gold news

  I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Stephan Gleason, CEO of Money Metals. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you back once again. >> Yeah, happy new year Charlotte. Thank you. Good to be here. >> Yes, of course. Happy New Year. It's our first time talking in 2026 and it's been probably about 6 months since our last conversation. So, we have so much to get into today. I thought we could start by just getting situated in terms of where

we're at with gold and silver prices. I know last time we spoke you mentioned we're still earlier in the cycle and we've had we've had some interesting price action. I'm sure we're still early, but we've had ups and downs in the metals prices. So, can you help me break down where we're at right now? >> Yeah. Well, obviously since we talked, a lot has happened, especially in silver. It's just ramped up uh really accelerating in December and January up to $120. Uh your viewers of course know

that massive correction. Uh we're still higher for the year. Uh you as we as we're yeah we're actually just slightly higher. But anyway in silver we're in the high7s. Um it it spiked down to 64 and the big question is is that the low of this correction and we don't really know but right now it seems to be holding. There's another key level in the mid se the low7s. So we'll see. I mean that was a huge run. There was a lot of acceleration with the call option situation was developing and it sort of

momentum. There was a lot of buying to cover calls and it just ramped up. A lot of demand coming from China, a physical demand in in India and so forth. Really big uh big moves in silver. But when you break above that massive 45-year high of $50, $54, you know, kind of was the breakout point this time around, but it just accelerated and and you got to expect that there's going to be big moves, big volatility after that. And I'm still very very bullish on silver and gold. Uh gold of course has been

running for 3 years now. Uh you know more than doubled uh very strong performance there. Came back but not as much as silver. Um I think you know we're in a repair period and it it I don't think we should expect higher prices in the in the in the near term but I'm still very optimistic that we're going to see higher prices later this year, perhaps even by the summer. Uh so we'll see. Uh but the volatility is the big thing and and people need to be aware of that. silver in particular. I

mean, we we saw the largest 1 day drop, I believe, in history. It was like 28% back on uh January 31st. Uh I looked back 2011, it was it was less of a drop and and it was over a longer period of time. So, uh that was that was pretty scary for for folks, but remember, I mean, it it was lower than than the level it came back to just 3 weeks earlier. So, we have to take the good with the bad and and don't get too uh you know, carried away with leverage and so forth. Great summary of the situation

there for gold and silver. And one of the reasons I was excited to have you on is to hear about what you saw from a dealer perspective when we had that big run up in gold and silver prices and then the the correction. So what what trends were you see among people come to you? >> It's really interesting. So the last three years uh really since the bank crisis in 2023 I believe it was um yeah early 2023 the regional bank crisis that was the last time it was really busy in the US retail market until really the

the fall the late fall. Um now gold of course has been moving way way higher since that time and that was driven by central bank buying and and mostly demand outside of the US. In fact, we were seeing a substantial level of gold selling as people were taking advantage of the higher prices and that was causing, you know, the premiums to come down, the bids to come down. It was causing there was less buying. There was more selling. So, there was more equilibrium at the local dealer level. It was actually way more selling and

they were just choking on metal. People were selling back. That was on the gold side. Then, as silver finally started taking off, which, you know, isn't uncommon. Silver is kind of the late bloomer in the bull market. doesn't start, you know, until maybe the fourth inning. And it really started accelerating here in the summer and and and as we got into September and October and that's really when we saw things flip in the retail market. It was the it was the headlines around silver and the

excitement around silver that caused a big new influx of of retail interest in purchasing gold and silver, mostly silver, but also gold. But we were seeing much higher levels of of sales on the uh on the on the top line, if you will, and new people coming in for the first time because they're seeing the headlines. They're excited about it. Uh learning about it. And remember, it's a very small market to begin with, especially in the US. It's not a common thing for people to have gold and silver

in their own, you know, maybe they have some jewelry, but for the most part, people don't have it. It's it's not even a thing even now. But we saw a a nice new influx. you know, maybe we're, you know, still at 1 to 2% of the public. That goes to 4 to 6 to 8. That's massive. There's no way that the retail market in the US could handle that kind of volume. But basically, December to in January were just total pandemonium in the retail market in the US in terms of demand. You know, hundreds or thousands

of calls coming in every hour. I mean, just really intense. Uh, all of my competitors, Money Metals, you know, is one of the top US bullion dealers. There's two or three others of our size. We were all clearly all under a lot of pressure. You notices on the website about delays and so forth. So we what was interesting is we had not only the retail demand, but we still had the selling. We still had gold selling and particularly then silver selling, people selling back because now they you know

they're 50 instead of 50 or or $40 they're now 80 90 110 120 almost $120 there for for one day. And so there was a lot of selling back. And so that caused really an act very active two-way market. So a lot of buying and a lot of selling and just crushing volume um to process for a business where you're dealing with physical metal. You have to examine it under cameras. You have to test it. You know, when you're receiving metal, it's very it's very um uh labor intensive. And then [snorts] of course

shipping out thousands of orders a day. I mean it's it's pretty intense. So uh very exciting time. It has slowed down a little bit in the last two, three weeks, a little bit. Uh it's still at much higher levels than a few months ago, but I, you know, I think that there's been a bit of an awakening in the retail market in the US. And I think it was what was happening in silver that really got everybody's attention. >> Another another good look at what's been going on over the past months. And I

want to hone in on what's happening with the refiners. So, I've been hearing that all this price activity in the silver market is creating delays and backups in the refiners. I'm wondering if you can weigh in on what's going on there, what's happening. [gasps] >> Yeah. Well, it starts off with the there being very low refining capacity in the US. Um, most of the especially for silver, most of the refining cap capacity for silver is in China. More than 50% of all refining capacity is in

China. uh and you know it's also the I think the largest silver producer but or maybe second largest but either way uh there's even more of a concentration of refining in China and not here in the US and so the refiners of silver have been super backlogged at least for a year and that has only gotten worse uh to the extent that pretty much all of them are not accepting refining from customers except maybe their long-standing customers or their largest customers and so that has had a and and it's to some

extent true with gold. It's a little bit less of a problem with gold. But even there, a couple of the big gold refiners in the US started throttling acceptance of new refining. Um or in the case of silver, they won't you know they may not uh accept say scrap but maybe they'll accept uh sterling silver and better uh or you know depends on it depends on the refinery. But what's ended up happening is you have first of all values have gone up. So the amount of metal or I should say the value of the metal within

the mechanism for any business including refineries especially refiners because of the backlog is way higher than it used to be partly because of the volume partly because of the price. And so if they're financing that and or offering financing to their customers, uh then that starts out stripping their available bank financing and it also puts a lot of pressure on their hedging practices and there's costs of hedging and then at the same time there have been weird dislocations around hedging

which has caused at times hedging to be very expensive way more expensive than than than the cost of interest. So it's just led to all of these dislocations and difficulties for refineries. Not that they're not doing well. I think they are doing well but uh at the this again they're they're in shortage and but it's really had an effect on those that rely on those refineries for their business models and that particularly has been the local dealers uh around the country and especially the scrap

collectors and co-minglers where they take this metal that people are selling they combine it together they ship it off to the refiner and then when the when it arrives at the refinery they expect to get their money out now even though it may not be uh refined for for weeks or in at this point months, but the refinery can't provide them with that credit because they're running out of capacity because of as I mentioned all the metal in their in their system. And so that has basically caused bids to

drop in the market. It's caused some s some scrap dealers to not be able to continue buying or functioning as a business because they have don't have the capital. they can't get it from the refinery because they're not willing to pay until the end of the refining process instead of the beginning. And so it's really had this cascading effect across especially the smaller businesses and a lot of local guys uh that aren't well capitalized in particular. Um and so it's it's an interesting situation.

It also affects pricing. So uh the bids have come down. Um, you know, right now 90% junk silver. It's hard to get more than about, you know, $10 below spot. Uh, uh, uh, uh, more than more than that or even even 15. Uh, and some people won't even accept it because it can't be refined. So, unless it can be resold to someone else, uh, and that's not a product that say the retail public new people really like because they don't get it. So, they like the pure silver, the 39 silver. So they're buying that

stuff, but they're not necessarily buying the 90% silver coins, even though that's frankly one of the best, most cost-effective ways to get silver right now, particularly now. So anyway, it's caused these very interesting uh uh discounts and dislocations and spreads. Um I think that, you know, as the market slows down and normalizes, if it does, then those spreads will narrow uh and things might start functioning a little more normally, but we'll see. I mean, right now it's it's still very very

challenging for everyone uh given the volume that's going on. Yeah, you can really see those knock-on effects down the chain. And that's exactly what I was going to ask you is how does this resolve? When does this resolve? And maybe an additional question is have you have you seen something like this before? >> No, I have not seen something like this before, particularly the the two-way market, the massive volume on both sides. As I mentioned, there's certain products like 90% that people don't

really don't for some reason aren't buying even though that that's what we encourage them to because it's the best deal. Um but during co it was very busy on the buy side. A lot of new people came in then. So that was an interesting time. But I think the price volatility combined with the volume on both sides is at levels I have not seen. Certainly in our business, we've been in business for 16 years now. um also scenarios where you know it starts making sense to take pallets of say 90% silver and send

it to China or to Singapore or somewhere else Dubai to be refined for example I mean it's never there's never been that kind of situation but at Money Metals we're looking at that kind of thing and and in the process of doing that kind of thing right now as we speak um and and also the dislocations on thousand ounce bars that we've seen between London, New York, China, Dubai There was a scenario in October where there was a massive massive uh spread where there was actually thousand ounce bars available

in the US well below spot because the comx was trading below below London spot. Huge premium in Dubai, India, people in India were pounding the table, desperately needing silver. Lease rates went through the roof. So the cost of financing if you were short silver or you're leasing your inventory was very high. I mean, it got to the point at one point in October, it was like 30 cents per ounce per day in leasing costs or financing or the cost of being short. So, people that were short metal were

were screaming and and that was across the whole market. So, there was a scenario there where we took we shipped several hundred,000 ounces of silver to uh to Dubai to be sold into the Indian market. uh and you know everybody you know was I could tell they were they were very urgently needing that metal at that time and just very interesting dislocations that we've seen in the market. Tariffs is part of it. Physical demand especially in Asia is part of it. Uh but it's it's been an exciting

market. >> I think exciting is definitely the right word. And talking about disconnects in the market, I wondered if you can go into what's going on in China a little bit more because I was hearing for a while maybe less so right now you can you can tell me about the big premium for silver in China. You're mentioning that China is a big refiner of silver. So what are you seeing as China's role in this run in the silver price that we've been seeing? >> Yeah. Well, one thing that I've noticed,

I wouldn't say I'm an expert on that because we're not heavily involved in that market ourselves, but I did I have noticed first of all the last two to three months that Sunday night when the silver market opens almost every time silver goes higher that the last couple weeks has been maybe the the only exceptions to that. That indicates a lot of the demand is coming from that part of the world uh which is more of a physical oriented market whereas the comx in particular is very much a paper

leveraged market. Um, and so you can definitely feel this demand and sort of draw coming from Asia. As I mentioned, you know, there's there's a lot of appetite for metal to be shipped over there for refining and then it would almost certainly stay there because why would anyone take the silver and ship it back and get paid less because there's a premium there. I don't know that the premium is as high as I've heard it um, you know, talked about on the internet. you know, maybe two, three, $4 is is

more. But again, I don't I don't think that I'm an an expert on that because I'm not really heavily involved in that market. But there's definitely a premium there and it varies. We're seeing we're seeing different dislocations. Also, London right now is almost back down to the comx uh spot price or or current current uh month price. But uh there have been times where there have been, you know, a dollar spread there as well. So there's definitely tightness in London, tightness in India, physical

tightness in Asia, in China in general. Um, and and probably a little bit of a glut in the US. Uh, uh, and and there would be that would be satisfied if the refining capacity was there. Then we could get more 39 silver out and and um, you know, things would start moving a little more smoothly. But it it's a it's a dynamic market and it's changing weekly. Um, it's really interesting. You have to pay close attention. If you don't know what you're doing with hedging and uh transportation and just

your your you know your your flows of how you source metal, you can get into into a lot of trouble or find yourself not having the metal you need. Uh it's it's a very active situation. >> It definitely is. And just I think one more point on silver. Another point of concern that I've been noticing recently is about comics inventories and the ability to meet people who are standing for delivery there. So I wonder is that something you can weigh in on? >> Well, okay. So I mean it it early this

year or I should say last year there was that um that that premium in New York versus London and that caused the metal in the comics to rise substantially. I think it was in the low 300,000 or 300 million range of ounces in silver and then it went to over 500 million and now it's dwindled to uh under 400 million. It's definitely coming down. I the the thing they're focusing on is the registered category which recently dipped under 100 million and that is I think that is worth watching carefully.

I don't know that you know there's an imminent you know default or issue. I I I kind of doubt it. I know that there's definitely metal coming off the exchange because we are taking metal off the exchange and it's a great place to source metal if you know how to do that. Uh but uh it's hard to say. I mean I think you know virtually all the not v the vast majority of contracts settle without physical delivery. Um there are more deliveries happening for sure but there's still a lot of metal there. But

I don't I just don't think it's imminent. I think that there's definitely an ongoing drain and I think a lot of it is moving out of the country uh where there's a higher premium. I mean that's basically what I mean that's what economics will do. I mean that's how it works. There's a higher premium over here. People are going to arbitrage that. They're going to look at the transportation cost. They're going to look at the time cost of money and figure out how much more of a premium do

I need to get before I can capture that profit. And you know $2 to $3 in China is enough. A $1.50 50 in Dubai is enough to to draw the metal metal out of the US because the cost of transportation and financing is less than that. So if you know how to do it, uh you're going to do it and a lot of players are and that is causing a drain. But I I I hesitate to predict, you know, the imminent collapse there. Uh you know, that's that's been talked about for years. The system is currently working. It's definitely under

pressure. It could happen quickly, though. And admittedly, um it could. Yeah, I think that's a very fair answer. So, thank you for going into that one with me. And if we take a step back and look again at gold and silver a little bit more broadly. So, you said the conversation you see prices going higher. Maybe we're in a holding pattern for a little while. Is there a particular factor or factors that you think could be the trigger for the next like higher for gold and silver? >> Well, I think the stock market will

definitely be a trigger for gold. I don't know about silver, honestly. I think silver could get caught in the downdraft a little bit there, but you know, the the situation otherwise is so strong for silver with the the broad demand and also the supply situation that I think it will do better in a stock market downdraft than it normally does. But uh I think I think gold is going to respond really well to any kind of problem in the stock market. Um the ddollization [clears throat] trend that we that we have going on is

ongoing. I mean gold is now the number one reserve asset of central banks. It was only a few years ago that it surpassed the euro. Now it's surpassing the dollar. Uh and that's a that's a trend that is going to continue. Um the deglobalization also plays into that. If people are doing less trade with the United States, they have less less reason to hold dollars. So um you know, I'm I'm looking for any number of things. I think I I would not be wanting to be short gold or short silver in this

environment for sure. >> Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a a fair point to make. Maybe we talk a little bit about the Federal Reserve. Usually I check in with you on what's happening there. And it's kind of an interesting situation because we're approaching the end of Powell's term. We have a new Fed chair coming in. I know there was some debate about whether he was going to fall in line with Trump's desire for lower interest rates. Any thoughts from you on what we could see

coming from the Fed in 2026? >> I I mean, all of this talk of a tight Fed never It's always sounds so ridiculous. I don't know why the the Fed is by design intended to be an inflationary creating machine. I mean that that is it's an inflation creating machine. That is the system. It's the only thing they can do. There's way too much debt. Worsh may be good good at running the he he has a knowledge of all the mechanics and and he was involved in the QE stuff and so forth. But him being

hawkish, I mean, I think that's way overblown. Um what's interesting, I I met him a few years ago and I asked him a question. And I I met him at a private reception and then uh at the ComX gold dinner I publicly asked him in front of a thousand people I asked him uh you know Mr. Worsh is the United States government involved in the gold market and if it is what are the purposes of those transactions and he basically danced around his basic answer was well it's less than you would think which was

to me was that's a yes it is involved and then but then he sort of minimized it saying but you know it's important the dollar is strong and we need to make sure that we the IMF has a role and that there are times that we need to get involved in stabilizing the currency markets so he I mean this is a guy who knows what what's been done behind the scenes. He's been a little more honest about it than other people in the banking world, central banking world. So, uh I'm I'm curious what happens at

the hearings and whether he's he will be asked questions of that nature and how he'll answer them. But I again on the issue of interest rates, I mean, Trump wants lower interest rates. He nominated uh Worsh. Worse is going to give him lower interest rates. Um the idea of a hawkish Fed is is a fiction. There's no such thing. To me that makes sense as well and really interesting to hear that you've actually spoken to him. I don't think I've talked to anybody else who has and I think this also gives us a a

good segue. Usually we spend some time talking about sound money policies in the US and you mentioned before we turn the camera on that there are some state level developments that are concerning to you. So I wanted to open up the floor and ask you your thoughts on that. >> Yeah. So over the last 10 uh 14 13 years or so, Money Metals has been heavily involved in promoting sound money policy. There's a project we support called the Sound Money Defense League. I think you've had JP on here before. Um

and you know there 10 years ago there wasn't much appetite for these issues. People didn't understand it. There wasn't much interest. We had very few bills and that has slowly accumulated and now it's turned into a lot of momentum for sound money and gold related, silver related policy at the state level. And some of the biggest things that we've encouraged is removal of taxes, which are the sort of the primary impediment to remmonetizing gold and silver. You i.e. the the taxes when

you buy and the taxes when you sell, the friction. Um these are very meaningful impactful, you know, impediments really to gold and silver ownership. Uh and states have been removing these taxes at at especially the sales tax almost completely gone. There's only five states left now. there when we started there were uh 20 that had sales tax. Um income tax is the next uh area. There's about 14 states that have removed income tax from uh the sale of gold and silver in the US. Uh states are now talking

about gold reserves. We got Utah, Wyoming, uh Ohio, and uh even Texas owns gold. Texas pension fund uh public pension funds own go gold gold as as as an asset in their portfolio. There's many other bills on this. So there's all this appetite and most of these bills are unopposed or you know it's usually a lack of understanding is why they don't pass. There's not like a constituency that's you know anti-gold going in there and and opposing. But anyway the point is we've been having all this success

and there's more interest and it's not just our efforts but of course the circumstances you know inflation has been out of control government intervention the economy during COVID and so forth. Big issues brought people to this issue and people are kind of realizing what's happening and they want to do something. At the same time, some opportunists have come in with proposals to basically try to get their product launched by a state as a way of getting new customers and and we've seen new new

ideas come in that are actually quite bad that are fascist, if you will. They're basically business government partnerships um rolling out co-launching products. And not that this has really actually occurred yet, but there's a whole bunch of bills being promoted by a couple uh vendors basically that want a special deal with the state of Georgia or the state of Utah, which they just rejected it yesterday, unfortunately. But that what these do is basically put the government there there's proposals

to put the government in the middle of holding people's gold um selling them gold and even allowing them or giving them access to a governmentrun or managed payment system. So instead of all of these services that are already available and and competitive in the private sector, depositories, dealers, payment apps, and so forth, people are asking governments to partner with these particular businesses as a way of getting, you know, getting their business to get kind of more more customers. So we're seeing

this. We're very alarmed by it. It's it's picking winners and user losers. It's uh it's kind of a boondoggle. It it it puts the government in the middle of people's assets which custodian of their assets. People don't want the government involved in their gold. Uh that it's a complete it's a completely non non-starter idea from that standpoint. Um but it's being pushed and we're having to respond. And so I put that out there is you know just because it's a

gold bill does not mean it's good. um more government running the gold industry or or basically taking over the gold industry or competing with private businesses from the standpoint of the government and the taxpayers subsidizing that. Uh you know, it's it's it's not a good idea and we're out there trying to stop it. So, just putting that out there. Um just because it's a gold bill doesn't mean it's good. And and we're blessed, I guess, that there is so much

interest. So, people knee-jerk like, "Oh, gold bill good." And it's like, "Well, big government bad." like let's there there's good ways to do things and there's bad ways. So that's that's one of the big challenges that we're dealing with this year. >> I think the way you explain it certainly will make a lot of sense to people who like gold for the reasons that you've laid out. So you talked a little bit about the the work that you asked. What

what sound money initiatives are you excited for or pushing forward in the coming year? Well, um, okay. On the on the state level, uh, removing the last few sales tax, uh, uh, uh, laws involving gold and silver, we have Maryland, uh, Vermont, and Washington right now where we're trying to get that done. Um, there's still taxes in New Mexico and Maine. We don't have I don't think we have bill a bill in Maine this year, but we may have one in New Mexico. So, there's five states we're trying to defend. Virginia

looks like we could lose that. It's being sunseted, so we're working on that. Um income tax. We have bills in Oklahoma, Iowa. Um I believe Mississippi. Uh it was just done in in uh in Idaho. Gold reserves Idaho. Um there's there's one in West Virginia. So there's a there's a few of those types of bills that we're working on removing dealer regulation. There's a couple bills that that lessen the burdens on local dealers that we're we're pursuing. At the federal level, we have the audit

the gold bill. uh Senator Lee uh and Thomas Massie and several other members of the House have both introduced bills on in each chamber. This what's interesting about that bill is it's not just about auditing the gold, but it's looking at whether the uh government has has encumbered the gold. Have they pledged it? Have they leased it? Have they swapped it? You know, has it been immobilized into a transaction with the IMF? And all of this would have to be audited and disclosed. Another thing

that's interesting, people don't know this, Charlotte, that virtually all while 70% if maybe 70 to 75% of the US gold reserves, which you know, we think we know how many ounces there are and we have a list of supposedly what what form it's in, but about 70% of it is not pure and and basically unacceptable in the global market. It's 90% pure gold. And that's because it's from these coins that were melted down in the 1930s into what they call coin melt bars. and they're just not acceptable. You you

would have it would take years of refining to make this gold something that you could actually freely sell and transact. You know, I mentioned the problem with the refineries right now. You can't get 90 you can't get very much gold. you know, uh, if you wanted to use it, uh, in the market, you'd have to get it into 49's pure form, and it would take, as as I mentioned, years or certainly months to refine into the the US gold into a proper form that it could actually be used, you know, in the

market and accepted. Not that we want the government to do that, but but if you know, it should at least be there and be be in that form. So, the bill, the Senator Lee's bill, would refine the US gold reserves into 49's pure gold, and that would be a multi-year project. Um, there's also a bill about to be introduced uh in the Senate called the Silver Act. And that is another thing we're working on. And that that's silver stands for in this case it's an acronym and it stands

for uh system integrity through licensed vault expansion and resilience silver. And so basically what that will do is prompt the exchange to admit other depositories outside of the New York area. Most people don't realize, but all of the gold and silver backing the US markets are concentrated, all of the holdings behind these contracts are concentrated in depositories that are in the New York area within a within 150 mi radius. And so not only is that basically excluding 90% of the country geographically, but there's significant

banks and efforts, you know, uh, uh, manufacturing, production, and so forth all over the country. But all of the gold and silver is concentrated right around New York. That leads to systemic risk potential for, you know, black swans, uh, a weather event, a terrorist event. Um, it also involves, you know, restraint of trade. you know, if you've got just a small group of depositories and banks that control the entire physical uh market for delivery around the exchanges, the US basically the global silver market or this the New

York the the US part of the global silver market and gold market and it's all in one little area excluding the rest of the country that's ex you know excluding access it reduces uh competitiveness pricing and so forth. This is a bill that basically would prompt greater consideration of other locations because there's lots of gold and silver in Texas. There's a lot of gold and silver in Idaho. There's the depository in Las Vegas. There's one in uh there's another one in Nevada.

There's there's there many places. There's one in South Dakota. And none of these are part of the global market or the exchange. And that and that is something that hopefully will change if this passes. So, we're working on a number of things, but you know, in my case, I'm focused mostly on my money metals business and and the depository, the lending program, and first and foremost, uh are we're a dealer. Uh we mostly a retailer. >> Well, all of that is really fascinating.

So, thank you for going into it and especially the audit. We still get questions in the YouTube comments, people wondering what happened to that. So, >> down the memory hole. Yeah, it just it was a it was a you know what what was interesting when when they were talking about it back then, you know, Trump and Musk was like, "We need to do a live walkthrough. Wouldn't that be cool?" You know, wouldn't be it's like this is a frivolous way to think about this massive and important strategic asset of

the United States and and real custodians like Money Metals Depository or other depositories in the private sector. They do audits every year. They do audits every month. There are disclosures. everything is under controls, you know, dual controls, total, you know, both independent, external, internal. It's just part of what you do. The the federal government is is failing. And the lack of uh uh transparency and accountability there and not having valid audits, true audits, robust, repetitive audits, you

it's not even if you did it 40 years ago, even if it was done properly, that's not the end of it. It's an ongoing process. So, it's really a shame and it's a bad example that's being set by the federal government. Hopefully, there are no real issues there. We have done some research. There's definitely been some compartments opened, seals reaffixed after bars were moved, uh things were done without re audits. And that is an auditing no. There's no question that there were uh compartments

opened and resealed without new audits. And you know, our depository, anytime anything is open, it's re audited. you have to and so that at the very least there's there's some irregularities and and hopefully not worse, but we won't know till there's an audit. >> Well, let's hope we see some momentum in that direction. I'll I'll let you go. This has been a really great overview of what's happening in silver and gold, unless you had any final thoughts that

you would leave people with. >> Well, I'd say buckle up. I mean, that's I think we're in a an exciting time for the gold and silver market. That $50 level in silver being breached after 45 years. I know you've had Michael Oliver on. I kind of sub subscribe to his line of thinking uh that we could be moving into a new reality for silver and and I I don't think we're going to go it's not going to be a straight line, but I think these assets are getting attention. The

rest of the world seems to be in on it already to understand what's happening. It's the West and particularly the US that seems to be a little bit behind, but I think that that's going to change and I'm excited for that realization that that we see coming. It does seem like that day is approaching. Thank you so much for for coming on. This was great. >> Thank you. >> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Stephan Gleason with Money Metals. Thank

you for watching. If you like this video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. We'd also love to hear your thoughts, so leave us a comment below.