Nomi Prins — Wall Street's Blinders Are Mispricing Hard Assets
The precious-metals crash is a paper-market scramble for cash, not a change in the metal in the ground — a window to accumulate the structural deficits Wall Street keeps ignoring.
One-line take: the spring metals rout is a paper-market liquidity event, not a physical one — the Iran war, the fastest inflation in three years and nerves over Kevin Warsh's first FOMC have funds raising cash by dumping whatever trades easily (metal ETFs, miner shares), and algos pile on as chart levels break. Silver fell as much as 47% from its $121 January record, gold is −24% from $5,595, yet copper still trades near its record (~$13,842/ton, ~$6/lb) "and nothing in the ground has materially changed." The structural deficits are intact: silver's 6th straight annual deficit (95M oz short in 2025, 820M since 2021), platinum's record 1.082M-oz deficit (4th straight), copper short 500k+ tons this year with 7–12-year permitting and Chilean grades down 25–30%. The strongest producers still print money — Pan American Silver (PAAS) at a $6.63/oz silver AISC and First Majestic (AG) at $29.76/AgEq oz hold wide margins even at $70 silver. Prins's call: disciplined accumulation, not capitulation — silver and its miners carry the steepest discounts/sharpest swings, while copper carries the least and is "a strategic place to start." Built from the article's free portion; the specific copper-developer pick is reserved for Founders+ (paywalled), so no single buy recommendation is captured here.
1. Stocks & names mentioned
A top-down hard-assets thesis — the only two equities named are cited as proof that the strongest miners stay profitable through the selloff; the actual pick (a copper developer) is paywalled. Metals (silver, gold, copper, platinum, palladium) live in the key points below. "View" reflects how each was framed in the piece; the "At" link opens the article. Research: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis.
| Ticker | Name | Research | View | What she said | At |
|---|
| PAAS | Pan American Silver | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | Evidence the best producers print money through the rout: Q1 silver-segment all-in cost of just $6.63/oz (helped by gold by-product credits) — wide margins even at $70 silver, with demand only set to climb (clean tech to consume >1.5B oz of silver through 2030). | read |
| AG | First Majestic | QT · SA · STK · FA | Positive | The other producer cited as still profitable at these levels — Q1 cost of $29.76 per silver-equivalent ounce, holding wide margins; the miners have fallen more than the metal on operating/financing leverage and forced ETF selling, not on any change in their assets. | read |
"View" reflects how each name was framed in this article (Positive = a profitable producer cited as evidence the selloff is paper-driven), not a price rating. Built from the article's free/public portion; Prins's specific recommendation (a strategic copper developer) and buy-up-to price are reserved for Founders+ subscribers. Research: QT Qualtrim · SA Seeking Alpha · STK Stock Analysis.
2. Key points
A paper selloff, not a physical one
- The War in Iran, the fastest inflation in three years, and nerves over Kevin Warsh's first FOMC have the market scrambling for cash — funds facing redemptions sell their most-liquid metal positions (ETFs, miner shares) to raise it, and trading algorithms pile on as chart levels break and headlines feed headlines.
- The result: a market "pricing near-term angst while long-term physical deficits remain" — leverage unwound in the paper market, not metal shifted in the ground.
The price damage vs the unchanged fundamentals
- Silver dropped as much as 47% from its January record of $121; gold is −24% from its $5,595 high; copper has held near its own record (~$13,842/ton on the LME, ~$6/lb). "Yet nothing in the ground beneath any of these metals has materially changed."
- New copper or silver mines still take 7–12 years to permit and build; solar alone consumes ~17% of annual silver supply; silver is in its 6th straight annual deficit (95M oz short in 2025, 820M oz since 2021).
The commodity liquidity trap — why silver gets hit hardest
- Silver carries dual values — monetary (stored like gold) and industrial (>half of demand from solar, electronics, electrical contacts) — so it can be battered by dual narratives. It's also the most leveraged and volatile of the group: as the dollar hit 100 and 10-year yields rose, investors sold what was easiest to liquidate, not what was physically abundant.
- Not alone: platinum fell to ~$1,660 (lowest since December) despite a record 1.082M-oz deficit (heading into a 4th straight shortfall); palladium near an 8-month low. Even after halving, silver still trades at >2× its 2021 level (metals have climbed since the Russia-Ukraine escalation, Feb 2022).
Miners fell more — but the best ones are still profitable
- Mining stocks dropped by more than the metals (the market amplifies operating + financing risk; forced/programmed ETF sales hit everything regardless of individual assets). Yet the strongest producers keep wide margins: Pan American Silver at a $6.63/oz silver AISC (gold by-product credits) and First Majestic at $29.76/AgEq oz — profitable even at $70 silver, with clean-tech demand forecast at >1.5B oz through 2030.
Copper's fixed demand floor
- Copper held steady because its buyers can't walk away from electricity infrastructure — power grids will need ~2.5× more copper by 2040, and utilities, grid operators and data-center developers lock in supply years ahead on fixed budgets (and there's far less of a paper market to whipsaw it).
- Supply is short 500k+ tons this year; Chilean ore grades (among the world's most important) are down 25–30% since the early 2000s; new deposits average 17 years from discovery to first metal. Copper trades near a record while paper silver has halved.
Warsh's first FOMC & the takeaway
- Warsh must balance inflation, the high cost of capital for growth and debt servicing, and whether the Fed sees enough sub-surface stress to pause pending an Iran-U.S. resolution. Prins's framing: this is a window for "disciplined accumulation rather than capitulation" — silver and its miners carry the steepest discounts and swings, copper the least, "and is a strategic place to start." Her specific copper-developer pick is paywalled (Founders+).
3. In plain English
A jargon-free summary of why each name is in the piece. (Plain-language companion to the table above; renders on each ticker's consolidated page.)
PAAS — Pan American Silver Positive
Pan American is one of the biggest silver miners. Prins's point: even though silver's price crashed this spring, the best miners are still very profitable. In the first quarter, Pan American's all-in cost to produce an ounce of silver was just $6.63 — partly because it also sells gold as a by-product that offsets costs. With silver still well above that even after the drop (and far above it at $70), the company earns fat margins.
She uses it as proof that the selloff was about traders raising cash, not about the mining business getting worse — and that demand is heading up (clean technology alone is forecast to use over 1.5 billion ounces of silver by 2030). So the cheaper share price is an opportunity, not a warning.
AG — First Majestic Positive
First Majestic is a primarily-silver miner. Its first-quarter cost was $29.76 per "silver-equivalent ounce" (a way of bundling its silver and gold output into one number). That's still comfortably below recent silver prices, so it too keeps wide margins.
Prins highlights that mining stocks fell more than the metal itself — because miners carry extra operating and borrowing risk, and because index funds that hold baskets of miners were force-sold all at once. None of that changed what's actually in First Majestic's mines, which is exactly why she sees the drop as a chance to accumulate rather than a reason to panic.
Summary derived from the public (free) portion of the Prinsights Substack article for personal study. Not investment advice; the author's specific recommendation is paywalled. © Nomi Prins / Prinsights for source material.