Andy Schectman — Where Is The Bottom For Gold & Silver?

0:52 "The gold market is absurd" — the narrative is misdirection

• The supposed reason for the rout — the Fed unable to lower rates — is "kind of absurd"; "there's a lot betraying that narrative." Silver is now under $60 and gold briefly broke $4,000.

1:33 The oil-boot theory & Warsh's "whatever it takes"

• Taggart's frame: high oil forced countries to "sell the family silver"; when oil eased the boot should have come off metals — but Kevin Warsh arrived with a Draghi-style "whatever it takes" on inflation, keeping the boot on, and metals fell further.

2:18 Junk-silver special — supplies tightening, still below spot

• The audience junk-silver offer (previously ~$2 under spot) is up "a little, not a lot," supplies "still decent" but "becoming a little harder to get" — still below spot (he gives the new price later).

4:52 Deliveries are the tell — record physical delivery in 2026

• Silver: ~34,000 contracts (~170M oz) physically delivered so far in 2026 vs ~23,000 in all of 2023 — "45%+ above the entire full year, in five months." Gold: February alone >4M oz; Jan–May ~99,000 contracts (~9.9M oz, ~$45B); ~$12–13B more in June.

6:38 Highest ever — "the desire to take ownership is the story"

• He believes deliveries are the highest ever, "way outside the realm of what is normal." Deliveries don't automatically drain vaults — but "the delivery isn't the story, the desire to take ownership is": buyers now want "numbered bars in my vault," not paper warrants. China is doing the same, quietly.

8:10 Central banks "bought the crash" — 244 tons vs 15 reported

• Central banks reported buying 15 tons last quarter, but the World Gold Council says the metal through the refineries implies ~244 tons — "15 times the official number" — bought as the price fell. ~1,000 tons/yr for four straight years.

9:20 Positioning, not confusion — weak hands vs strong hands

• Surveys: ~45% of central banks expect to add reserves this year, 90% expect official holdings to rise, 74% expect the dollar's reserve share to fall. "This isn't confusion, this is positioning." Weak hands sell price; strong hands buy control "at subsidized prices."

10:12 Repatriation + the US-government / Tether proxy theory

• France and others want their gold shipped back from the New York Fed — "ownership still means ownership." He floats (with "no proof") that the US government could be suppressing the paper price to stand for delivery via a proxy like Tether — "price and delivery are betraying one another."

12:10 Negative sentiment vs the $13B-a-month buyer

• Live-chat venting ("today's a bloodbath… I'm out"). His answer: counterintuitive pricing plays the herd's emotions (Kondratiev/Elliott wave) — but "who's standing for delivery for $13B in June" if it's that bad? Only sovereigns can handle that volume.

14:45 The thesis is intact — "it is not time to go"

• "As God is my witness… it is not time." The thesis can be sound while the price doesn't cooperate (cites Rick Rule doubling down on a halved position that made him wealthy). A world awash in debt with rising inflation hasn't changed — "the price has, but the deliveries say there's something behind that."

15:57 Why this isn't 1980 or 2012

• 1980 was broken by Volcker's 18¾% rates — impossible today on a 30-year over-leveraged system ("the great reset"). Deliveries have averaged <1% of contracts his whole career; today's record standing-for-delivery, plus a collapse of trust absent in 2011 (Russian-reserve sanctions, SWIFT removal), make this "a very different time."

18:29 "Treasurization," CIPS/mBridge & new physical-metal exchanges

• "De-dollarize is the wrong word" (per Brent Johnson) — it's a forced "rush to dollars" to service debt ("treasurization"); meanwhile the alternative is being built: CIPS, mBridge (rolled out last week), and immediate-delivery metal contracts launching in Dubai, Singapore (1kg gold / 1,000oz silver), Hong Kong and Shanghai — Belt-and-Road "arteries of the new system," all accumulating gold.

21:46 Stablecoins as a Western gold bid that devalues the dollar

• The largest stablecoin issuers buy gold with their profits — "indirectly backed by gold." Because the Treasury interest isn't transferable, taking it into gold "devalues the dollar… the only way to devalue the dollar" (the one neutral, 5,000-year measuring stick — measure the dollar against gold, not the dollar index / Triffin's dilemma).

24:05 Judy Shelton gold bonds, mark-to-market & the Tether→Treasury wink

• Shelton's idea: back the long end with gold → zero upfront borrowing cost, the gold owed is "massively higher" by maturity. Andy thinks they should mark gold to market. The "conspiracy or reality" line: with Bo Hines in place, a "wink-nod" to Tether to sell its gold quietly to the Treasury — a fintech proxy keeping the government out of the open gold market.

26:01 The frothy top — hedging above $500, taking off the "laser eyes"

• A viewer regrets not selling in January. Both recall calling the top frothy — Taggart advocated hedging once silver passed $500 and "took the laser eyes off" near $100 despite criticism; Andy agreed it was smart after positions tripled in five months. The thesis is long-term; the entry then was over-extended.

28:27 Gold is wealth, not a way to get wealthy — keep DCA-ing

• "I tell people gold is wealth. You don't buy it to become wealthy, you own it because it is wealth." Focus on it daily and the volatility tugs your emotions; it has marched higher every year regardless. With ~$200T of debt, rates only higher, savings at lows — inflation up, dollar down, gold up "ultimately." Cost-average through the weakness.

29:52 "Deliveries will break it" — Nixon, de Gaulle, Madoff

• When France/Germany/Netherlands/Czech/Poland/Hungary/Turkey/Austria/India all demand their gold back, it tells you where this goes. What closed the gold window (de Gaulle's warships demanding delivery) and broke Madoff was the same thing: delivery. "What's going to break this? Delivery."

31:42 Inventory visibility — LBMA free float, 300-400:1 paper, JPM earmarks

• The exchange data is barely trustworthy: David Jensen pegs LBMA free float ~140M oz (maybe really ~40M ex-ETFs); COMEX runs ~300–400 paper contracts per ounce; per Ed Steer, much "available" COMEX silver is JP Morgan-earmarked. If everyone stood for delivery, "only a very small portion… would receive the metal" — just like a bank.

34:06 Who stood for $13B? COMEX won't say

• Why not just stand for delivery on everything? "The exchange would force majeure and blow up" — so it's "death by a thousand paper cuts," billions every month for 18 straight months. You can't get the client (no FOIA); the Commitment of Traders reports show which bank stopped/delivered, but Blythe Masters' JP Morgan "always buys for customers" — and the CME works with central banks.

36:01 Paul Winfrey — the Warsh advisor who wrote the gold-bond chapter

• Winfrey, Kevin Warsh's top policy advisor (ex-Trump White House, Heritage), wrote Project 2025's Chapter 24 on the Federal Reserve — which "seriously explores… a parallel gold standard" and "gold convertible treasury instruments (gold bonds)" as a transitional tool. "Judy Shelton's idea… we should call them Sheltons." A notable first hire.

38:03 US Mint Liberty Bell coins at "bananas" premiums — a tell?

• The Mint is issuing 250th-anniversary commemoratives: a half-oz gold Liberty Bell at ~$10,000 (vs ~$2,000 of gold), the one-oz at ~$20,000, plus a silver one — "unlike anything I've ever seen" in 36 years. Faux pas, collector pricing, or a quiet signal of a coming revaluation? It's still posted on usmint.gov; only 2026 will be minted.

43:07 Not a July-4 revaluation call; Rickards' $24,000; an August Fed panel

• He's "not in the camp" that gold gets revalued July 4th, but thinks it goes much higher and should be marked to market; James Rickards has floated revaluation as high as $24,000. (Taggart previews an early-August panel with Judy Shelton, Lacy Hunt and Tom Hoenig.)

44:28 Where's the bottom? "Pretty close"

• "I think we're pretty close to there right now" — sub-$60 silver and a break of $4,000 in gold would shake out the speculation and let the futures/options "expire worthless." "I'd be surprised to see that much more weakness… but who knows, I didn't think it would go this far to begin with."

45:29 Junk silver now ~75¢ under spot (halves the best buy)

• The new audience price: ~75¢ back of spot on dimes/quarters — and on half dollars, which he calls the better buy. Two-bucks-under-spot for four months was "the greatest value I've seen in silver in my career"; markets move like a pendulum and that discount will eventually swing away as the refiner backlog heals.

47:51 DCA every 15 days + the precious-metals tax swap

• Taggart adds to his physical position every ~15 days (DCA), which softens the sting of falling prices. Andy explains the precious-metals tax swap: the 30-day wash-sale rule applies only to securities, not commodities — so you can sell metal at a loss and immediately rebuy the same metal (~2% round trip), book the loss against gains/income, and reset your basis. (Also applies to crypto; he expects the loophole to close eventually.)

53:15 An AI crash → a metals down-leg? "In the end, no"

• An AI-sector crash is a "high probability." Short-term it could drag gold ("throw out the baby with the bathwater") as margined holders of NVIDIA/Apple/SpaceX raise liquidity — like March 2020, when gold sold off then "came right back up." It's "MOPE" (management of perception economics, per Jim Sinclair); "in the end it always reverts back much higher." Buffett's ~$400B cash signals how little value is left.

55:04 Michael Oliver's summer call — respected, but don't time it

• Michael Oliver expects metals to hit new highs by ~September ("$300–500 over"); Andy thinks the probability of much higher prices is "legitimate" but won't put a time on it — a five-fold move that fast "is a lot to ask for." He respects the conviction but warns against calendar predictions (same caveat he applies to the July-4 idea).