gold news

 I received this message here and yes, this is a real message, but I have to conceal the person's identity so they don't get in trouble with their employer. And it comes from a contact of mine at a major European bullion producer saying that he thinks the confusion surrounding tariffs will have a huge impact, and those are his words, huge impact on product availability in the United States. Hello everyone, welcome to Bald Guy Money. And we start this week off from a USA Today article that presents a seven question basic

financial knowledge quiz that most Americans could not pass. In fact, only 4% of respondents answered all seven questions correctly. Now, we'll go over the questions in a second, but it's this very lack of financial literacy, this lack of basic financial education that is catching more and more Americans offguard in a weakening economy. one where more people are being forced to borrow money to pay for groceries due to lack of available funds and where 59% of Americans say they do not have enough

savings to cover a $1,000 financial emergency which is up from 44% in early 2024 when I last covered this stat and up from 43% in 2023 which means at current gold and silver prices more than half of Americans likely cannot afford a/4 ounce of gold or 30 o of silver. So, if you're a gold and silver holder watching this video, I hope that puts things into perspective for you and makes you feel grateful. Now, in order to fill these knowledge gaps as well as test your knowledge a bit, I want to start this video off with

the seven questions that most Americans could not answer to make sure you are all able to answer them. Once that's done, I have put together a few questions on the fundamentals of gold and silver. So, you can test your knowledge in that category and cover some relevant fundamentals you should be aware of that will be impacting gold and silver prices over the next 2 to 3 years. And to finish up, once we have that covered, I am going to elaborate on a topic I touched on in an expost this week, and that is tariffs. the fact that

major gold and silver distributors are cancelling orders from foreign countries. I am going to talk about what products are affected and if I see shortages of gold and silver products coming to the USA soon. But just before we dive in, please remember to check out www.summitmetals.com to join the growing number of my viewers who have become satisfied customers. And remember to take advantage of the 5 oz of silver at spot deal when you use the code new customer at checkout. Link to this deal is in the video description below. So

jumping in and I'm going to cover these quickly. So please pause the video at any time if you need more time to answer these questions and be sure to let me know in the comments section below how many of them you got right. But the first questions that Americans struggled to answer was, imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1% per year and inflation was 2% per year. After 1 year, how much would you be able to buy with the money in this account? And it's a multiple choice question. And

your options are more than today, exactly the same as today, less than today, or I don't know. So obviously the answer is less than today. If inflation is higher than the rate of interest you are getting and that should be counted once you factor in taxes on the interest payment, then your savings are losing value. Now on to the second question. Suppose you owe $1,000 on a loan and the interest rate you are charged is 20% per year compounded annually. If you didn't make any payments, how long would it

take for the amount you owe to double to $2,000? And your options are less than two years, 2 to four years, 5 to 10 years, or more than 10 years. So, this one was a bit harder, but the answer is 2 to 4 years. And for those of you who got this one wrong, remember the rule of 72. You can divide 72 by the interest rate or rate of return in order to find out approximately how long it will take for your investment or debt to double. And if this is the first time you're seeing this, please screenshot this.

Now, now on to the third question. Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per year. After five years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money in the account to grow? Your options are less than $12, more than $12, exactly $12, or I don't know here. Obviously, the answer is more than $12. In fact, you'd have $12 after the first year of interest acrruel with that amount reaching $11041 at the end of the fifth year as you have to add 2% every year to your

starting amount. Now, on to the fourth question. Buying a single company's stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund or ETF. Is this statement true or false? And your options are obviously true, false, or I don't know. And the answer to this one is false. Owning a single stock leaves you totally exposed to one company. And although it can lead to a better return versus a diversified mutual fund or ETF, as long as you pick a good stock, that lack of diversification means you are

more exposed to risk. Now to the fifth question and many Americans struggled with this one and this question is if interest rates rise what will typically happen to bond prices? Bond prices will rise, the bond prices will fall. They will stay the same. Number four, there is no relationship between bond prices and interest rates. Or your fifth option is I don't know. And I certainly hope everyone who watches these videos regularly knew this one because the answer is number two. They will fall.

And as this image here shows, that is precisely what happened as rates went from basically zero during the C19 pandemic up to 5.25% to 5% which caused the banking scare we saw in March 2023 in the USA as many banks became insolvent due to the fact that they used too much deposit money to buy bonds. And as those bonds went down in value, those banks had troubles giving money back to the depositors who left their money with the banks as they came to withdraw it because the banks who had used the money

to purchase bonds were selling them at a lower price than they were purchased for in order to raise cash to pay their depositors. And this is the precise problem that Silicon Valley Bank had and why it failed. Now, on to the sixth question. A 15-year mortgage typically requires higher monthly payments than a 30-year mortgage, but the total interest paid over the life of the loan will be less. Is this statement true or false? And your options are true, false, or I don't know. So, the answer to this

question here is true. If you borrow the same amount of money at the same interest rate, paying it off faster, although requiring a higher monthly installment means you end up paying less for the loan in total. And sadly, many respondents thought because you pay a lower monthly installment on the 30-year loan that you end up paying less in interest, which is not true. Unless of course inflation is high and you have a fixed rate, but that's maybe a topic for another video on real interest rates.

And now on to the final question on the quiz. And this is one that Americans really struggled with. And the question is, which of the following represents the greatest probability of getting a disease? And your options are a 1 in 20 chance, a 25 out of every 1,000 chance, 2%, or I don't know. So the answer on this one is a 1 in20 chance as that is 5% which highlights people's issues in calculating percentages. So please let me know how you did in the comments section on these questions. But now to

the advanced bit to prepare you for what's happening right now as it relates to gold and silver. And this first question is on a topic that we covered recently. And the question is when we enter an interest rate cutting cycle, so when interest rates are going down, the prices of gold and silver typically do what? They go up, they go down or there is no relationship between the two things. So the answer here is gold and silver prices typically rise in an interest rate cutting cycle. And if you

remember this image that I've shown you in past videos, the price of gold every time since 2000 has gone up during an interest rate cutting cycle. And even when the markets have crashed, the price of gold has not revisited the price it was at when the Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time. which tells us people who are waiting to buy gold again at $2,000 an ounce in a big crash will likely be paying $4,000 an ounce or more once they finally realize prices aren't coming back to that level.

And for those of you who are asking about silver, please remember that prices also follow gold up in an interest rate cutting cycle with typically one or two revisits of the price silver was at when the Federal Reserve cut rates for the first time, which silver has already revisited that $29.35 level twice now since the Federal Reserve cut rates last year. So, does that mean it's blue skies ahead for silver? I'd like to get past the summer before declaring victory, but silver is holding up very well right now above $33

an ounce. And at that price, it's still a buy as far as I'm concerned. Now to the second question in our precious metals quiz. Since central banks increased their gold buying in 2022, how have gold and silver performed versus the stock market? And your options are they have performed worse than stocks. they have performed better than stocks or they have performed about the same as stocks. So the answer here is they have performed better than stocks. And it's very important to understand how and

why. So, if you allocated $200 to silver, gold, and the S&P 500 every month since January 2022, and this includes a 10% premium above spot on the purchase of both gold and silver, you will see that they have both outperformed the S&P 500 on a dollar cost average basis. So, no funny business of picking a date that favors one over the other. This is the best way to measure it. But that's the how of outperforming. The real question here is why have they outperformed and why do I mention 2022 as a watershed moment? So

we regularly cite 1971 as being this magical moment for gold and silver from which we have to measure absolutely everything. And some people think it's the only date that matters for gold and silver because that's when Richard Nixon officially took the US dollar off of the gold standard. But that's not true. That's not the only date that matters for gold and silver. These important events for gold and silver are happening all the time. They don't happen often, but they happen. Sometimes propelling

gold and silver up and sometimes holding them back just like in 1989 when central banks chose the US dollar over gold as their main reserve after the USA won the cold war. That is one of those moments. And once it happens, once one of those moments happens, the trend tends to stick around for a long time. And in 2022, when the United States violated the neutrality of the US dollar by freezing Russian assets, the world turned to gold. And you can see it in the image here on the screen. And I think we're going to look back and

remember that moment as one of those moments that propelled metals, so gold and silver to higher levels. And this is why I remain so bullish on metals today. Now to the final question of our gold and silver quiz and it is a high gold to silver ratio is usually an indicator that precious metals prices will do what? And your options are they will go up, they will go down or there is no relationship between the two things. Now although this isn't written in stone, the observation that I have made is gold

leads the metals market which leads to a higher gold to silver ratio like the one we are seeing today. And as gold becomes too expensive and as the metals market becomes more attractive to speculators, that is when the generalist money gets greedy. And we've heard Rick Rule say this on my channel before. And they start buying up silver causing a major correction in the gold to silver ratio. And I've marked those moments on the image here at which point we experience a big move up for both gold and silver.

And with the gold to silver ratio being above 100 today, that to me is another strong indication that this bull market for gold and silver is only just getting started. So, please let me know in the comments section how you did on this part of the quiz. And while you're there, let me know if this type of review is useful for you and if you enjoyed the quiz format of this part of the video. Now, just before we discuss possible gold and silver shortages in the United States as a result of tariffs, which is a topic you will not

want to miss, please remember that if you want to diversify your hard asset portfolio into land, please visit channel partnerofland.com. They have beautifully located lots like this one here in Arkansas for $2,495, which is less than the price of 1 ounce of gold. Or this one here in New Mexico for people looking to speculate on undeveloped areas for $995, which as you can see is about the price of 30 ounces of silver today. So check them out at landofland.com and remember to use code bald guy to get

$300 off your purchase and get something that can't be printed by the Federal Reserve and get it before the Federal Reserve starts printing. Okay, so with that covered, it's now time to answer this video's viewer question. And please remember, you can submit your questions in the comments section of every video I do. I pick one question to appear in every single video. And you never know, I may pick your question to appear in my next video. And this week's question comes from Michael Porter. And to be

fair, he asked it three weeks ago, but it is as relevant today as when he asked it. And what Michael wants to know is how far gold and silver prices can fall now that we know tariffs will not impact gold and silver bullion. Now, to quickly answer the first part of the question, how far will gold and silver prices fall? So I gave these targets to you all on April 6th if you remember and the day after we experienced a big but temporary pullback where silver futures contracts even entered that target pullback range

that I had given. Now will we revisit those April 7th lows again? I am behaving right now as if we will not and I'm continuing to purchase on my schedule as if those prices are not coming back because considering all of the things I've just shown you, that being the very strong case that metals prices are headed even higher from here, the only thing that makes sense right now is to continue buying on a schedule. And if you've only just discovered precious metals and you want to get some

because you're concerned about inflation or war, which we saw major escalations for this weekend, then get on that schedule now. Visit Summit Metals and start today because those exceptions that you say apply to gold and silver bullion products in the USA when it comes to tariffs don't exactly apply to everything you may think it does. Because the definition of bullion here according to Miam Webster is gold or silver as so much metal specifically uncoined gold and silver in bars or ingots which means anything that is

deemed to be numismatic or have semi-numismatic value whether that's older forms of European coins that usually come along with very low premiums above spot like duckets or collectible products like the lunar series bars from Pomp Swiss could see a tariff applied to them. And right now there is a lot of confusion about what is going to be considered bullion and what is considered to be non-bullion tariff applicable product. And although I don't want to speculate on what exactly is going to have tariffs applied

and what's not going to have tariffs applied to it, I received this message here. And yes, this is a real message, but I have to conceal the person's identity so they don't get in trouble with their employer. And it comes from a contact of mine at a major European bullion producer saying that he thinks the confusion surrounding tariffs will have a huge impact and those are his words huge impact on product availability in the United States. And what I will say about this is if these tariffs end up getting applied to even

semi-numismatic coins like duckets or franks, it means a lot of affordable products will disappear from US shops, forcing a growing number of people who are interested in buying gold and silver into a market with less product to satisfy their needs, which could lead to higher premiums. Maybe not right away, but somewhere down the line as I've suggested in past content. And let me add, as somebody who worked previously before I started in my YouTube journey in a highly taxed industry, these tariffs can also lead to issues in

identifying which products are tariff-free and which products tariffs apply to, causing delays in the clearance of products on a specific customs agent level, which means that there could be issues even associated with bullion products getting into the market causing premiums to rise as a result. So, Michael, I hope that answers your question. And to everybody watching, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you think that somebody in your life needs to hear this message, please don't be shy. Share my video with them. Leave

a like, leave a comment below, and leave your questions. You never know. As I said, I may answer them in a future video. And with that covered, I want to wish you all a fantastic day ahead. As I say at the end of all of my videos, please remember to take care of yourselves and take care of each other. See you in the next one.