➡ Chris Marcus, founder of Arcadia Economics, discusses the rising prices of silver and gold in an interview. He suggests that the increase in silver prices is due to a mix of silver-specific factors and influences from the gold market. Marcus also mentions the possibility of a silver shortage due to high demand and low supply, which could lead to even higher prices. He emphasizes that the current market situation is unique and could lead to unexpected outcomes.
➡ The silver market is under stress with the amount of available silver (free float) decreasing rapidly. Analysts predict that silver inventories could be depleted in four to seven months. This, combined with issues of debt and currency, could lead to a significant change in the silver market. There’s also a possibility of a ‘squeeze’ in the silver market, which could drive prices up. However, if a recession hits, demand for silver could decrease, but this could also lead to a decrease in silver supply as it’s often a byproduct of other metals.
➡ The article discusses the potential impact of green energy targets and government subsidies on the demand for silver, which has recently been added to the U.S. Administration’s draft list of strategic minerals. Despite the possibility of a recession affecting silver prices, the author suggests that government investments and international interest could boost its value. The author also speculates on the potential for increased public interest in silver if inflation continues to rise. Finally, the article mentions the growing interest from generalist funds in the mining sector, indicating a potential turning point in the market.
➡ This discussion revolves around the fluctuating value of silver and how it impacts investors. The speakers ponder what price point would make most silver investors happy, suggesting it might be around $70-$75 per ounce. They also discuss the challenges of increasing silver production quickly in response to price increases, as it can take years to decades to bring new silver mines online. Lastly, they speculate that market chaos or inflation could prompt more retail-level buying of silver.
➡ The text discusses the manipulation and suppression of silver prices. It suggests that while manipulation does occur, it’s less frequent than before. The speaker believes that continuous manipulation could lead to price suppression. They also highlight the importance of considering long-term trends over daily fluctuations, and encourage silver investors to appreciate their journey and expect continued volatility in the market.
➡ The speaker discusses the potential for gold and silver investments, suggesting that despite some uncertainty, it’s an exciting time for investors. They mention the possibility of significant price changes, both up and down, and encourage investors to stay informed and patient. The speaker also promotes their upcoming content and reports, which provide further insights into the gold and silver market. They conclude by expressing optimism for the future and encouraging viewers to enjoy the investment journey.

With the way markets are set up, especially with stop orders and momentum trading, it will be fascinating. And certainly there is the possibility that when it goes through 50, could it jump substantially? Well, hello there, my friends, Chris Marcus here with you for Arcady Economics. And we do have an extra bonus show this week as I did an interview with Charlotte McLeod, the great Charlotte McLeod, who I might add, we’ve scored her first interview where she is answering the questions as she has agreed to come on the show in just a little bit over a week.

But in either case, she interviewed me and we talked quite a bit about silver, the, the stunning things that are happening this week. And she said we could repost that here. So here you. I’m Charlotte McLeod with InvestingNews.com and here today with me is Chris Marcus, founder of Arcadia Economics. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you, Charlotte. Great to be back as always, especially today where we have a silver price that begins with a 44. And I know some people get upset about this, but not just the futures price, but at least as of about 15 minutes ago, you had the spot price over $44 as well, only the third time in history, first time since 2011, so 14 years ago.

And what a great time to be catching up with my friend Charlotte talking some silver today. Yes, I was gonna say it’s always good to be speaking with you, but this is an especially good day to have you on. So I think we should start with the price activity in silver you already mentioned, where we’re at. And what I wanted to ask you is this rise in the silver price. How much do you think it has to do with s silver, specific factors and how much is related to everything that’s going on with the gold price, which is also on a roll right now.

Well, it’s definitely a mix of both because I’ll pull up our pricing today. Here you can see Silver currently up A$37 and Gold up 75. And I think from where the futures remark that’s actually a little higher than it is since the Sunday night open. So still a big day in both gold and silver. And I think you’ve had gold. I think last year in particular, it was gold driving the silver rally more than anything else because yes, we do have the deficits ongoing. Yes, we do have the inventory depletion that’s been ongoing for a couple of years yet.

Wasn’t like that just hit in February of 2024, whereas you’d already seen gold moving. And even though I think perhaps up until the last couple weeks we haven’t gotten the kind of move in silver that I think most people would have expected relative to what’s been happening in gold. I mean, it did start moving. I think that was pulling a lot of silver up last year and then again this year when you have the tariffs that altered everything and has certainly been affecting the silver market. Where Charlotte, as you and I know, many of your listeners know, we’ve had something called a surge in the EFP premium, which is basically the spread between the spot futures or the spot market in London and the futures in the comex.

So we’ve seen a series of indications of stress. Lease rates have spiked, the fee to borrow shares to short SLV has spiked. And actually I believe last week it was Bob Coleman posted that there were zero shares available of SLV to short, which I’m guessing has something to do with what we’ve seen in these past couple of days, where it’s two or three days now, we’ve seen a $1 plus move. And as we can touch on more, we also did recently have Bloomberg mentioning silver scarcity in an article and then a report from TD bank that was saying we could be within months of the inventories in the LBMA being depleted.

So I try to always be conservative. I know in silver there’s a lot of it’s going 8,000 an ounce or going to the moon. Yet what’s hitting me today, especially seeing this move where it’s also possible we’re getting closer to something unusual happening because you’ve heard me and I see in the interviews you do with many other guests, talk about. All right, well if we’re running a deficit, we’ve seen inventories come down and record demand for industrial silver last year and keep hearing about the 8 million places they want to stick a solar panel, maybe a Samsung battery in a couple of years yet.

All right, well, the price was sitting at 25, then it was sitting at 30. And everyone’s saying that’s great deficit, this, that when’s it going to matter? It seems like it’s starting to matter. And also not just that it’s starting to matter, but again with those two particular reports, but others along with that suggesting, gee, this, it’s at least becoming possible that the scenario in which it really matters, it’s like we could, could be getting closer to seeing really sounds like everything is starting to come together like you’ve outlined there. And what I’ve heard a lot in the past is when we get into this price area for silver It’s a pretty clear path to $50 per ounce.

And I want to talk a little bit about that milestone because you put it into context quite well in the recent report on Silver that you point out those other times that silver has gotten to 50, kind of contextualizing, you know, what was going on at the time. There were very specific circumstances and it didn’t last very long. So I’m wonder, wondering if we can contrast what we’re seeing right now to what we were seeing in those other times in a way that will help investors understand how today is maybe different. Sure. And one thing I’ll add there, you said that a lot of people, and I’ve, I heard that, that I heard there were a lot of people who were saying when silver got through 30, it was going to go straight to 50.

And I think we saw that it was not a straight path. And I, I know there’s already people suggesting once it breaks 50, how quickly it’ll go straight to insert whatever number, other number there. A, things don’t always happen like they did in the past. B, silver’s never gone past $50. So I won’t be bold enough to tell you what will happen when it breaks it. Aside from that, with the way markets are set up, especially with stop orders and momentum trading, it will be fascinating. And certainly there is the possibility that when it goes through 50, could it jump substantially? Possible, but will be fun if we get to that point.

Although in terms of some differences from 1980 and 2011. 1980, and I think that’s one of the key things that throws people off a bit in the silver community because it’s always measuring. All right, well, we’re below the 1980 high, 2011 high. So silver is underperformed. But I think it’s, it’s helpful to distinguish between what was maybe an equilibrium price and what happens during a short squeeze. Because to draw a similar, not exactly the same, but similar analogy, remember when nickel, I think it went to $100,000 a contract a couple of years ago when someone was getting squeezed.

So did the price go there? Yes. Are people going to be basing future trading decisions based on the fact that the price did go there? Yes, that’s possible too. But in terms of, well, what was nickel really worth? You know, that’s what happened in a short squeeze, which is a short term deviation. Now, silver actually does get to the point where there’s a shortage, then that would be quite fascinating to see. And you could, that’s the scenario in which I think you could start to see some of the bigger numbers. But again, in 1980, I think it was.

I think it only was over 50 for a couple of hours. It was only over 49 for about two days. Now, again, you could say, well, taking away the ability to open the. The exchange made it sell only so that complicated. There was a lot going on there on both sides. And back then you, you had the price come back down and you did not have a shortage since then. Similar in 2011, there was a degree of a short squeeze in there and. But what is interesting is that in the current dynamics where now you actually have demand outpacing supply.

So there you didn’t have the. As much of the problem of, well, what if Company X wants silver for their products and it just. The screen says 44, but they’re trying to buy it and it’s not there. That’s what’s really intriguing about the spot that we’re in now, let alone. And this applies to the gold side as well. It’s not like we’ve hit a CLIFF with the U.S. debt or any of these global debt loads and all right, well, they had to write down the debt and there was a restructure and now gold’s at $4,000 and silver’s at 50 bucks.

I mean, we’re at these prices and gold, what is almost 3, 800 in the futures, what do we have there? I’ll pull that up in a second. But in either case, we have these prices before that has occurred. And you have the conditions in the silver market where there’s clearly stress and in terms of how low the LBMA is, there’s something called a free float, which if you look at the LBMA vaults, you have X amount of silver and then part of that is owed to the ETFs like SLV and because they store their silver in these vaults.

So you subtract that out and it’s what’s known as the free float. And the. There’s an analyst, Daniel Galley from TD securities, he’s the one who’s been commenting on how we’re within could be four to seven months from seeing those inventories depleted. He mentioned back in January that there were 305 million ounces in the free float. And the average daily turnover on The LBMA is 250 million ounces. So about 55 million ounce buffer and free float’s now down to about 148 million ounces. So under the 250 million ounces and. And then something that I’ve not really heard anyone else mention.

But you know, we hear a lot about this short position on the Comex, which if you hear the banks talk about, they say people are mischaracterizing that because they’re not naked short. That is a hedge for their London holdings. I don’t know that I would subscribe to that fully being the case. I’m sure there’s some degree to which that goes on. I would doubt it’s one to one, but. So let’s say that all of those short positions are a hedge for physical holdings. I think that was about another 220 million ounces. So we would be in negative territory now.

Let’s say it’s not hedged one to one and that means at least one, probably more banks has been short as the price has been going up. So in sum, however you choose to look at it, the numbers aren’t adding up. And you know, if you have something happen with a supply and then on top of that at some point you’re running into issues with debt loads and currencies that would certainly leave us probably in a much different environment for silver than either 1980 or 2011. I think a lot of information there. And if we break it down, do you see, because periodically it seems with silver we get all these conversations around a squeeze.

So when you look at it, do you, do you see that as a likely scenario when you look at the price or how, how are you looking at it? I mean, you could say what we’re seeing today is a squeeze. I mean, maybe I’m partly guilty for this with my Silver channel in the book. You know, I guess when you talk about a squeeze in silver, I think if you say there’s going to be a squeeze in silver, most people even automatically assume like, oh, this must mean it’s going to the $50 and beyond. And certainly, I mean, you could say today there’s a pretty better chance of that happening from where we stand today than most other points in history.

But yeah, you know, you could say that we’re. What we’re seeing today and on Friday is to some degree, if not largely a squeeze. I actually did, I know you know our friend Vince Lancey, you’ve had him on our show, he does our morning show. And I’ve been Working on revised 2nd edition of the Big Silver Short. And I thought, oh, it’d be great to add a conversation with Vincent and really. And he also filled the role of covering what happened since when the book was published and now. And it was funny because he was talking about what happened to silver during 2020 after Covid, when in July it went as Charlotte, I know you well remember because even before I was making videos I was watching you talk to people about how we had 20 bucks, it broke through in July of 2016, then was sitting in the teens even throughout that decade of quantitative easing and 0% interest rates and then finally stayed in the teens until the summer of 2020, finally breaks through 20 and was up to 29.

I think that happened. The whole move might have been within a month, maybe two months, but it was very short period of time. And as Vince and I were discussing in that interview. Yeah, that was. I think that’s appropriate to call that a short squeeze as well. So we’ve seen several short squeezes. I would expect that we haven’t seen the last one. And the silver short position held by the banks hit a new all time record high. The previous had been it was like 49, 600 contracts from July of 2016 and then we hit 54000 contracts short by the banks a month or two ago.

It’s a little bit off the highs, yet still quite large. Which means that either the banks would be losing on the way up or if they’re completely hedged, that means the supply is even in the LBMA is even lower than we thought. And if I may just add one last point to that, I know especially within the silver community there’s a tendency to think all right, if silver goes up to 50 bucks, the banking system is going to end. I don’t maybe might have subscribed to that somewhat in my earlier days, although I don’t think that’s the case.

I mean look at what happened in 2023 with the Treasuries. You know, banks lost money, BTFP came out, patched over. I mean maybe there’s some point that gold and silver goes to that some banks get in trouble yet I don’t know that that’s necessarily a bit. I mean you think it would impact them on some level, but does that get patched over? I would imagine that would be most likely what happened. So just the idea that $50 silver weren’t people saying that about $3,000 gold and you know, it’s Monday, so something to keep in mind. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.

And also what you’re saying about. Okay, how are you defining a squeeze? Because depending on what you mean, maybe it’s already happening right now and has happened in the past. So good to go into those, those price dynamics and I want to take a look over at demand as well. You’re mentioning the strong industrial demand for, or silver. I think people know about the solar element. There’s also AI coming into the demand picture for silver and the more traditional segments as well. But when we look at the industrial side, I think people also think about the economy and they wonder, okay, if we’re heading into a recession in the US or elsewhere, what does that mean for this industrial side of demand for silver? So what are your thoughts there? Well, yes.

If you head into a recession, would you expect overall level of activity, including things that involve silver, to go down? Yeah, I think that’s a fair assumption. Although as we touched on in the report, one thing to keep in mind is that in that scenario that means you also have copper demand down. Although given, given what I see about their structural deficit there, you need copper demand to go down really far for there to be enough copper similar to silver. But still, if you have, I think it’s 72% of silver last year came as a byproduct from gold, lead, zinc and copper mines.

So in the recession, you would have the demand for those metals down. So if you’re mining less of those, then that’s also going to impact the silver supply. Now, in a recession, which side would be offset more? I mean, you could debate that. Infinite with infinite possibilities. Yet. Here’s the other thing that I think should be factored in though, is that let’s say we get into a recession, and I don’t mean, I get it, that you could make the argument that we are already in a recession, especially when measured in real terms, and I would think that would probably well be correct.

Yet I’m talking about, let’s say we have a recession, overtly recognized. Even Jerome Powell’s not out there saying the economy’s strong. Well, we gotta cut interest rates to get inflation down. Even though it’s been over their mandate for four years, it’s increasing and they’re going to get it back down to 2% by cutting interest rates further. Leave that aside. It will say even Trump is acknowledging, hey, we have to do something where governments are now acknowledging we’re in a recession. In that scenario, what do you think they’re going to do? Are they and the Fed going to sit by with their hands in their pockets, or are we going to get an easing package that blows what we saw during COVID out of the water? I think it’s a lot more likely that we get an easing package that blows what we saw in Covid out of the water.

Taking that a step further, and this is, I’m speculating here, although maybe, maybe a wise speculation, hopefully if the governments decide they need to stimulate and ease everything they can get within their reach, especially given these green energy targets, wouldn’t you think there’s a good chance that at least some of those subsidy or QE dollars or whatever format it comes in are also going to be boosting green energy? Things that require silver. Silver also just added to the draft list by the US Administration as a strategic mineral. So yeah, maybe the, well here’s another thing. Maybe the, maybe the economic demand goes down but if the government decides, hey, we need more sil.

Well, it doesn’t matter what, when you got the printing press, doesn’t matter what’s happening in the economy. If they want to buy it, they’ll buy it. And now silver’s not the only one. But I’m sure you and many of your viewers saw what happened with the rare earths where the government made an investment into MP materials. So we’re not, you know, we’re not complete speculation here. I mean we’re seeing these things happen. So do you have a recession? Can that affect silver? Yes. And those are hopefully that puts in context how to balance some of the moving pieces.

I’m not sure that a recession would balance out at least the current deficits that we’re running. But in either case those are the, the things that I keep an eye on for that. Yeah, I think that does provide good context. Okay, we could have a recession, but then there’s also all these other elements that could kick in there. And to follow up with you as well on the inclusion on that draft U.S. critical minerals list and maybe talk a little bit more about the implications if that ends up I guess being added officially to the list.

I’m not sure when that is perhaps due to happen and if other countries could, could follow suit there. Yeah, well my understanding was that it was a one month period where I guess if somebody has an objection or is in favor of it, they can comment. So I, I think it was August 25th. So we’re September 22nd today. So it may not be that far off. My understanding was that it, that’s largely procedural and it would be likely to be on the final list. Another thing now this, this, this will put in the pure conjecture zone.

I read this, I don’t know if this is true or not, but it’s interesting to think about. I saw someone speculate that we had all this metal come from London over to New York earlier this year for tariffs that never happened. Still don’t recall ever hearing any even discussion of tariffs over England. Yet nonetheless, the metal came over here and then a couple months later. Now, silver is a strategic strategic medal. The person writing this comment was suggesting that basically they knew it was a strategic metal that they needed so they were front running it. I’m not sure that’s the case.

I also wouldn’t rule it out entirely either. I mean it is, do have all this metal sitting here now. So it’s an unusual situation. But remind me please, the other half of your question. I didn’t want to miss that, but I think it was about if other countries could follow. Yeah, yeah. Well, we saw last year Russia included silver and what they’re adding to their reserves. Saudi Arabia Monetary Authority showed up on the SLV list a couple weeks ago. I think it was just under a million shares for what it’s worth. I heard Jeff Christian of CBM Group says it was not for Saudi Arabia but on behalf of another government, which that could well be the case, although that would still indicate that some government decided to invest in silver.

Interesting that it is Saudi Arabia because I know there’s the narrative that, you know, 1980 was just, you know, the Hunt brothers showed up and this was all them, not quite the case. And there were several Saudi investors involved then as well. So they have a history with silver. You also have a lot of banks publishing research, particularly bank of America, about all these things that you’ve been, you and I have been talking about, you’ve been talking about with your other guests. So it’s, it’s getting out there. We, we have not hit an avalanche yet, I wouldn’t say.

But we’re also not at zero anymore. And here’s the other thing I think about is that, you know, right now you’re like, well, you know, okay, the central banks are buying gold, but they’re not going to buy silver, which they, they, maybe they won’t. Yet. I would suggest if you went back five or ten years in time and described to someone the conditions in the gold market today, they probably would have said, no, that’s impossible. We’re not going to have all this happening. And I say that to point out that sometimes in ways we can see, sometimes in ways that we can, these things do change.

Personally, I wonder if we get another wave of inflation like what we just saw over the last couple of years. Is that the point where more people in the public start to say, well, I might not know what’s happening, but there’s something not right here and there’s something broken also. And Charlotte, you can tell me, but I everyone I talked to in July at the Rick Rule Symposium, much different story than last year where now last year gold and silver were moving. But in Rick’s show, mining stock, heavy audience. I mean they still weren’t too chipper.

Whereas this year we had passed. Everyone was wondering, when’s the money going to come into the miners? Well, it had started. So you talked to a bunch of companies that we were trying to raise 5 million. We got oversubscribed for 12. Was a common sentiment, right? Yeah, yeah, agree. So you’re starting to, I mean we’re starting to see money, generalist money come in, which is a big stage. I have a friend who’s an executive for a minor. They is last week, maybe the week before, but within the last two weeks he was saying we’re starting to get meetings with generalist funds.

So I wouldn’t say that the momentum chasers have piled in yet. But I, but I think we’re kind of like at a turning point here where, I mean, if silver goes down to $36 and gold goes back down to 3200, I think, you know, then that calms down. But if it goes the other way and gold, let’s say before the end of the year that Gold Cross is 4,000. Let’s say we’re in December. We’ll do. Well, we should do another call if this happens for in December and gold’s over $4,000 and silver is over 50 bucks.

I would imagine if that scenario were to play out, you would have seen it seems like momentum is starting to get close like people are. And I’d say that’s only in the last even week or two where it felt that way. But all right, there’s our gold futures 3782 right now. So, you know, 200 bucks, not that gold’s up $75 today, so another 200, you know, not out of the realm of possibility. Also you would, with that said, you would think there would be, you think there’d be a correction in there somewhere. And I would always caution people to, especially when you see golden, when, when you see the gold and silver bugs getting really excited, being like, yeah, it’s off to the races, general.

That’s a good time to be prepared for a correction which we saw even it was last Monday or Tuesday. So that that’s going to happen. I think people have seen that enough times in the past Couple of months throughout this current rally where hopefully it’s getting easier to live through that. Charlotte, obviously you remember when 10 years ago, when gold and silver sold off, it wasn’t bouncing back this quick. So it’s an. It’s an exciting time, especially for people who’ve been following this for a long time. Some people since COVID some people, like I was introduced during 2009 and through that.

And then there’s. People have been seeing this for decades. And, yeah, I know there’s that tendency again to think, well, silver sitting 50 bucks. That must mean there’s pretty rough things happening in the world. I get where they’re coming from. I don’t know that it has to be that way. I mean, well, silver’s already at 50 bucks, and, you know, there are rough things happening in the world, but, you know, I don’t know. That has to be now. Could unpleasant things be happening in the world that could drive gold or silver a lot higher? Yes. Although hopefully, if you’ve been.

If you own gold and silver and you’ve been waiting all this time, hopefully you’re just happy and enjoying it and more than anything. And yeah, it’s up, down, maybe you can buy this or that. Maybe it doesn’t actually tangibly change anything in your life. Life yet. I think there’s something to it that most of the people that get into gold and silver have come through a path that required some independent thinking, standing up against the crowd, being patient. And so I just. It’s. Anyone who fits in that category, I congratulate you and just hope that you’re Every once in a while, take a step back and.

No, no. It’s been a part of our life journey for all of us who have been following that. And hopefully everyone’s out there doing safe and well and able to enjoy that. A lot of your love, your research and hard work. You’re getting to experience some of the success. And Charlotte, as you and I discussed shortly before, we’re like, what does it actually take to make a silver bug happy? I don’t know if we’re there yet, but hopefully this is. At least you’re getting warmed up. Yeah, I hope. I hope there can be some happiness felt by those who have been in silver for a long time.

And what is. What is the silver price? Where your average silver investor is over, at least more than 50% of them are happy. Like, what silver price do you think it takes to get there? I don’t even know. You know, I was thinking about, okay, what happens if and when silver gets to 50, are people going to be happy and waiting for the next move, or are they going to say, I’ve been in this too long, I need to get out now. So I, I really don’t know. I think, I think maybe by the 7, if we, if silver did 70 or 75, because, you know, like when it hits 50 is going to be like, well, I waited 30 years for this or not 30 years longer than that.

But you would think by, if, if you hit the 70s, then even the people needed more than 50. And it’ll. Another thing that’ll be fascinating should we get to price levels like that, which I don’t, I don’t have the first clue what’s going to happen tomorrow or next month. Although when I look at these dynamics and Fed and Trump wanting lower interest rates piled on, I think it’s an inevitability in some sense that you’re going to get behind 50. But when that happens, how much be interesting to see what people actually do. There’ll probably be people who are piling in for the first time.

We’ve also seen a lot of selling over these past couple of years after Silver got over 30, although I would have thought more of that would have been due to people are saying, man, I held this stuff for 10 years. I’m just so happy to finally be out ahead. Although most of the sellers, according to the dealers are people either need cash for expenses or someone wants to buy a house or inherited it. But you would think at a $50 silver price, that that’s one of the things we discussed in the report. At these different price points, does more silver come back online? And there’s a lot of moving pieces, but anyway, those are some of the ones to keep in mind.

Yeah, that question of is more supply going to come online is another one that I wanted to go over with you because it’s pretty interesting. You touched on already how most of silver production is a byproduct and then you’ve got also the primary silver miners. But in the report, you, you do go over, okay, well, even these primary silver miners, even if they want to, and they see prices going so high, it’s not like they can turn their output up right away. So what would you add there? I would add that just let’s say you’re starting, you’re, you have a claim that you start now, you’re looking at years to decades before that is bringing silver out of the ground.

So I think people who are watching your show are advanced beyond this But I think there’s probably a lot of people who might end up being new to silver at some point think like, oh well, the price will go up so we’ll just make more. It doesn’t quite work that way. So it’s like in, unless you have a drop in demand. That’s, that’s the part that after the, the whole report it’s like, even if it, you know, some people point out, well, solar growth has been slowing, which seems like still growing but at a slower pace.

Okay, well that’s fine. But even at today’s number, you had a 150, 200 million ounce deficit last year. So Metals Focus, who does the silver survey, he went more in depth and we have some notes in this, in the report. But basically they don’t, they foresee silver mine supply roughly flat dwindling thereafter because there’s not a lot in the pipeline until a couple. You even go back to the beginning of the year, you didn’t have all hands on deck. You had a lot of these junior miners and didn’t know whether they’re going to make it to next month.

So you know, you’re not going to get supply brought back on immediately. And if the demand stays the same and the supply is not increasing, then you’re running a deficit, let alone if solar is more than expected or if. And actually here’s the other part that was really interesting. Along with the retail silver supply, we saw the price go up while retail, which is really the largest component of the silver market, retail in the US of the investment silver market was selling, had a wave of selling over the past two years and in 2023 US was half of global investment silver demand.

I don’t think people often get that, that the idea of silver stacking is largely a US and Canadian thing. In 2024 US was a third because you had less buying. But still US is the dominant customer in the investment silver market. See on the gold side we had the central banks setting records for the amount of gold purchased. So you had a new buyer enter there, whereas in silver you had the largest participants selling. So for all those times silver investors have been ticked off when they see, you know, the retail shut, the bullion dealers get blown out, but the price comes down.

Well, we’ve had this rally over the last year and a half occur while there’s been a historic amount of selling, which on one hand maybe doesn’t sound good. Although if you’re a silver investor, I think that’s a positive because running a deficit while they’re selling. What happens if that selling turns to net buying? And that’s another thing. So either investors are going to have to continue selling or if they turn into buyers, then that’s another factor going against that would push the deficit higher. So you’d really need to slow down the industrial demand. Yet then you have the EPA writing about how we need to double or triple the electrical grid by 2028.

So you have some things that don’t add up here and that, that would be one to keep an eye on where if you really start to see buying pickup on the retail level, then that, that makes it even more difficult to see how these things fit together. Well. And what do you think would maybe prompt that retail level buying? I think that’s an interesting thing to look at. Well, I hope this isn’t it. I mean, we talked before about how whether good things or not are happening in the world, I hope we don’t get another wave of inflation like we just saw.

I think we probably will. So like right now, as I put in the report, if my mom didn’t know me, she would not be like sitting there this afternoon saying like, should I go to my local coin shop? I mean, she wouldn’t be at that point. And I think even now most people are not at that point in the silver community, gold community. We’ve been at that point for a long time. But your average guy out there, they might start thinking, they might be thinking about a little more, but not quite there. But if after what we just saw, you see that again with the price increases, maybe that I don’t think it’ll be just one thing, but that type of thing.

And then you see like, oh well, why they’re selling these gold discs in Walmart, what is that about? You know, you’re seeing, you’re see whether it’s Saudi Arabia or someone else, now you’re seeing governments do it, now you’re seeing this being listed as on the draft list for strategic minerals. So with that said, what traditionally gets people to buy gold and silver, to actually pick up the phone and purchase physical gold and silver is like when you see any sort of market chaos. So if you have, you know, the stock market start to go down because the labor report is, is weakening.

I mean, I already fired the last guy. Then they just revised. Last year’s number was at 900,000 jobs lower. Anytime you see market dysfunction, that changes that. It’s very schizophrenic in its own right. I mean, It’ll mean in 2023, you had that two month period where bullying dealers were setting records and it was back to crickets, which is how that goes. But I think those things, the gold price, what happens with the tariffs, which I don’t think has gone as smoothly as the Trump administration was planning on, but those, those are things that could change retail.

Yeah, I think any one of those things could potentially be a trigger there. And the other thing I wanted to bring up to you is, and especially for new investors who might be at the silver market, I think when you come in, there’s a lot of talk about manipulation when it comes to the price, and it can be pretty confusing to navigate through. And a lot of that is to do with price depression. Right. And so as we see the price rise, I’ve been wondering, okay, so is, is the manipulation issue becoming lessened or, or what are we looking at here? How would you explain it? Well, that’s a great question.

I was actually talking about that with Vince Lancy about an hour or so ago. But I remember when I did that interview with Bart Chilton and I described to him, my understanding was that basically, if silver is at $20.05, you can, you know, if you have a couple orders, nudge it and then you start blowing through stops and get the algorithms kicking in, then it drops. And a lot of the reports would indicate that the ones who were selling are the same ones who buy it back at a much lower price price. And yeah, we saw that happen for a long time.

It, it feels to me like there’s been a lot less of that, especially in the past couple of years. I don’t know if after the JP Morgan $920 million fine and then seeing two of their guys go off to jail change that. Although it, I do think there’s a tendency, you know, anytime the silver price is down to say that there’s someone out there saying like, oh, this was manipulated, this was the banks. Sometimes the price goes down too. So I try to distinguish between the two of those. So, I mean, does it still happen? Yeah, I mean, when you saw the, after, what was the reciprocal tariffs on April 2, I think it was, and silver was at $35 at the time that a, an announcement that was already largely priced in was announced and a couple days later was under 29.

Similarly, when the Fed made its decision last week, you had that. We used to see this a lot where they make the decision, both gold and silver go up sharply and then get hammered down, which I’m guessing there were some less than legal things. Going on there. So does that happen? Does that happen in a lot of markets? Is that going to continue to happen? I would imagine so. I don’t think it happens to, to the extent that it used to. And I know there’s a lot of debate or not a lot, but there’s a couple people who, you know, don’t like that other people talk about the manipulation of price.

I think really what’s happening is that they’re misstating what their core thesis is, which is, is the silver mark, is the silver price suppress depressed? Because when I hear the silver market manipulated, I mean heard Bart say it, you heard the CFTC say it, you’ve heard people describe what happens if you’re driving, if you’re triggering stops to intentionally drive the price lower so that you can buy that back. I’m not sure what else someone would describe that as other than manipulation. Now where I think they’re trying to really distinguish is is the price suppressed or is the manipulation a short term thing? And when I was talking with Vince about it, he had, he had a great way because, because I’ve really wrestled with that.

You know, I used to be very talk a lot about the manipulation and I think we’ve documented that it does occur. But I spent a lot of time the last three years thinking, okay, well has that left the price surprised pressed. On one hand you can say the fact that the price is where it is and we’re all conditions in place for at some point, conceivably a shortage would indicate that the price is not in the right place, shall we say. But what Vince said is that, well, yeah, it can be short term if you spoof, paddle the wagon, whatever you want to call it, if you drive the price down like that, that could be short term, but if you do it continuously then is that suppression? What would the price be if that had never happened? That’s maybe that’s the real question and that’s a hard one to answer.

I guess the counter to those who would say no, there hasn’t been any suppressive effect. Got it. And as I know you well remember Charlotte back in 2000-2015-2016-2017, you know, you’re in the middle of QE and 0% rates, yet you didn’t hear people lining up to buy you. You heard stories about wow, man, that Bob over there, he was long timer, he just finally threw in the towel, he couldn’t take anymore. So you know, when you have those spikes down, the price does influence what people do. So I mean there’s a lot of variables there. But is, is the price manipulated? I think that part’s clear.

Is it suppressed? Well, I’ll tell you what. The current price has left us on track for dislocation to the point where TDs writing conceivably within months. So whatever word you want to use to call that, I mean, look, look at the cocoa chart sometimes see what happened when they finally hit a supply issue. And is that a completely unreasonable account for what could happen to silver? I guess we’ll find out. But if somebody can’t get their metal at some point, which again, there is time on the clock, things change in ways we don’t expect yet. Kind of looks like we’re trying to like, is there some way the Washington generals can beat those Globetrotters tonight? Maybe if they just get a bounce.

I mean, it. That’s where we are right now. Well, really interesting, I think, to hear your, your thought process and the conversations you’re having. I think that gives us a lot to think about as well. And so we’ve taken a look at the price, a little bit of supply and demand. I would really encourage everyone to take a look through your report. I’ll link to it in the video description because there’s so much more in there than we could ever cover. But I don’t want to keep you too long today. But before I let you go, I’ll ask you, you know what, what key takeaway would you like to leave silver investors with right now? Well, I guess the biggest thing for right now is just take a, take five minutes or go for a walk for a half hour and just think about from the time you got invested into silver to now, there’s 99.9 chance you’re up on it.

And just, I don’t know, I guess people like certain stocks or whatever, but I find silver usually for many of us, becomes more than just an asset. There’s a lot of emotion and meaning behind it. And if you can’t take a little break to appreciate all the things that you’ve learned along the way, the fact that you’re now can see you’re up on your trade, I think it’s really important just to think, wow, this is, this has been cool, how this has happened, then if you need to go back to worrying about what’s going to happen next, I mean, I would just say it like this.

You know, it’s going to go up, it’s going to go down. What’s the. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what the price of silver is going to be next month, Charlotte? See, they’re going to be higher, lower, or the same. I don’t have the first clue there’s going to be there. I would certainly say to expect the type of volatility you’ve seen this year. Expect that. Expect more of it. There are going to be days where you’re like, whoa, that price just got clobbered there. And there’s going to be days like today where you’re like, wow, that price sure is up a lot.

And learning to balance those until you get to the point. Okay, yeah, well, since it sold off today, you know, it was moving a lot just being able to factor those things. Because at the end of the day, with the current profile of all the financial and monetary markets, rather than any day to day, week to week, ten years from now, do you think the prices of gold and silver are going to be higher or lower? So anytime you’re confused or anxious or whatever, the emotion may come up, you know, and. And hopefully the report is something.

It’s a little bit on the longer side. Charlotte, I know you wrote back, you’re like, yeah, I’ll check this out tonight. I’ll let you know. Like, I don’t think so. Saw the page count on that yet. But that’s what the report was for, to give something that maps this out. Remember to put a table of contents so there’s sections. You can come back and review things later. But I mean, I think there’s a very specific set of reasons, many of which we’ve discussed over the last 40 minutes or so, of why when you look at this situation over a longer term, I think the odds are clearly on one side.

And, you know, if there’s a day that comes up where the price does this or that, you’re not sure what to think. I mean, unless, you know, and some people are trading actively. So obviously you’re going to be factoring in different things. But if you bought physical silver because of what you see out there, and some of which we’re seeing happening now, some of which you might think is on the way, then just take that step back. And 10 years from now, I don’t know, maybe some people do think gold and silver would be lower. So then that gives you one approach versus you’re sitting there thinking, geez, the bricks are just getting started, you know, and we still are doing all these Trump plans.

They’re. They’re coming up with some plans that could maybe get us to the end of the Trump term without a debt default. But it’s not really a long term sustainable solution. It’s just like, well we, we sell that last mattress, we can turn it into three more pennies type. So I mean that’s at least helps me when trying to think of what’s appropriate to say, what’s appropriate to do and what would I advise or what do I, you know, things do I highlight when I’m making a presentation where like. Well yeah, at the end of the day, you know, you think about 10 years from now and that I find is a good mental exercise to clear things up.

So that and smile, be happy. You know, it’s, it’s nice, it’s I think a nice time for gold and silver investors and well earned for what is largely a really good group of people. Well, I think that’s a really nice place to wrap up. So. Actually, sorry to interrupt. There’s one more part to that answer. Watch Charlotte’s show. There you go. Good shape, you know, everything you need to know. Yeah, yeah, definitely you’ll be set and I will add for sure set aside more than a night to read the report. I did not check the page count at first.

You do need more time to absorb it. You probably need a couple of read throughs for the report so hopefully people will take a look. I’ll make sure to have it in the video description linked. So thank you so much for coming on today. I think a great day to have you here and we’ll make sure to have you back back hopefully before the end of the year. Yeah, well I guess we’re over 50 and 4,000. We gotta. Or that’s when I’ll be bringing you on and we. I’ll be interviewing you to find out what happens next after that because I’ll be tapped out by then.

But yeah, thank you so much for having me. It’s always fun to catch up and yeah it should be, it should be a really exciting time. Just if you’re a student of financial markets and history, I think it’s a really exciting time to be seeing what’s happening maybe some days terrifying yet you know, it’s, it’s nice time to be following gold and silver a hundred percent. Well, I’ll let you go for now. And once Again, I’m Charlotte McLeod with InvestingNews.com and this is Chris Marcus with Arcadia Economics. Thank you for watching. If you like this video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel.

We’d also love to hear your thoughts. So leave us A comment below. Well, thank you to the always fantastic Charlotte MacLeod who I did get the chance to finally meet in person last year at the Rick Rule Symposium and just really a kind person, much like you see on tv. So thanks to Charlotte for having me on her show. And I might add a little bit of silver and gold history being made because Charlotte has agreed to do her first interview where she will be answering questions on the Arcade Economics channel in just about a week and a half.

So hit that subscribe button, leave a comment, let me know what you think. And we will be having her come on soon. And as we finish up here, I’m recording this. So it’s 12:51pm Eastern on Friday the 26th and that that interview you just heard was from Monday of this week. And now here we are, futures 46, 48 up a dollar 37. So yesterday took out 45. Today took out 46. And I don’t know if I should say this, not, not a price prediction, although it’s interesting when you think about it. It’s not inconceivable that we could have a new all time record Silver high sometime next week.

It could also be back down to 44 or 43 bucks. I think we’re in that phase where obviously you’re seeing that substantial moves are possible. Keep in mind here we are back on September 18th. So last year Thursday the low was 41.98. So just keep in mind it could move up. A lot could move down too. But fortunately I will be looking forward to digging back into you with all of this again next week on the sub stack as well as the channel. Although I’ll be spending the rest of this afternoon been working on a second edition of the Big Silver short with an updated bonus chapter from Vince Lancy and a bunch of other improvements.

A lot of things cleaned up. I’ve been wanting to have that ready. This started a year ago. I was in the pool one day thinking, I’m like, gee, you know, there’s a couple things to clean up, you know, edit and maybe give an update of what’s happened since then and wanted to have that in case we did have a move to $50 and been racing against the price. But I’m gonna go finish that up. Although one of the best ways to stay posted when that is ready is of course over on our sub stack@goldandsilverdaily.substack.com where we’ve been writing about this plenty in addition to the videos we do here on the channel and I can’t even imagine what we’ll have to say by the end of the day in today’s column.

But there’s also a free version of that, which you get a free column per week in addition to the daily premium service. But also on there is our Silver Report, which came out a couple of weeks ago. And I think another thing that fortunately was well timed with where the price is now. And really an overview of where we are now, what’s led us here. And that is on the sub stack as well as when you think about the move that we’ve just seen, we’re wondering how that compares to what we saw historically, especially in 2011.

We did cover that one yesterday, actually going to be putting a version of that on Zero Hedge. So I’m going to wrap up for today and just really hope that you’ve enjoyed, especially if you’re been following Gold and Silver for a long time that you hopefully really enjoyed and just had fun these last couple of weeks. And you know, this is kind of what we saw in 2011 for those who were not following it back then, but there were points where it was like this, where it’s just day after day up a dollar or more and makes it exciting to think about what we will see next week.

But we’ll get there soon enough. Go out, enjoy a wonderful weekend and I will look forward to seeing you again soon.
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