Jeffrey Christian · managing partner, CPM Group — precious-metals research and advisory. Talks price forecasts in terms of the option structures CPM shows its clients, and runs CPM's own channel.
Cyclical bottom is in (Sep 2026) — won't revisit $4,000; election uncertainty, Treasury/Fed policy conflict and the Iran war drive investor buying. CPM's client butterfly calls peak at $5,000 and $5,400, mid-November target. Long run capped: ~$1,700–1,800 AISC vs $4,300 will pull in supply.
Spike to 80–90 by year-end would not surprise him (Sep 2026), riding gold's uncertainty bid — but 75–80% byproduct supply recovered for ≤$5/oz, sub-$20 primary cost and scrap flow-back mean $3,000 silver can't be sustained.
Treated with platinum: tighter market and higher prices over 15 months, pressured by auto-demand shifts; a temporary follow-through behind gold and silver, sold into spikes. For sophisticated investors only.
Tight on South African/Russian supply but auto demand faces cyclical and EV/ride-sharing headwinds; follows gold and silver higher only as a short-term move with heavy profit-taking. For sophisticated investors only.
In one line: gold and silver are financial assets in the short run, priced by investor fear, and physical commodities in the long run, priced by mining and recovery costs. As of September 2026 the fear side is winning: Christian says gold's "cyclical bottom's in" and is positioning clients for a spike toward $5,000–5,400 by mid-November. He is equally firm that "$30,000 gold" and "$3,000 silver" "cannot happen on a sustained basis." (Grounded in one appearance so far: 2026-SEP-12.)
Uncertainty is the driver, and it's getting worse. CPM expects "a very hostile economic and political environment" to "get worse over the last four months of 2026 into 2027," bringing back the investor buying of late 2025. In August, investors "got nervous sooner than we thought."
Policy incoherence is bullish for gold. A Treasury that doubled its bond buyback because "the liquidity in the US economy is struggling" (inflationary) against a Fed that may have to hike 25 bp. Christian gives Warsh "more credit than the markets are giving him."
History as a test for policy. The US Treasury/Bank of Japan yen support repeats a policy "largely discredited" by 1982: authorities can push a currency in the direction it is already going but "couldn't reverse" it. "They haven't learned the lessons of the 70s."
Politics: outcome-agnostic. The midterms will be tight, "skew[ed]," and unresolved in early November, and "either outcome is bad for the US economy." That's the same set-up as 2016, when a CPM long call butterfly "returned 125% in one month."
Geopolitics compounds it. Iran used the 60-day MOU to push the fighting toward the midterms ("a war of choice" as an "albatross"); Ukraine–Russia continues; "hostility toward Canada, toward Europe."
Distrust the central-bank data. The World Gold Council "had to walk back" Q2, and he says 2022–25 was "skewed to the wrong side." Russia is a net seller (12 of the last 15 months), selling gold to raise cash with its FX reserves frozen.
The long-run cap. Gold all-in sustaining cost is ~$1,700–1,800 vs. $4,300, which funds future supply. Silver is 75–80% byproduct recovered for "$5 an ounce or less," with scrap and profit-taking metal flowing back. The downward pressure arrives once investors "can exhale."
Macro base case: a recession "at some point but probably not this year." Platinum and palladium follow gold and silver only as "a short-term type move," and only for sophisticated investors.
The product
What it is: CPM Group is Christian's precious-metals research and advisory firm. Per the 2026-SEP-12 appearance, CPM holds daily morning meetings on market direction, forecasts prices (a stated "year-end target"), and structures option strategies that it shows to its clients. It also runs its own channel, where it published a deep dive on Russian central-bank gold sales (the host's reference). Pricing and access terms were not discussed.
Offering
What it is
How he runs it
Seen in the index
Structured option strategies
Long call butterflies on gold, built around a dated event
Priced at a morning meeting, shown to clients about a month before the event with a peak-profit price and a timing target. 2016: shown Oct 7, "returned 125% in one month." 2026: two butterflies on Sep 9, peaks at $5,000 and $5,400, mid-November.
Seasonal path + year-end targets for gold and silver
June call: sideways and volatile through August, rise from Jackson Hole. Graded openly: the direction was right, the timing early ("the big surprise to us").
Russian central-bank gold selling (referenced by the INN host).
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How it serves retail investors: the butterfly structure turns an "I don't know who wins, but it's bad either way" view into a small, capped-loss bet with a defined price zone and date. That can be copied with listed gold options by someone comfortable with multi-leg option trades.
Tier guidance is explicit: ordinary investors are pointed at gold and silver, not the platinum-group metals.
Caveat: the 125% figure is CPM's own account of its own past trade, unaudited.
Transcripts
One dated page per appearance — each has its stock table, talking points, and the saved transcript. Newest first.