Clive Thompson argues gold and silver are in bear-market territory — gold just over $4,000, silver down ~50% from its $125 peak to ~$62-63 — driven by expected rate hikes from war-fueled oil inflation and money rotating into AI/data-center stocks ahead of the SpaceX IPO, but insists every bullish fundamental remains intact and tells stackers to dollar-cost-average rather than “fight the tape.” He shows silver miners are underpriced, citing a study of 16 top miners where buying 7 days before earnings and selling 7 days after returned an average 11.49%, and that a 60% stocks / 30% gold / 10% bonds portfolio historically beats the traditional 60/40 on return, Sharpe ratio, and drawdown. He predicts the US will eventually revalue Treasury gold to a much higher price (he floats $15,000/oz) using a 1934-style “gold notes” mechanism to fund the deficit and suppress yields, with the darker endgame being a CBDC-driven currency reset.
Bear market and “never fight the tape”: Both metals are down 20%+ from peaks (silver ~50% from $125), blamed on near-certain rate hikes in Europe, the UK, and likely the US in December; Thompson says he’d rather buy gold at $4,400 than $4,000 because the trend would be confirmed, and tells stackers to keep buying little by little.
SpaceX IPO draining liquidity: Roughly $250 billion in applications for the $75 billion issue is pulling cash from an already overbought AI/mega-cap market; once shares settle, he expects money to flow back, ideally toward metals.
Silver miners underpriced: His study of 16 top miners (PE below 26) found an average 11.49% gain buying 7 days before and selling 7 days after earnings, with 13 of 16 rising; he expects the June-quarter results to show large year-over-year profit jumps analysts have been too cautious to price in.
Gold beats bonds in a portfolio: Using his free simulator at clivethompson.com, he found ~30% gold improves return, Sharpe ratio, and drawdown versus 60/40, with a 60/30/10 stocks/gold/bonds mix winning historically and the post-2021 optimum being nearly 100% gold.
Gold revaluation and CBDC reset: He argues the US should revalue Treasury gold to ~$15,000/oz — selling it to the Fed for cash, then buying it back with perpetual, non-interest, non-debt “gold notes” as in 1934 — to fund the deficit and push yields down; the darker path is a CBDC reset like 1933, when $20 gold suddenly wasn’t.
Marc Faber says we’re entering a period defined by “how to lose the least money” — if everyone loses 80% and you lose 20%, you become relatively rich — because we’re in a gigantic asset bubble with several asset classes already down hard (commercial property up to -80%, condos -15-30%, many cryptos -50-80%, auction art selling 200% over estimate). He insists real cost-of-living inflation is running 7-12% a year (ShadowStats ~10%) while governments lie through a doctored CPI to cut Social Security COLAs and debt-interest costs, that oil is artificially bottlenecked near $91 (should be ~$70) by the US/Israel/Iran conflict, and that China will never let the US control the Strait of Hormuz. He keeps physical gold as a 40-year believer but trimmed mining stocks for the correction, warns Kevin Warsh’s Fed will be forced to print to protect billionaire-class asset holders, and predicts a massive decline once the upward squeeze — with SpaceX and other IPOs marking the top — ends.
“Lose the least” in a bubble: Faber says everything has gone ballistic and investors should position to lose the least; commercial property is down up to 80%, condos 15-30%, and cryptos 50-80%, while the index rally is driven by very few stocks (the value-line geometric index is below its 2021 level).
Real inflation 7-12% vs. doctored CPI: He puts household cost-of-living increases at 7-12% (citing ShadowStats ~10% and a $10,000 NBA finals seat), says 70% of US households are falling behind, and notes PPI at 6% will feed through while governments suppress CPI to cut COLAs and interest costs.
Oil bottleneck and Hormuz: There’s plenty of oil and it should be ~$70, not ~$91; the shortage is an orchestrated bottleneck from the US/Israel/Iran war, and China — backed by surrounding states and Russia — will never let the US “open and close the tap” on the Strait.
Physical gold over miners: A 40-year believer, Faber took profits on some mining stocks but won’t sell physical because he expects a world disaster where paper is inferior; the only real risk is expropriation by “incompetent and vicious governments,” which he avoids by storing outside the banking system.
Warsh’s Fed and a massive decline: He rates Kevin Warsh highly as an economist but says Warsh serves a money-printing boss and billionaire in-laws who won’t tolerate falling markets, so no Volcker-style 250bp hike; in a bubble, printing must accelerate or liquidity tightens and markets tumble, with the SpaceX IPO signaling a major top.
Today’s guest has been warning for a good while now that the current bull market is stocks is in its final innings. In fact, he think the AI boom may be — right now — in the process of metastacizing into the AI bust. It’s not all gloom for investors, though. He’s quite bullish on commodities — and the stocks of the companies that produce them — which he sees as set to experience a multi-year boom.
Jim Rickards frames gold’s ~20% drop from its January 29th high of $5,500 as both a normal shakeout and structural, invoking Jim Rogers’ rule that “no commodity goes to the moon without a 50% drawdown along the way” and fractal scale-invariance math that points to a likely bottom near $4,000 before a resumption toward $6,000-$10,000. He argues the real driver is central banks selling gold to buy oil — inelastic demand at $100/barrel in a strong-dollar “petrodollar 2.0” world — so gold turns around when oil does, either via the Strait of Hormuz reopening or a recession-driven demand destruction. He says rate cuts are off the table and wouldn’t be surprised by a hike he calls a mistake, citing Jay Powell’s 8-4 “trap” for incoming chair Kevin Walsh, and he’s bullish on SpaceX as potentially the world’s biggest data-center company, with Musk’s genius being a business model where the government is the biggest customer.
Gold’s 50% drawdown rule: Gold is down ~20% from its January 29th $5,500 high, which Rickards calls normal per Jim Rogers’ maxim; using fractal scale-invariance off a ~$2,000 base he pegs a likely bottom near $4,000 before a run toward $6,000-$10,000, comparing it to gold’s 2011-2015 50% drop from $1,900 to $1,050.
Central banks selling gold to buy oil: The biggest upward driver was central-bank buying (China ~3,000 tons, Russia ~2,500, both up 4-5x since 2009), but some are now net sellers — Turkey heavily — to fund inelastic oil demand at $100/barrel in a strong-dollar petrodollar world.
What turns gold around: Gold recovers when oil falls, via either the Strait reopening (good scenario) or a recession causing demand destruction (bad scenario); citing Herb Simon’s “if something can’t continue, it won’t,” he expects the closure to break in months, not years.
Fed likely to hike, not cut: With CPI over 4% (highest in three years), cuts are off the table; Rickards expects a possible hike he calls a big mistake, pointing to Powell’s 8-4 vote trap and Powell staying on the board (first since Mariner Eccles in 1944), pressuring Walsh toward a hawkish first meeting.
SpaceX bull case: He sees SpaceX as potentially the world’s biggest data-center company — a million solar-powered, free-cooled centers in space — plus moon colonization and ownership of Tesla, xAI, and Starlink; Musk’s real genius is a model where the government (e.g., the $7,000 Tesla credit) writes the checks.
The SpaceX IPO is a sign the stock market is reaching another historic top.
Watch the full video for the full history.
Andre Jikh argues the US is past the point of no return ($7 trillion spending against ~$5 trillion revenue) and frames everything as a race to control money: the dollar surviving by rebuilding the payment system on stablecoin “digital rails” via the Clarity and Genius Acts, versus the BRICS world routing around it by moving reserves into physical gold. He explains paper gold was roughly a 9:1 shell game ($635 billion of London unallocated plus COMEX claims over only ~$70 billion of real backing) until China’s relentless buying — 939 tons in 2025 and ~14,000 tons since 2015 — forced the BIS’s 2021 Basel III rule change, after which central banks moved gold above US Treasuries as their #1 reserve asset and COMEX open interest collapsed to a 13-year low. Citing Luke Groman’s four paths (force, WWIII/Thucydides trap, the West losing economically, or repricing gold to rebalance trade), he says letting gold reprice — hypothetically to $39,000/oz to zero out China’s $1.2 trillion surplus — could fix the imbalance without war, though he personally holds stocks, Bitcoin, and a lot of cash and is eyeing a possible drop toward $3,000 before buying gold.
Two theories, one race for money: With ~$7 trillion spending against ~$5 trillion revenue, Jikh calls the US past the point of no return; one theory has the dollar ruling forever via stablecoin rails, the other has BRICS routing around it into gold, and both are happening simultaneously.
Inflation is the dollar shrinking: Priced in dollars, commodities have risen since 1792, but priced in gold they’ve gotten ~0.8% cheaper per year for 200 years; the system depended on ever-more workers, taxpayers, and borrowers, which AI breaks by growing the economy without growing jobs.
Paper gold’s 9:1 shell game: By 2021 London held $572 billion of unallocated gold plus $63 billion COMEX (~$635 billion) against perhaps ~$70 billion of real physical, a ~9:1 ratio; banks pushed free, tax-advantaged “promises” to keep the price suppressed.
China and the Basel III rule change: China imported 939 tons in 2025 (over a quarter of world mine output) and ~14,000 tons since 2015, draining leased Western gold east; the BIS’s 2021 Basel III net stable funding ratio forced banks onto real funding, after which gold passed Treasuries as the #1 reserve asset and COMEX open interest hit a 13-year low.
Four paths and the Clarity Act: Citing Luke Groman/FFTT’s four outcomes, Jikh favors repricing gold (hypothetically $39,000/oz zeroes China’s $1.2 trillion surplus) over war; meanwhile the Clarity/Genius Act turns JP Morgan, Apple, and Walmart into Treasury-buying stablecoin issuers that Jamie Dimon fights because corporate coins paying ~4% threaten bank deposits.
Michael Oliver argues the stock market has been topping for a year and its real vulnerability shows in Q3, when broken long-term momentum “floor structures” on the S&P (~7,300, with a distribution ceiling near 7,000) and NASDAQ snap and commence a major bear market, amplified by a Japan-style imploding US bond market that forces central banks to “go ape” and print. He says gold and silver’s drop from the January peak — gold near its March low, silver from $120 to $64 in a day and a half — is only an intermediate violent-congestion correction with no long-term momentum damage, unlike the obvious 2011 top and 2015 bottom, while persistent physical buyers (2.9 million oz of gold stood for June delivery, ~1 million oz left COMEX) absorb supply. His longer-term silver target remains $300-500, justified by M2, the logarithmic “thickness” of silver’s 50-year $5-$50 range, a silver/gold ratio at 1.6% versus a historic 6.5%, and copper (to $410) and lead (quadrupled) breakout analogs — and he warns bears have had three chances to kill it, so if they can’t drive it into the 50s now, “the trap is sprung.”
Stock market topping into Q3: Oliver says the market has been topping for a year and breaks down in Q3 when momentum floor structures on the S&P (~7,300, ceiling near 7,000) and NASDAQ snap, beginning a major bear market — like the 1987 setup, though not necessarily a crash.
Bond market as a “nuclear event”: A weak US bond market now resembling Japan’s imploding one is a new variable that panics central banks into printing and buying bonds regardless of mandate; since unemployment data always lags the top, he says watch the market itself, not the data.
Gold/silver drop is congestion, not a top: Unlike the bleeding-obvious annual-momentum signals at the 2011 top and 2015 bottom, the current sharp drop (silver $120 to $64 in 1.5 days) shows no long-term damage, making it an intermediate correction within a major uptrend.
Physical buyers holding the line: 2.9 million oz of gold (over $12 billion) stood for June delivery with ~1 million oz leaving COMEX, and persistent buyers absorb every push into silver’s $60s; he calls this confirming “icing,” though his actual trigger is regaining the 50-day momentum level.
Silver to $300-500 and three strikes: His target rests on M2, the logarithmic doubling of silver’s 50-year $5-$50 range, and the silver/gold ratio at 1.6% versus a historic 6.5%, with copper (to $410) and lead (quadrupled after decades-long ranges) as analogs; bears have had three chances, and failing now springs the trap for a vertical move.
The Rational Ranchers — a couple who’ve farmed in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, and Arkansas across at least nine moves — explain why they settled in the Ozarks of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri, joking the area is “full up” with no room for out-of-towners. Their top three reasons are abundant clean water (after three failed wells and bad city water in central Kentucky), genuinely kind, helpful, openly armed neighbors that feel like going back 10-20 years toward Mayberry, and plentiful land still priced around $4,000-6,000/acre versus $20,000 in central Illinois or $7,000-9,000 in Kentucky. The cons are bad allergies including “cedar fever,” next-level ticks (the husband had a Lyme disease scare and fears alpha-gal), and extreme weather swings, and they close by announcing they’re listing their 146-acre southern Missouri farm this week.
Water everywhere: After three failed well-drilling attempts and bad city water in central Kentucky, they found Ozark water that “bubbles out of every rock” — clear springs, creeks, rivers, and lakes, with rocky soil that avoids mud around the animals.
Kind, armed neighbors: They describe gracious, helpful people who leave cars and houses unlocked and openly carry pistols (“a lot of pistols showing” at Walmart), giving a safe, near-Mayberry feeling of going back 10-20 years.
Plentiful, affordable land: Productive ranch and farmland still runs ~$4,000-6,000/acre versus ~$20,000 in central Illinois and $7,000-9,000 in Kentucky, with lots of sparsely populated raw land — though they joke nothing’s left for sale.
Allergies and cedar fever: Both developed noticeably worse allergies after moving, including a regional phenomenon called “cedar fever” caused by pollen from the area’s ubiquitous cedar trees.
Ticks and weather extremes: The husband had a Lyme disease scare, fears alpha-gal (which would end eating their own meat), and once pulled hundreds of seed ticks off with duct tape; tornadoes and sudden deep freezes round out the downsides, and they’re now listing their 146-acre Missouri farm.
Brent Johnson clarifies that Treasuries and the dollar are not the same — Treasuries are “future dollars,” and in a rising-rate environment Treasury prices fall while the dollar rises — and argues that until a system exists where people don’t need dollars, there’s an “indefinite bid” that always pulls the dollar back higher. He says gold already holds a large share of the safe-haven role and, by reserves, is now a bigger dollar value than Treasuries (mostly from gold’s price rising and Treasury prices falling), but in an actual crisis people sell gold because they need dollars to satisfy debts. He flags a key misconception: early in a credit crisis the dollar actually falls (about -5% in September 2008, again in March 2020 and April 2025) as foreign holders repatriate capital, then “boomerangs” higher if the crisis goes global — and while he agrees gold ultimately wins, he insists the dollar going higher is the bigger risk because it “wrecks the monetary system” and is itself the most bullish thing for gold.
Treasuries vs. the dollar: Johnson stresses the two are wrongly conflated — Treasuries are “future dollars,” and per the milkshake framework, when rates rise Treasury prices fall while the dollar goes up; until people no longer need dollars, they always will.
Gold’s share of the safe haven: He says gold already holds a large portion of crisis-hedge demand and, as a percent of reserves, is now a bigger dollar value than Treasuries — largely because gold’s price rose a lot while Treasury prices fell a lot.
Why gold sells off in a crisis: Gold’s value is its liquidity and lack of counterparty, but you must sell it to get the dollars people actually need to pay debts or buy cheap assets, which is why gold fell during the conflict as Turkey, Russia, and Gulf countries sold to get liquid.
The dollar falls first, then boomerangs: Contrary to expectations, the dollar drops early in a crisis as foreign holders repatriate (selling dollar assets for euros/yen) — roughly -5% over two weeks in September 2008, again in March 2020 and April 2025 — then slingshots higher if the crisis goes global; 2025 didn’t boomerang because it lasted only two or three weeks.
Gold wins, but a higher dollar is the bigger risk: Johnson maintains gold ultimately wins and is part of the thesis, but the dollar breaking to the upside is the biggest risk because it “wrecks everything,” and a higher dollar (as in 2022) is itself the most bullish setup for gold’s 2023-2026 run.
Cut through the clutter and mainstream media noise. Get free, concise dispatches on vital news, videos and opinions. Delivered to Your email inbox daily. You’ll never miss a critical story, guaranteed.