Ed Steer argues that the COMEX silver and gold markets are at the most wildly bullish setup he has seen in 25 years, because the eight largest traders have covered roughly half their short positions and the bottom is now structurally “in” since long holders refuse to sell more contracts. He claims the big eight remain short about 225 million ounces of silver and 1.5 million ounces of gold, that the January 2026 run to $120 silver was deliberately killed down to $70 by the bullion banks via margin pressure rather than weak demand, and that the cycle is poised to repeat. He contends China and Shanghai are draining London and New York of physical metal (165 million ounces of silver shipped out of COMEX this year, 38 million ounces added to Shanghai in six weeks) and predicts a three-digit silver price before year-end barring a stock market crash.
Silver short position setup: The eight large traders covered around 40,000 contracts but remain on the hook for roughly 45,000, and short positions hit all-time record lows on January 29th. Steer says the bottom is in because long holders won’t sell, leaving commercial traders unable to cover more even via spoofing.
The January 2026 wash-rinse-spin cycle: Silver ran to $120 and gold to roughly $5,700 by late January before the big four shorts knocked silver down to $70 in three or four days. Steer insists this was an engineered price kill driven by margin calls, not lack of investor demand.
China draining Western exchanges: This year 165 million ounces of silver and 8.25 million ounces of gold left COMEX, with 38 million ounces added to Shanghai inventories in six weeks (13 days of world production). Steer warns London nearly declared force majeure last October and there is a finite limit before supplies run dry.
New Singapore physical silver contract: ABS XX is launching a 1,000-troy-ounce, 4N (99.992%) fine silver contract for physical delivery into Singapore vaults, distinct from COMEX. Steer says it mirrors the Shanghai exchange, could force refiners worldwide to convert from 3N to 4N fine, and worsens supply-demand fundamentals.
Contrarian buying thesis: Steer is 100% invested in precious metals and frames now as the “blood in the streets” entry point, citing 25 years of currency debasement (gold $250 to current levels, silver from $5). He warns a true stock market crash could cause a temporary dip but maintains the COMEX setup is as low as it gets.
David Morgan argues silver has broken out of a falling wedge and is in the final third phase of a major precious metals bull market, now leading gold as the “lead dog” with a target of 150 to 200 minimum and not ruling out Michael Oliver’s $500 call. He emphasizes his “Morgan rule” requiring three consecutive closes above the $90 top-of-range on above-average volume to confirm an 80% probability breakout, and predicts silver will stall around $100 before resuming higher as people who missed earlier opportunities sell. He stresses fundamentals over paper price, arguing silver historically beats gold and everything else as an inflation hedge per Professor Jastram’s research, while warning that the bond market will force higher interest rates regardless of the Fed, with the 10-year yield defending the 4.5% level.
The Morgan rule and silver breakout: Morgan requires three consecutive daily closes above the ~$90 resistance on above-average volume to confirm a breakout at 80% probability, with a mental stop around $90.50. Silver moved from roughly $70 to $90 in seven or eight trading sessions and sat at $89 at recording.
Silver leading gold in the final phase: Gold rose about 65% in 2025 while silver and platinum gained 140%, confirming silver as the lead dog typical of a bull market’s end phase. Morgan watches the silver-to-gold ratio (silver at 1.8% of gold’s price) and notes a gold-silver ratio of 33 as the best in 25 years, potentially heading to 16.
Copper and mining equity divergence: Copper hit an all-time high near $6.66 a pound while copper miners (COPX) remain below their all-time highs, and silver/gold miners are still consolidating. Morgan frames lagging equities as a near-certainty trade since they will follow the metals up “like knowing your horse will finish top three.”
Inflation and the PPI: Wholesale inflation rose 6% year-over-year in April, the biggest increase since 2022, which Morgan ties to Jastram’s conclusion that nothing protects against inflation better than silver. He cites the Strait of Hormuz war driving oil to $101 and reigniting inflation across diesel, jet fuel, fertilizer, and shipping.
Bond market and Fed limits: The 10-year yield hit 4.5% and retraced, a level Morgan believes authorities defend. He argues the Fed is less powerful than believed and that the market will demand higher rates regardless of the federal funds rate, citing Jim Grant’s Interest Rate Observer.
Edward Dowd argues the US faces a moderate-to-severe economic slowdown made worse by an Iran oil price shock, with the S&P 500 only 5.5% above its January/February highs on extremely narrow AI participation while the equal-weighted index is down and the real economy deteriorates. He predicts a 20-30% market pullback within three to six months followed by a failing counter-trend rally as the Fed cuts, contends the AI bubble will burst like the dot-com era due to electricity, water, and social-acceptability bottlenecks plus circular token-buying with no real cash earnings, and calls white-collar job displacement claims “hype.” He favors cash and long-duration Treasuries (calling TLT his best-performing asset class for the year), expects the long bond to bottom in price within a month or two, and holds inflation could hit 5% by May or 11% by August if oil breaks above $120-130 toward $200-250.
Narrow AI-driven market: The S&P 500 is 45% AI and AI-adjacent, the MAG7 is 36%, and semiconductors are 17-18% of the S&P and 30% of the NASDAQ. The SMH/SOX indices rose 64% in five weeks since the April bottom, which Dowd compares to the March 2000 top and “double ordering” during the dot-com boom.
Recession and credit contraction: Dowd cites rising credit card and auto loan delinquencies, negative manufacturing payrolls, and the first net redemptions in private credit in a long time, the marginal credit creator of recent years. He says Bitcoin, which peaked in October, will lead any equity correction.
Housing rollover: Housing is 20-25% of the consumer economy and prices began declining in February and March, starting in southern border states. Dowd attributes this partly to self-deportations and the end of FHA 100% loans that the Biden administration allegedly extended to illegal immigrants given Social Security numbers.
Oil shock and inflation scenarios: At $125 oil, Dowd’s model reaches 4-5% inflation by May (April came in at 3.8% versus his 4.1% prediction); a technical breakout above $120-130 holding as support points to a cup-and-handle target of $200-250 oil and 11% inflation by August. He projects core inflation falling to 1.77% by Q1 2027.
AI bubble skepticism: Dowd argues data center capex will be scaled back due to insufficient power, water, and completed facilities, with tech free cash flow going the wrong way amid debt-funded buildouts. He criticizes the Anthropic CEO’s “white collar jobs gone in 18 months” messaging as both untrue and a poor sales pitch that got commencement speakers booed.
Jesse Felder argues investors remain late to a secular rotation favoring real assets over financial assets, driven by persistent inflation, deglobalization, and demographics, and identifies a classic blow-off top in narrow AI/semiconductor stocks fueled by record $1.3 trillion margin debt and an unprecedented gamma squeeze. He compares the present to the 1970s rather than 2008, expecting cyclical inflation waves and a new commodity super cycle led by gold (which he sees as a leading indicator pointing to a 10-year yield of 5% heading to 6%), and warns that $4 trillion in projected IPOs including SpaceX at ~$2 trillion and OpenAI and Anthropic at ~$1 trillion each could trigger a top via equity oversupply. He believes the US is in the early stages of a major dollar bear market that will require yield curve control after a “Liz Truss moment,” and names energy as today’s greatest investment opportunity, with XOP having broken above the biggest head-and-shoulders bottom of his career.
Historic breadth divergence: With the S&P 500 near 7,500, more stocks are making new 52-week lows at an all-time high than ever seen, and days with 300+ of 500 names declining while the index rises occurred only three times in history, including March 22, 2000. Felder cites $1.3 trillion margin debt (up 200% over three years) and a record gamma squeeze in semiconductors like SanDisk, Micron, and Intel.
1970s-style commodity super cycle: Felder favors a rotation like 2000 rather than a 2008 deflationary collapse, noting energy and precious metals were the two best-performing sectors over five years yet energy is only 3% of the S&P versus AI at over 50%. He argues oil at $100 is extremely cheap relative to gold and could reach $150-200.
The $4 trillion IPO wave: SpaceX (~$2 trillion), OpenAI, and Anthropic (~$1 trillion each) are racing to go public as private fundraising strains, with SoftBank scaling its OpenAI margin-debt funding from $10 billion to $6 billion. Felder cites Paul Kedrosky’s stat that these three IPOs alone could exceed, inflation-adjusted, all prior IPOs in NYSE history combined.
Dollar bear market and fiscal dominance: Felder sees the early stages of a major dollar bear market based on overvaluation (Big Mac index, purchasing power parity), drawing a parallel to Nixon ending dollar-gold convertibility in the 1970s. He argues debt-to-GDP over 100% (versus ~30% then) rules out a Volcker-style fix, forcing yield curve control plus fiscal austerity like raising record-low corporate tax rates.
Energy as top opportunity: Felder calls XOP’s breakout above a five-to-seven-year head-and-shoulders neckline the biggest such pattern of his career, projecting another 100% move toward 2008/2011 highs. He attributes this to a decade of near-nil exploration capex while capital floods into tech, setting up constricted supply against growing demand.
Dominic Frisby argues that gold’s enduring value derives precisely from its uselessness, inertness, and constancy, making it a superior store of wealth and unit of account at a time when fiat money supply is growing roughly 7% a year. He traces gold’s role as humanity’s first metal (used 50,000 years ago versus copper tools at 6,000 years) and the ultimate motivator behind Roman conquest, the Spanish conquistadors, and the gold rushes that built California, Australia, South Africa, and indirectly Hollywood and even the Trump family fortune. He contends China is dramatically understating its central bank gold holdings, estimating roughly 35,000 tons have flowed into China this century and that the People’s Bank could hold 8,000-9,000 tons or more (versus America’s stated 8,100), gold the country could weaponize as a “tool of war” against an unaudited Fort Knox.
Gold’s uselessness as its strength: Only about 6% of annual demand is industrial and roughly half is jewelry, yet gold’s permanence and inertness make it an ideal store of wealth, with Peter Bernstein quoted that nothing is as useful and useless at once. Frisby argues a home’s price rose from $10,000 to $500,000 over a century while staying stable in gold terms.
Gold as humanity’s first metal and instinct: Gold fragments appear in Paleolithic caves in Spain from 50,000 years ago, far predating copper tools at 6,000 years, used then as now for adornment and displaying wealth. Frisby calls the attraction the oldest commercial instinct of the human race.
Gold and the fall of Rome: Augustus and Agrippa seized northern Spanish mines, funding 200 years of deficits and driving mining and aqueduct engineering, until coinage debasement accelerated under Diocletian roughly 10-15 years after the mines depleted. Frisby presents mine depletion as an overlooked cause of Rome’s decline.
China’s understated gold holdings: China has been the world’s largest gold producer since 2007 and importer since 2000, exporting none, with roughly 35,000 tons estimated to have entered this century. Frisby estimates the central bank may hold 8,000-9,000 tons or possibly 50,000, exceeding America’s stated 8,100, and over 55% of Chinese mining is state-owned.
Fort Knox audit doubts: The US gold has not been properly audited since the 1970s, and Frisby questions Treasury Secretary Bessent’s claim to have “seen it,” noting a ton of gold is roughly suitcase-sized so 4,000-5,000 tons would be thousands of suitcases. He ties this to Trump and Musk’s abandoned audit pledge and unexplained gold imports into the US.
Andy Schectman argues that a deliberate, multi-year financial architecture is being built across Asia and the BRICS bloc to migrate commodity price discovery away from the West, citing Singapore’s AEX physically deliverable silver futures contract (launching May 22, 1,000-ounce, 4N fine bars) and Hong Kong’s new LBMA-modeled gold clearing system launching as early as July with vault capacity expanding toward 2,000 tons. He contends Western exchanges (COMEX, LBMA, LME) have destroyed their own credibility through glitches, 300% margin hikes, the LME nickel fiasco, and rehypothecation where London holds roughly 2 billion ounces of contracts against a 140-million-ounce stockpile. He predicts that once the paper price diverges decisively from the physical cash-and-carry price, confidence cracks and the West loses pricing relevance, with true price discovery finally arriving for two metals he says have never been allowed to find it.
Singapore physical silver contract: The AEX exchange launches a 1,000-ounce, 4N fine, immediately deliverable silver contract into Singapore vaults on May 22, built for industrial users rather than the highly financialized 5,000-ounce COMEX contract. Schectman frames it as an Asian pricing hub tied to real industrial demand and an artery of a larger BRICS system.
Hong Kong gold clearing and yuan convertibility: Hong Kong is launching an LBMA-modeled clearing system as early as July, courting China-friendly central banks and expanding vaults toward 2,000 tons. Schectman ties this to yuan-settled gold trades giving the renminbi hard-asset backing, plugging into mBridge and the unit currency (reportedly 40% gold-backed).
BRICS financial rails: Schectman describes mBridge for payments, the Shanghai exchange for price-setting, and Hong Kong for clearing, noting 10 BRICS countries represent 46% of world population and nearly 40% of GDP. He cites the UAE leaving OPEC, signing a 25-point yuan trade deal with China, and China’s holdings dropping to roughly $690 million in Treasuries from $1.3 trillion.
Western credibility collapse and gold outflows: He points to Goldman Sachs adjusting unrecorded January gold outflows from 12 to 66 tons and February from 2 to 41 tons, plus nonmonetary gold being America’s number one export in five of the last six months. Schectman attributes much of this to repatriation by France and others rather than purely China demand.
Tokenization of metals: Schectman says the ABX exchange and the World Gold Council white paper point toward tokenized, interoperable gold acting like a Visa card across vaults, enabling collateralization and cross-border movement. He concedes this is not what gold bugs want to hear but insists “you roll with the changes or get rolled,” citing Larry Fink and the SEC.
Murphy and Newman explain Ludwig von Mises’s economic calculation argument against socialism, contending that abolishing private ownership of the means of production eliminates exchange, market prices, and therefore any rational way to calculate costs against anticipated revenues, making rational resource allocation impossible rather than merely difficult. They argue that even AI supercomputers cannot solve this because the missing element is not technological data or consumer surveys but the actual moment-of-choice preferences and opportunity costs that only real exchange reveals, and that a sufficiently accurate simulation would simply recreate capitalism. They distinguish Mises’s calculation problem from Hayek’s knowledge problem, warn that framing socialism as merely “impractical” leaves a door open for the AI-planning argument, and reject the Marxist charge that Mises studied a fantasy laissez-faire economy by noting Mises himself argued even interventionists must understand how a pure market would function.
The calculation problem: Without private ownership there is no exchange, hence no market prices for factors of production, hence no way to calculate costs or compare them to revenues. Newman notes socialism typically fails most visibly at food production, producing bread and soup lines and hunger.
The “new socialist man” rebuttal: Socialists answer the incentive critique by claiming human nature will change so people work for the community, blaming capitalism for conditioning selfishness. Murphy and Newman illustrate this with Star Trek’s post-scarcity vision while noting Mises granted this premise and showed calculation still fails.
AI cannot solve socialist calculation: Feeding technological relationships and consumer surveys into a supercomputer misses real preferences revealed only at the moment of choice and provides no opportunity-cost information. Murphy adds that a market economy frees those same supercomputers to cure cancer or build a Mars base rather than just recreating capitalism.
Mises versus Hayek: Murphy frames three distinct problems (incentive, corruption, and knowledge) and argues Hayek’s knowledge problem is technically separate from Mises’s calculation problem. He notes the danger that framing socialism as “impractical” lets socialists claim AI now overcomes dispersed knowledge, whereas Mises argued it is impossible, a contradiction in terms.
Rebutting the Marxist “fantasy” charge: Responding to a tweet calling Mises a priest who believed in unregulated-market dogma, Newman argues Mises’s 1920 argument is step-by-step logic, not religious appeal. Murphy adds Mises’s point that even socialists and interventionists must understand a pure laissez-faire baseline to argue their own proposals are better.
Alex Krainer argues the Trump administration is preparing to restart its war against Iran amid the largest oil market disruption in history, with WTI around $107-108 and a strong probability of new all-time highs past $140 a barrel, while interpreting Trump’s announced strike cancellation as an engineered off-ramp that outsources negotiations to Gulf monarchies. He advances his own thesis that Western wars are driven by a banking system “famished” for fresh collateral, that the US-UK reaction to the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal triggered the biggest bond bear market in 240 years, and predicts EU, UK, and Japanese bonds may go to near-zero with hyperinflation comparable to Weimar. He contends Iran, with Chinese and Russian support, is determined to dismantle the petrodollar by conditioning any Strait of Hormuz reopening on non-dollar payment, and warns the empire will never stop until completely defeated.
Oil prices and the engineered off-ramp: WTI sits around $107-108 after the largest oil disruption in history (over 1 billion barrels in two months, roughly 50 days of US consumption); Krainer expects prices past $140 toward a British MoD 2012 projection of $500 by 2040. He reads Trump’s cancelled strike as a face-saving exit outsourced to Gulf states.
Iran’s nuclear framing as pretext: Krainer notes the IAEA, US intelligence since 2007, and Tulsi Gabbard in March 2025 all assessed Iran was not pursuing a bomb, with a fatwa against it, after Trump killed 40-50 top Iranian officials. He frames the “they can’t have a bomb” line as a victory narrative for the off-ramp.
Collateral-driven imperialism: Krainer’s central thesis is that Western banks weaponize conquest to convert resource wealth into loan collateral via BlackRock equity stakes and debt loaded onto low-debt foreign firms. He argues interrupted Middle East cash flows now leave Western banks “stark for collateral,” backstopped by perpetual under-the-table central bank liquidity.
Bond market collapse: Krainer dates the biggest bond bear market in 240 years to the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal and the loss of Ukrainian Donbas collateral (over 80% of Ukraine’s GDP), with the US 30-year yield hitting its highest since 2007. He predicts European, British, and Japanese bonds trend toward zero amid Weimar-style hyperinflation.
Petrodollar dismantling via Hormuz: Iran reportedly conditioned Hormuz passage on payment in Chinese yuan, possibly rubles or rupees, and allegedly offered Europeans euro-denominated passage to drive a wedge against US dollar dependence. Krainer warns destroying regional energy infrastructure could remove up to 32% of global crude, which Iran will likely avoid to spare ally China.
Peter St Onge argues Congress is useless because voter preferences have zero influence on whether something becomes law, citing a Princeton-Northwestern study of 1,700 policy issues over 20 years showing an 80%-supported policy stands no better chance than a 30%-supported one. He contends the US is therefore an oligarchy where policy is set by donors, unions, NGOs, and the richest voters, and that the filibuster is not the real obstacle since cross-party-popular measures with 3:1 to 9:1 support still fail. Drawing on Mancur Olson’s “concentrated benefits, diffuse costs” framework, he proposes fixing it by moving issues from federal to state or local level where voter benefits are 50 to 500 times more concentrated, or eliminating the government “honeypot” entirely so special interests have nothing to bid on.
Voters have zero influence: A widely cited paper by left-wing political scientists at Princeton and Northwestern analyzed 1,700 policy issues over 20 years and found voter popularity has no effect on whether something becomes law. St Onge concludes the US is an oligarchy, not a democracy.
Overwhelming ignored majorities: Cross-party voters want secure borders, near-zero foreign aid, less spending (3:1), less debt (4:1), voter ID (5:1 including most Democrats), and smaller deficits (9:1), yet none of it passes. He blames special interests outbidding voters in both parties.
The filibuster is a scapegoat: St Onge argues the 60-vote Senate threshold cannot explain the failure of measures with 3:1, 5:1, and 92:1 support that should “sail through.” The real cause is the donor and special-interest capture of both parties.
Olson’s concentrated-benefits problem: Citing Mancur Olson from 60 years ago, he explains a sugar cartel costing each voter three dollars a year is trivial to the voter but vital to the cartel, and this dynamic multiplied across industries becomes a legislative straitjacket.
Federalism and ending the honeypot: St Onge’s fixes are devolving issues to state and local level where voter benefits are 50 to 500 times more concentrated, letting normies beat special interests on local matters, or removing government from the arena entirely so Wall Street funds its own bailouts.
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