gold news

  I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is Gary Wagner. He's executive producer at the goldfor.com and a frequent contributor to Kitco News. Thank you so much for being here. Great to have you as always. >> Thanks for having me. It's been a while, but boy, there is a lot to talk about when it comes to gold and silver. >> That's exactly what I was going to say as well. It's been a little while since we last spoke all the way back in April.

So, there's there's a lot that has happened and I thought maybe it would be a good plan to start by taking a look back at gold in 2025. It's been a big year. If you were looking back at the year that we've had, how would you sum it up? What would be your your key takeaways on gold? >> Phenomenal. First of all, considering that the lows that came in the last week of December were around 2580. Let's round it up to 2600. We didn't hit 4,600, but we hit over 4,400. So, we've had a tremendous move.

What about $1,800 from the open around the beginning of the year to the all-time record high. Now, of course, from 4380, it did come down to about 3,900. Right now, we're sitting at about 4,200, which I believe is a critical level of support. I am referencing the February contract of futures and not spot so that uh our listeners are not confused. But we're at 42180 as of uh the market close in New York today and that's a phenomenal move considering where it was and where it is. >> Yeah, I think it that's a good word for

the year. Phenomenal. We've we've seen so much going on and I'm wondering if we can look a little bit more at what's happening with the price right now. I think since we saw in October that very big move up, now we've moved back a little bit as you said, but still historically high. A lot of investors were thinking that we might see more more of a pullback for gold after that big all-time high. Is that still something that could be coming? How how are you looking at it? Of course,

anything is possible, but considering the highs that came in where we had intraday highs very close to 4,400. We had a correction down to 3,900, very acceptable correction and really only uh that's one of the two corrections, major corrections that we've had this year ever since gold went parabolic. And it went parabolic middle of August at around 3,300. went to the all-time record, an acceptable correction, which I felt was absolutely necessary because the market, especially when it's

parabolic. Uh when you've got that kind of a rise, you tend to have a very steep fall. We did get a steep fall in terms of time distance because gold went from about 4,400 down to about 3,900. But sitting above 4,200 is again phenomenal. We've had an exceptional year. The one big correction that we had came right after a parabolic move to be expected. We needed to see prices kind of cool a little bit. And I think as we go into the end of the year, beginning of next, now we have volume starting to decrease

as we get into the heat of the holiday season and then of course New Year's. We do see volume going down and what that can cause is uh jumps in the market due to lack of liquidity because of low volume that of course will correct itself as traders return on the first of next year 2026. >> I think this is exactly the direction that I wanted to go in gold in 2026. A lot of people are looking at what's happening right now and they're wondering, "All right, what is going to be the next trigger for gold's new leg

up?" And I'm wondering what you see coming. What can we expect as we head into the new year? >> Well, headed into the new year, we've got one more Fed meeting that of course is going to conclude on Wednesday. Um, this being Monday when we're recording, it is highly anticipated that the Fed will implement a quarter% rate cut. If they do that, I believe that that is pretty much factored into pricing. I would look for gold to hold steady if by a slim chance because according to the

Fed watch tool, I believe it's 84 to 87% probability of that rate cut. It will be statements made as to future rate cuts that will really move the market. And right now, I don't think the Fed wants to rock the boat. I think that what they want to do is inflation has cooled a little bit, but it's still well above their uh 2% target. And so they want to bring that into alignment, but at the same time, they're cutting rates because what is the one tool that the Fed really has? Raising or lower lowering of

interest rates. Um when you have uh sustained high inflationary pressures and they are above their target, you typically leave rates alone or raise them. That would be how they would use that tool. They're doing the opposite to stimulate the economy and that's understandable because the labor market has been contracting. So they're dealing with both issues that call for different actions in terms of uh raising, lowering or keeping rates the same and they have chosen the more aggressive action of

cutting rates and that's their decision. We'll see how that reflects within the market as long as they do that. If they raised it by a half rather than a quarter basis point that would be a substantial differential that the market hadn't accounted for. And if they uh don't cut rates, that would be not as substantial. So, as long as they cut rates as anticipated, I believe through the end of the year, we should should see gold hold above 40 4,200. Um, it's $20 above that now.

39.80 80 wouldn't be good. But I believe 4200 because it is what we call a century mark tends to have a lot more uh emphasis or importance to it. Even though it's 4200 versus 4203 or 39.97 are very much the same price per troy ounce. It isn't perceived that way by uh traders as well as speculators alike. Well, and that was one of the topics I wanted to go over with you because we do have that Fed meeting coming up later this week. So, it sounds like the main points to watch will be not I mean, of

course, we'll watch what it does this this week, but it looks like it'll be important also to focus on what's what is projected out to 2026. So, anything else that you'll be really closely watching when it comes to that Fed meeting? Well, what I want to want listen for really is comments by Powell as well as a statement that won't come out till later, but it's really going to be the press conference by Powell that is always held following an FOMC meeting. And if he's asked about what

their intentions are for 2026, if they're looking to continue to lower rates uh to what we call a more acceptable level and that cannot be done if inflation is higher than their uh persistent target which is 2% and we are above that and the labor market is what they're trying to shore up because that has been contracting and so the rate cut will help that but will it hurt in terms of inflationary pressures. I don't believe it will, but we will have to see and that's what I'm going to listen for

is their intent if because we are getting a dot plot. And so what we will do is get more information on all of the Fed members, what their projected targets are for rate cuts next year. And that's going to be an important information once the statement is released and the dot plot. >> Yeah, it's always so so important to read between the lines there. And the other thing I wanted to mention when it comes to the Fed, I've been hearing a lot about the end of QT possibly setting the stage for the beginning of QE in

2026. So I was curious if that's something on your radar, something that you see coming next year. >> Well, if it's the end of quantitative tightening, um, that's one thing. I don't, as I say, I think the the Fed is going to play it close to the vest. They're going to they're going to want to definitely increase the labor market so that it's at a more acceptable level, but at the same time, their dual mandate is maximum employment and inflation at a target 2%. And it's always a balancing

act between those two items. Uh because you use diff the tool, meaning raising or lowering or maintaining interest rates in a different way for all of those scenarios. So, it's going to have to do a lot with is GDP at an acceptable level. Do we see the economic growth we're expecting? And is the labor market showing us signs of returning to some sort of um acceptable level, especially right around the holiday seasons. You know, we had a report uh when the government shut down, we only had the

ADP report that showed that there were a contraction in jobs. Now the reports are catching up now that the government's reopened. I think that was the longest shutdown in history and that certainly affected uh uh the uh Bureau of Labor Statistics release of reports. They are part of the government. So we missed some critical reports that came out over that extended period of a shutdown. Now we're getting back to where we're getting these reports as anticipated on a regular basis. >> Yeah, you can tell there's so many

unknowns right now. And I was going to ask you as this balancing act is going on, what is your outlook for the US economy next year, what what can we say with certainty right now, if anything, or do we really just need to wait and see? >> Well, I think that the economy has been pretty resilient considering the bumps we've had along the way. Um, the issue is the contraction in the labor market and that will work itself out over time. We don't really have any idea of if AI and the implementation is actually

affecting the labor market um because that's what many people have perceived would happen and that's been highly implemented really across the board with almost every company including ours. We use we use AI to some degree on a daily basis and and most of us do and I think that that is only going to get more saturated in terms of usage of AI and how that affects the labor market because of course AI has the ability to uh have the labor market contract. >> Yeah. Yeah. AI is definitely coming to

the forefront in in so many ways. So we'll have to be following that. And so you mentioned the economy has been a lot more resilient than people might have thought it would be. I think the same can probably be said about the stock market. So I wanted to get your take there as well. And of course there's the A angle AI angle there too where we have all the large companies that are are giving it such momentum. So what do you see coming for the stock market? Is that going to continue as it is in 2026 or or

will we see declines there? You know, I have been a broker and an analyst later on, but in 1983 is when I first got my license. And one of the things that my first mentor taught me is never consider it a stock market, but rather a market of stocks. And to that end, there are certain stocks that are going to be unknowns that come into the the headlines, but the big ones like Nvidia and other not so much blue chip stocks, but I I'll say the new set of blue chip stocks. Um those are going to be the ones to watch

and I think that they're going to do well, especially Nvidia. That's a big one. Uh Tesla took a a pretty big hit in the market today. Um but that was from some news that came out. And I think that overall the stock market is at at and near records that it has hit. I think that I'm not foreseeing a crash in the market. That would take a black swan event to occur. And of course, by the definition of a black swan event, it occurs without our knowledge or even ability to perceive that that's

upcoming. So without a black swan event, I would expect the market to stay within a range. It can come down a little but not a lot. It can continue to rise and again it's not a stock market in my eyes. It's a market of stocks. So there's going to be companies that continue to have exceptional performance. There will there'll be new stars that shine and and stars that have a supernova kind of blow up there and and they're not as strong as they were. But overall, I am very optimistic about

what equities, meaning companies in the United States, do over the next year. >> I like I like that way of looking at it. I think that helps to to put it in perspective a little bit better. So, we've taken a look at a number of factors that would be influential for gold next year. Is there anything else that is on your radar when it comes to gold that people might be missing that you're you're paying attention to in terms of price drivers? I mean, the biggest price driver to me

is the price itself. Um, the fact that it's at 4,200, the fact that it hit near 4,400, and the fact that it opened at around 2600, that's a lot of ground that gold has covered. So, there is always the opportunity uh for traders to come in and hit the market hard. I don't think that's the case because gold over the centuries has had an intrinsic value. That asset class, precious metals have always maintained uh in the eyes of investors as an asset that has intrinsic value. Uh real estate

is another one, but liquidity is different. But in terms of the precious metals, I would look for them to be rather they I believe that they'll continue to climb, although I expect a couple of hiccups along the way. And those hiccups will probably be due to unknown circumstances that come into the market. A big contraction in the labor market. Um big changes in political things in terms of geopolitical status. The wars that were going on this year will probably remain next year. And they have kind of

gone out of the news cycle. You don't really hear about any of the fighting and the conflicts. And there were times during this year, especially the year before, when geopolitical conflicts were on the forefront, moving gold up and down, and they seem to have less of an effect because it's not being talked about in the news cycle. That doesn't mean that conflicts aren't occurring. I mean, Russia and Ukraine is still huge. The Middle East is still huge. And when I say huge, I mean unresolved, and I

don't see a resolution in in either of those two conflicts. Uh Trump has has made an effort. The one thing I do give him credit for is to try to uh squash skirmishes um around and there is a truce right now uh between Ukraine and Russia. We'll see if that holds. That would be a great thing. Um if it heats up geopolitically in terms of conflicts, that will affect gold to the upside. Gold always reacts to negative things in the news or hardships in the news and peace is not one of them. I would rather see gold go down

and peace be uh prevalent. But I don't make the rules nor do I have any uh any factors in which I influence it. So we'll have to see what happens. But I am bullish for next year on gold. Extremely bullish on silver. And maybe we'll have some time to touch on that in a little bit. Of course, I definitely want to cover silver with you. Just before we go over in that direction, do you have a particular price range or price in mind for gold in 2026? >> If it continues to move up, we have a

hard ceiling at 4,400. So, if it moves off of the 42s to 43, I don't really see any technical resistance of it moving a couple hundred higher. However, even if it if it flirts with 4,400, that's the all-time absolute top and that's where maximum technical resistance is and it will take a very very strong fundamental backdrop to break through that one level. Other than that, I I see if it continues to move higher, I see it moving up to 44 and then finding resistance. If it moves lower, there is

really really strong support at about 3,900 to 4,000 per ounce. So, we've got that $400 range. Right now, we're sit right in the middle. >> Okay. So, we have a very good picture then of what you're thinking for gold next year. Let's let's take a look over at silver as well because that's really been the exciting one, especially in the last couple of weeks or so. We saw it get almost all the way up to 60 and you mentioned you're bullish. What What are you thinking of this move? Can we go

over how we got here and what we might see next from silver? >> Well, silver's in a pecarious place because of the speed at which it moved up. Considering that back as early as the last week of November, it was at $48. Silver's really been playing catch-up. We've had multiple new all-time record highs in gold, and silver stayed flat for so long. And then it took a lot of people by surprise because considering the move from $49 to almost $60. That's a huge move. Um a tremendous move. And

considering that silver was down, let me look at my chart. That's back in April. Around $29, it has doubled in price. And so next year if it continues higher, it's going to be interesting because whereas gold is off of the record high and we know where real resistance is, silver is really 5850 is uh the most active uh March contract and that's really really close to the all-time record intraday highs that were flirting with 60. 60 is a big number if it makes it through 60. Now, like we've seen in gold, we go into

uncharted territory. And as a market technician that looks at charts and previous actions and price points, it becomes very difficult to predict what a new all-time record high could be in [clears throat] silver because it's never been there. And as a market technician, I look at fundamentals. If the fundamentals move it higher, they will. But the technicals are going to be less important once we or if we break that $60 mark and go to new territory. There are really no technicals to look at. You can look at some oscillators

whether it's overbought or oversold. Typically, as it moves up and goes past records, it's going to be overbought. But if you look at for example stocks that tend to cycle for years and move in uh to higher levels, it remains overbought for quarters and years as it moves to higher ground. Whereas something like silver or gold, we see a a much greater fluctuation in terms of price. So 60s 60 is the mark we want to see if it's broken. If it does as a market technician, I have no information

to to pass on as to what it did last time it was at $61 because it's never been there. But then looking at what were the fundamentals that moved it higher, we can we'll need to look at those and scrutinize those to be able to determine if there's still energy for a continued upside move or whether it's going to consolidate or actually correct. >> Well, that's that's very interesting. So when we get into these scenarios where we don't have historical price action to

look back on and compare to, then you switch over and you look more at the fundamentals to try to determine where we could go. >> Well, absolutely. In terms of technicals, when you have a market that's within a range that has been, for example, gold at 4,200, it's been to 4,400. It's been as low recently as 3,900. And my god, it started the beginning of the year at just over 2600. So we've had close to a doubling in gold. We've had almost a doubling in silver in a single year. And there

haven't been many times in history when we've seen that kind of a percentage move. Um the big moves I remember were a,000 you know 800 to 1,000 and then of course the big one uh middle of 2011 when it went to 1900 and everybody including myself thought it was going to 2,000 and we watched as those longs just got eroded because they slammed the market and then it traded between 1,800 1900 for a period of time and then when it broke uh 1560 right around there it fell out of bed and then we had that

multi-year correction back in 2012 all the way up to the end of 2015 when it went to a,020 for an ounce of gold. My god, I'd like to be able to buy a lot of gold at 1,20. Um, the price has gotten restrictive in gold. You know, once it went past 4,000, I the accumulation the last of my big accumulations occurred at around 16,700 an ounce. And at 2000, I became not fragile about the price. But that's where I've seen it have uh have have some problems before. And so, did I sell any? No, I just held on to what I did

have, but I didn't accumulate more. And so, the question is for those that are buying physical gold or silver, do you accumulate at these levels? My answer is percentage- wise might you might want to reduce but you always want to accumulate at every price because a year 2 3 years down the road I believe gold will be higher and silver will be higher. These are not assets that will historically go down for a long period of time and stay there. Although we have seen that as I just referenced uh the move from 19 uh

just above 1900 and then a crash down to almost half the price at at 1,020. Could that occur again? Yes. But the fundamentals are going to play the critical role. What's moving the markets higher uh and not the technicals? I think that really helps to put it in perspective for people who are wondering what to do at these price levels. So, thank you for that. And I have one small follow-up question on silver that I want to ask you. I think this latest move that we've seen, it it started to happen

when we had that ComX disruption and I'm seeing a lot of questions from our audience about what was going on there. Is there a connection? Anything that you would share? Is is that on your radar? How are you looking at it? Well, that's always on my radar, but I always take that with a grain of salt the size of a table because a lot of times you get false information that will quickly come into the market and is disregarded. Um, whether there's a shortage, I I really want to look at how much they're

producing, especially in silver because it is so highly needed in industrial usage. um production is so much more critical than in gold because gold is used in technology but not to the same degree as silver uh because of costs and other things. And so for that reason we want to see what's what what's being mined out of the ground. Does it meet projections? Is it above or below expectation and use that as a filter rather than a disruption in the COMX because COMX is still paper unless you're taking delivery. anyone who's in

involved in futures trading including myself, we have to realize that we are we're trading paper, not the real thing. Now, when I buy physical gold, that's different because the physical gold I'm I'm actually I'm not putting it I like to look at it, but I'm not putting it away for me. Um, that's going to go to my kids and hopefully they don't sell it and goes to my, you know, my grandkids and stuff. But those are really long-term investments just like property is. It's not something like a stock that

I look for a certain move and I I'll get in and out. If I'm trading gold or silver, I'm looking at ranges. If I'm accumulating it, I'm looking at overall longer term moves and expectations of where it might be at the end of next year. >> Yeah. Again, I think that really helps me understand how you see it. And I think you've done a good job of covering what's going on in gold and silver. So, I'll let you go unless you had any final thoughts that you would want to leave

investors with as we're finishing the year and heading into the new year. >> Absolutely. I I do want to uh wish all of our viewers a happy, [clears throat] healthy, and prosperous new year. Underline the word happy and healthy because money is important. We can always make money, but happiness and health health is being critical. We don't we can control it, but we don't own it. um happiness we can own. Uh making sure we're in the right environment and I wish all of our viewers the most happy, healthy, and

prosperous of a 2026. >> Well, thank you so much. I think that's a very nice place to wrap up and we'll hope to talk again in 2026. >> You got it. Thanks so much for having me today. >> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is Gary Wagner. Thank you for watching. [music] 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.