, bigger, more flexible types of firms will adopt even in a growth environment. Other firms will follow Darwinistically. If they do not, they will fall behind. The industries will start to consolidate even further uphill. Cutting labor is not a choice for this. It becomes a requirement to what it means.

The old rules are breaking. Growth used to mean more jobs. Now it means more profit with fewer workers. Policymakers are not ready for this, okay? Central banks can lower interest rates or raise them. That will not stop machines from replacing people. Will new jobs be created? Yes, they will. But I’m talking about the next 20 years while people are being trained in these new jobs, right? Maybe there is going to be some sort of an AI maintenance team that needs 500 people in it. That’s not the point. The point is there is a generational gap when economies change drivers.

The 70s, you’re fired at the manufacturing level. You’re hired at the financial level. This era, you’re fired at the white collar level. You’re hired at the hanging drywall level, okay? This is potentially the moment that is the tipping point that I have been aware of in terms of the parallels with my own youth. Now, the response will come from government as this happens because it’s happened before. It happened in the 70s. It happened during COVID. It’s happening right now. We saw it most obviously under Biden. Politicians may promise new programs. These could take the form of basic income.

That’s going to come. State-run jobs or bigger bureaucracies. Hire more toll booth operators. Go low-tech. Hire street sweepers. In darker scenarios, they may seek foreign conflict to unite a divided public. I mean, I’m being gentle about it. But how do you get people? Full employment comes when you’re at war. Period. It’s not productivity per person that matters during war. It’s output. So you just throw everyone at it that you have to. Okay. All of those are costly and actually inflationary. None fix the root problem. The link between work and prosperity is fading. This is a conclusion.

The link between growth and hiring is already broken. It is a tool of the present and it is being used right now. Unemployment will rise in ways that no recent budget has prepared for. This is not a forecast. Well, it is a prediction. So it’s a statement to the effect about what we think has already begun. We were waiting for this. Maybe it’s an aberration, but we don’t think it is. Secular change drives macro. Macro drives micro. Macro is policy by the government and it will not change. It will not reverse secular change. It will slow it down, but it’s coming.

Full analysis is in the premium post thesis unemployment can spiral higher. It’s really important. If you have grandchildren, you want to read this, because their next job categories in this post and the post that we have embedded in there from Goldman will show you the types of jobs that are most likely to not grow and the types of jobs that are likely to grow, not the jobs, it’ll be, you know, person to person interaction, sales, you’ll have a job, you know, cyber security, critical thinking, you’ll have a job, things like that. Anyway, we think it’s extremely important.

Okay, so moving on related posts. There’s, there’s a post that that we had looked at before Goldman expects 67% of workers displaced by AI. That means replaced. And that’s a conservative number. I know it’s a conservative number. I know they don’t want to sound the panic. CFTC talk very very bullish takeaways founders Sunday catch up with some reading flow show when it would become consumers, you know that’s that’s kind of a clickbait headline. That was part of the conversation that we had there. That’s a hard net flow show walkthrough, and we are happy to say that two weeks ago.

Here’s the gold based comment. Two weeks ago, he had shifted from gold as his favorite dollar hedge to oil. He was shifting he was saying basically, if the dollar continues to weaken oil will probably benefit more than gold now. So, as a trader I’m saying myself okay so he’s not long oil, he’s not long gold he’s long oil. Two weeks later, boom, he reversed it. So he backed off. And I like that the fact that he switched that quickly, which means gold works in the dollar weakness coming and clearly if you look at the dollar today, gold doesn’t care about the dollar weakness because it’s not weak.

Serbia repatriating all of its gold reserves abandoning Western vaults. Some people have actually asked me why that’s relevant. Or why would they do that considering that they’re in a country that could be invaded, you know, in the middle of Europe, and the answer is they view the risk of confiscation bigger than the risk of invasion. Think about that. And by the way historically Serbia and Russia are pals. Historically, you go back to World War One, you can see that. Dear Zoltan isn’t BW3 really China style BW2. Yeah, I mean, Brentwood’s three, the concepts that that pose are talked about were valid.

But when I look at what China is doing, and you look at the history of what China does they take an idea that’s worked. They move some pieces around in it. They make it more efficient and they maximize it they scale it. So, Bretton Woods three is really just China using the dollar architecture, the dollar model. You can read that. Moving on coming soon. Martin Armstrong has been on his horse about essentially 100% he has a model and the model says 100% chance of war. And I hope he’s wrong, but he said it more than once in this timeframe so it wasn’t a passing comment for him.

And every day that goes by. We kind of get closer to these problems where Trump is kind of painted into a corner, either he’s been painted into a corner he’s painted himself. The trade deals that are being announced look good but I don’t think they’re going to be honored. Putin is defying him. He’s, he’s actually doing a little brinksmanship with the nuclear subs I don’t know what that’s going to do, but empirically we should be moving the clock closer to midnight, Mexican silver we have a history of that written by someone else really good piece we like it’s it then we’ll share with you.

And then we also are going to take a look at an older peaceful golden silver shorts, where the real demise for Bear Stearns by Doug Casey. Light week for data. Let’s do a final market check. Let’s go through what happened on Friday. All right. Well, here we go. There’s gold daily. I went through all of this in more detail in the, in the Sunday conversation. But it’s easy to say you’re bullish after market rallies, a lot of people do that. Last week’s behavior in the gold market Friday aside, was classic fun liquidation down open interest dropping down open interest dropping down open interest dropping normal stuff.

And I said okay we’re still in a range again and then we got to 100 day moving average, and it held again so someone bought it, we don’t know who. The sheer power that it was propelled off of this area, when the dot the jobs number came out was really eye opening to me, kind of what Martin Armstrong the same when you think about it. The jobs data came out very weak. The stock market had already been on the lows for the day. It bounced a little bit, because we jobs numbers mean all the fed kidneys, and then it sold off again and gold took off.

So, I believe the market is collectively doing the following. The result was the market is now expecting the fed to cut at least twice now, they’ll change their mind from time to time we know that. But if you’re a person who’s got gold on your radar, and the macro discretionary boys have gold on their radar, and you see the solutions to the problem as either cutting or not cutting for pal. And you see unemployment low, I’m sorry, employment dropping and inflation sticky. There are only two things that can come from that. One is stagflation, where pal can’t cut because unemployment, even though it’s low inflation is too high, that stagflation and Dorik stagflation, nothing beats gold to recession and recession means he’s got a cut rates, and that means he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

The unemployment number, the weak unemployment number was the most important thing in a long time with the revisions made it even worse. It’s almost like Trump wanted that so pal would have to cut and people are talking about emergency cut as well too I don’t know that’s going to happen. I don’t see what the emergency is, at least not on the data, but gold took off. Okay, so silver rallied as well but was sold off against gold because maybe it’s not going to be maybe it’s going to be recession maybe he’s not but maybe he’s not going to cut right.

You could just see the whole complex is changing behavior stocks were weak miners were strong. It was a very big day, and can it be negated yes so before I get into the whole bullish levels thing. Gold is still in a range. It’s still in a range. Okay. But one of the systems that I look at says, and I said this in the conversation on Sunday above 3347. The gold market should go to 3390 in short order and above 3390 3424 now I’m not predicting those, but I do have a position on starting last night as a result of that.

So, we’re looking good silver is a much simpler story. It held a 50 day moving average. It was stood another sell off and had nothing to do with silver was on the back of copper short term momentum was oversold long term momentum or volatility I would cycle volatility is in place. That was a, that was a dip to buy now I didn’t say it then I’m already long, but Michael Oliver hinted at it. He’s actually called for $60 or $70 from his mouth to God’s ears. I hope he’s right, I do. But up. Considering, look at the board today, considering platinum is down.

Look at these nasty reversals and palladium and platinum here. Hourly. That’s palladium strong all night. And then get slammed platinum strong all night well wasn’t as strong, and now it’s negative silver. Strong all night strong all night stronger. Okay, gold week all night. Week all night, like in this area here. And now firming up a little bit. Now I don’t want to make too much of this will giving you a snapshot. As the day goes on, if the US market hours open, and there isn’t a little bit of a by panic, you know for for silver, you’re going to see traders look at platinum and palladium and say, well, I’ll buy silver but I’ll wait for a dip.

And so you could see the markets back off, but very healthy stuff. And that’s it. I’m Vince. Have a great day. Well, thank you, Vincent, as always for this morning’s show and one more fantastic recap of the gold and silver markets on what has certainly been a volatile last few couple of days but hopefully this has been helpful as always and you enjoy watching at home. We sure appreciate you being here and we wrap up we did have some news from Dolly Barton silver this week. Obviously we give an update on Dolly each week and have talked about how they had their drill program ongoing.

Although as Sean Kunken, the CEO of Dolly Barton mentioned on his last appearance on the show. Certainly they have a busy summer planned and the latest news was that they’ve actually increased the scope of this drill program that was previously announced at 35,000 meters has now been increased to 55,000 meters and will prioritize the wolf vein extension, where Dolly plans to continue to intersect mineralization on the step out and infill drilling and also the exploration targets at the kids all Valley and big old projects. So, especially at a time when the silver price still elevated even if a little bit lower than last week.

It’s nice to see that Dolly is being quite aggressive after they’ve raised capital and getting out there and doing even more drilling. We’ll be having Sean Kunken back on here soon for another update. Although until we do have him back, I’ll just mention what he says here that with the strong support of our shareholders in the recently completed financing Dolly is well positioned to significantly expand its exploration drilling, based on a strong start to the season, which enables them to test key exploration targets and continue expanding the high grade silver zone and wolf vein. And that is today’s news because that’s exactly what they’ve done.

So we’ll be exciting to see when the drill results start coming back. But again, just in case you are new to Dolly and like a little overview, here’s what Sean had to say a couple weeks ago. Thank you. [tr:trw].

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