Brien Lundin — Gold, Bonds Sending Warning — What's Next for Price

00:46 The conference pitch — "30 or 40" speakers, not three or four

• The conference's unique selling proposition is "much more value than what investors are paying for and much more value than any other event out there".
• The roster runs from Grant Williams and Doug Casey (possibly his final public appearance) through Danielle DiMartino Booth, Brent Johnson, Peter Schiff, Tavi Costa, Porter Stansberry, Frank Giustra, Dave Collum, Lobo Tiggre and Jeff Clark. "You can find three or four of our speakers at some other conferences, but you won't find 30 or 40."
• The other half of the value is the attendees: "hundreds and hundreds of really smart investors" who share their own ideas. It runs Oct 28–31, the exhibit hall is sold out, and early leavers can watch the recordings.

04:15 The seasonal bottom arrived on schedule

• In July he called the pullback normal and a process. Seasonality "doesn't always work every year", but when it does, gold bottoms between mid-July and mid-August.
• This year the low came in early August, "right on time, right on schedule, just as we hoped". "I think the process is over. I think we did bottom … The charts certainly show that."
• The recovery was strong: gold +10–15% at its peak and the miners +30–50% "across the board".

04:58 Why it paused — RSI plus Warsh

• Technically, RSI and other indicators went "from oversold to overbought very quickly", so the rally needed a break.
• Fundamentally it got one too: more hawkish rhetoric from the Fed and Kevin Warsh.
• The pattern he sees repeating: rate-hike talk excites the market, "after a couple of days that fades away and gold gets right back on track". On the recording day gold was down, "but not as much as other sectors".

06:35 Gold and the 10-year are rising for the same reason

• Since the end of June, rising yields, including positive real yields, "has actually been bullish or been accompanied by rising gold price". A week of gold weakness only briefly flipped the correlation back to negative.
• That is unusual, because rising yields normally mean tighter policy or stronger growth. This time it is the bond vigilantes "worried about repayment of those debts" and pricing in dollar depreciation.
• "That's the same reason you want to buy gold … they're both moving for the same reason. Investors are concerned about the future purchasing power of the dollar."

08:04 The two most sensitive discounting machines are flashing

• Every asset discounts the future, but "gold and bonds are the most sensitive", and both are pointing to "some sort of turmoil ahead".
• Turmoil ends the same way each time: the Fed and other central banks launch "really massive liquidity operations, rescue operations". Those are ultimately bullish for gold, silver, the monetary metals and commodities generally.

08:58 Bessent talks the long end down, Warsh talks the short end up

• Bessent has doubled, and most recently tripled, the long-bond buyback operations. "It's still a drop in the bucket", and mostly an attempt to use rhetoric to manipulate yields lower.
• Warsh is doing the opposite at the short end, talking bill yields up by threatening hikes. The market has "taken up the challenge" against Bessent, and the 10-year is approaching 5%.
• The trap: the short end "is where the US funds its debt", and higher rates there "are simply unaffordable". If Warsh gets what he's asking for, "bond vigilantes turn into bill vigilantes and drive rates up without Warsh having to do anything at all."

10:58 The bubble and its pin

• "The stock market is showing signs of being a bubble". Valuations are above the height of the 2000 tech boom.
• The pin usually "comes out of left field". This time it may be bond yields, "the most closely watched sector in macroeconomics", or some shock that spikes yields and in turn trips up stocks.
• "We are in actually a very fragile situation", with yields reaching for prior inflection points and the powers that be "seemingly unable to derail that".

12:42 Next week's FOMC — a coin flip, and one show hike at most

• The odds of a hike are roughly 50/50, with a lot riding on the next day's CPI, "going to be pretty volatile indicator for the markets".
• Warsh may want "a quarter point hike just for show to show the market his resolve". An extended campaign is impossible with debt service around $1.2 trillion a year, more than defense.
• "Warsh was put in office to do one thing and that's to lower interest rates over the long term … when it's all said and done, he will have to or be forced to lower rates". Lundin expects Warsh to try to redefine the inflation yardsticks. "Gold has been sniffing that out."

14:44 Warsh — the best chairman, stuck in a trap

• Warsh's plan to say less is "a positive move on his part. I like the guy. I think he's the best Federal Reserve chairman in my career … but again, he can't change the underlying math".
• "The Fed is stuck in a trap. There's nothing it can do." Tax hikes can't raise enough, spending can't be cut, and "we can't grow our way out of it because the debt's so large".
• "There's a good chance he's sincere, but … he also recognizes the math." Another 50–100 bp on debt service is off the table.

16:18 $5,000 checks and a $40 trillion debt nobody watches

• The deficit is already well above last year's. The proposed $5,000 payment to every taxpayer if Republicans win the midterms will come "with the stroke of a few keys".
• The $40T milestone got "probably a couple of hours" of CNBC and network coverage before the news "moved on to AI".
• The public won't care until the debt shows up as pocketbook inflation like a couple of years ago, "and that I think is coming as well".

18:08 Each rescue has to be bigger than the last

• "I don't know that that crisis is avoidable." The next Fed rescue will have to be "much more than they did for COVID, which was much more than they did in the great financial crisis … to get the same effect".
• Each rescue creates a lot more currency. The dollar and other developed-market currencies lose credibility each time, "more of a long slide than any particular moment".

19:19 What matters for gold now

• "Bond yields are the big story right now", along with whether Warsh can actually hike "significantly or more than just once".
• "Warsh's hawkish turn, the Fed's hawkish turn will prove to be a misread by the market."
• The Iran war, the summer headwind, should be resolved or fall off the front pages. What stays is the need to depreciate currencies to pay off the debt: "the debasement trade is something that's going to come back into fashion."

20:39 Midterms — silly season accelerates the deficit

• "There is no resolve to cut spending on either side of the aisle". The administration is "wheeling out all sorts of promises and spending ideas to try and buy more votes".
• An unbudgeted cost is still to come: "rebuilding our stocks of missiles and bombs after all we've expended on Iran … that's going to explode the deficit over the next couple of years".

22:00 Rest of 2026 — 5,000 easy, 5,500 hard, and the two-sided rule

• "It would be difficult to get back to $5,500 before the end of the year … we could easily get to 5,000, but let's face it, nobody knows."
• Western traders and black-box algorithms now drive the metals, which brings "really furious rallies and steep corrections that are normal for a bull market". He would prefer "a slower, steadier rise".
• The rule: buy the dips, and in rallies like January and February "take some of the froth off the top … at least in your investment end of your metals and mining portfolio, not in the insurance end".

24:42 Silver — industrial demand finally counts

• "I really discounted the industrial demand for silver over my entire career because it was really monetary demand that drove the price."
• Years of deficits have eaten the above-ground supply, and industry cannot easily innovate around silver. In January "investors and industry were bidding for the same ounces": investors chasing the trend, industry "desperate to secure supplies".
• The old rule still holds: silver is far more volatile than gold in both directions, and "much more profitable if you buy it before those kinds of price spikes".

26:21 The food chain — every rung, judged on its own merits

• "I judge each company on its own merits, not where it is in the food chain." That said, the majors and mid-tiers "offer more upside potential with commensurately less risk than I've ever seen before".
• Developers haven't moved as much as the majors. For the first time they have the option to take their own projects into production.
• The juniors at the bottom "are not the ones that have really moved as a group yet". They are funded, drilling and producing news, "and importantly the market is rewarding good results". His last issue was one of the longest in Gold Newsletter's history.

28:29 Net debt-free producers must refill the pipeline

• "As a group, the big producers are net debt-free", with cash building fast and only so much they can buy back or pay out.
• The cash "burning a hole in their figurative pockets" goes into rebuilding the supply pipeline. Some companies "are near the top of the list for acquisition … there could be a bidding war. I hope there is."
• Targets feel no urgency to sell, because they can keep building value and even develop the project themselves.

30:07 Copper — the tariff spike undone, the thesis intact

• Copper equities lag the metal: "I think that's going to change shortly."
• The record was mostly the threat of Trump copper tariffs. The "dramatic pullback" came on insider reports that the tariffs may not take effect.
• The fundamentals stay in place: severe supply restrictions, long development timelines, and "the demand curve for copper is as steep as it's been for any commodity in recent history". "Set it and forget it investments. Just buy it, get your position, wait a few years."

31:56 Two concurrent bull markets

• "We're very fortunate to have two concurrent bull markets side by side": one in the monetary metals, gold and silver, and one in every other metal, mineral and commodity. The second is a super-cycle driven by rising demand, supply constraints and years of underinvestment.
• "A target-rich environment … more than I've ever seen in my long career". His advice is not to be overwhelmed but to sift the opportunities and put in the time and "the brain power to research the market and educate yourself".
• "I don't know that we're ever going to get this kind of opportunity again."