I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and here today with me is David Morgan, publisher of the Morgan Report. Thank you so much for being here. My very first interview of 2026. Happy New Year. >> Well, happy new year Charlotte and all the viewers and listeners and uh appreciate being the first. Thank you. >> Great to have you here. We have so much to go through today. Definitely. We're going to spend time looking at what's coming in 2026 for silver. But before we do, I thought we could take a look back


at 2025. We last spoke about 3 months ago when silver was still below $50 per ounce. And you had mentioned that getting past that level could be a Rubicon moment for the metal. So, at this point, is it safe to say that silver's had that Rubicon moment? [clears throat] >> Yes, it's very safe to say that. And just elaborating a bit, um there were some commentators saying, you know, we blow through 50 and away we go. I was a little more circumspect. I said, I think we will struggle around 50 for a while


and might have to punch through it another time or two, but once it becomes uh you know, not resistance, but a a floor, in other words, then we're on our way. And just to add a little further is I actually being the conservative thinker that I am in the next report after we gone through 50 in my private premium service said I could see gold pulling back down and I think I said 38 3850 silver perhaps as low as 45 and you know I got some push back on that but you know my people aren't looking for the signified move anyway


[clears throat] and I really put it a caveat on that that after continue to go above 50 and then 60 and then you know moving further. I said the further it gets away from from 50 the less likely it is to go below that but it could in the event of a really sharp market sell off. In other words, a really big 2008 type of event and in that kind of a situation I could see silver perhaps going below 50 maybe gold you know 38 level. So, I just want to get that out in the public domain, Charlotte, because


you know how the trolls are and I don't pay much attention to them, but if they understand the bigger picture and what my thinking was behind it, I think it not justifies it, but makes more sense. >> Yeah, I think of course it's always good to keep the big picture in mind and get your views out there right away. So, I want to dig into this move a little bit more. I know that silver is known for violent moves, both spoke to the upside and downside, and a push past 50 has been in the cards for some time, but


what would you pull out as the the key drivers that actually ended up getting us there? >> Well, it's something that I've been saying on and off for, you know, two decades or more, and it is that at some point in time, the physical reality will take over the paper paradigm. And once you have a physical need for the metal that cannot be saved or with contract paper silver or cash settlement then you will see a new market and that has taken hold a few times along the last 20 years but it's been very short in duration. It


happened it happened in the retail side a few times where retail product was extremely difficult to find and it was uh bit up because of you know the price mechanism to supply supply and demand and but it really hadn't happened on what I call the silver market commercial bar market the market that all the derivatives are based upon and that now has taken place and it continues as we speak and that's why in my later updates I've stated that we're still in the price discovery everybody. I truly


believe that what the true price of silver is in US dollars, Canadian dollars, I do not know. I think it's north of a hundred in US dollar terms, but it could be much higher than that. The market knows more than all of us, but the way the market is acting and reacting to these sharp sell-offs is unlike anything we've seen in the past other than a very brief window of time from like the last day of uh December 1979 through the the middle of January, January 21st, 1980. In that time frame,


we saw the kind of moves we're seeing now. I think that's a good way to put it, that price discovery phase that we're still in for silver. And on that note, one of the questions that I've been seeing going around from our audience is this CME Group margin requirements, I believe they've been raised now multiple times for silver. How is that playing into what's happening here? Is this normal thing to have happen? Can you weigh in on that? >> Certainly. you know I try to be


objective uh as possible you know and there's a lot of things in the geopolitical system I don't like but as far as the exchange is concerned I think it gets a bad rap from my perspective certainly there's been you know some manipulation I mean I wrote a chapter on it in the silver manifesto and I' I've made a very very strong case for it nonetheless I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of how the operation actually works and why margin requirements are moved up on both


sides and a lot of time it can be done to let's say protect a certain interest group but not always in this case it did shake out a lot of players and that's the purpose of it because the reason most of the time there's almost always exceptions margins are raised at the CME for silver for cocoa, for whatever the commodity might be. It's because the exchange, which has the top responsibility for for final settlement, is in trouble. There's too much leverage. There's too much, let's say,


momentum in one direction or the other, and they need to calm the market down. So, I'm really not against it. Someone said, uh, on my Twitter, push back on me, which is fine. And I just replied, they will continue to raise margin requirements once, twice, three, four, five, whatever it takes for the market to, let's say, cool off. And of course, that's exactly what happened. >> Yeah. Okay. If you put it that way, I can I can definitely see how it works here. And the other thing that I wanted


to go into with you when it comes to silver and the tightening market here, we've talked, I'm sure, multiple times in the past at this point about the potential for big companies, for example, a Tesla to look at what's going on and say maybe I should start and look at securing my supply of silver. So, are we are we getting closer to that point? I know we've had Samsung recently partner up to bring a a silver mine back online with a company. So, anything you'd share there? >> Absolutely. A couple things. One is I


wrote an open letter to Elon Musk a few years back about the silver situation and why he w might want to consider, you know, buying physical silver andor a mining company. As far as Samoa's concerned, I kind of laugh in a way and it's not funny, but uh one of our key picks in our more speculative side in the Morgan Report was Aino Gold and Silver and I've known David Wolfin for years. In fact, I knew David Wilin's dad. And anyway, the point is that Aino had an offtake agreement with Samsung.


It's probably at least a decade old uh Charlotte. So, one of the few and you know, it's in the their reports and you know, David and I would talk about it from time to time that that was a forward-looking electronics firm that understood the significance of silver and securing us a direct supply early on. So, this one that we're talking about is one that's just, as far as I know, a secondary source that they have added to it. And lastly, on top of that, it's got I've not been there and


witnessed it, but these sources are so solid that I am convinced that there are um some Chinese that are looking in Peru to secure silver either in doray or concentrate form uh before it's put on the on the premarket, we'll say. So, I think there is more to that than a rumor. Samsung is provable. the um going to uh the silver belt from Chile all the way through Mexico uh is [clears throat] verifiable and I think you're going to see it continue because once a large entity such as we'll just throw Tesla out there


everybody knows that and says I need to secure a good solid silver supply I'm going to buy a silver mine rather than go through the exchange or refiner once that takes place you'll see I think more more of it take place. So what I'm suggesting is that Samsung's already done it uh and is continuing to do so. You might see others emulate that kind of a thing. And also just to stockpile the raw silver. I mean that's the product that they all need. and to look ahead and see we've had a deficit for


five years perhaps and we have a deficit at least going out five years in the future. Even with a major recession, there's still so much of a buildout in the electronics world, AI and data centers and need for electricity and even infrastructure repair a lot of the grid in North America that um you could have a recession and still not slow down the need for silver and actually if there's a recession be a boost to silver primarily because copper mining which is 27% of the silver market comes from


copper mining. If that's curtailed because of a big recession, you actually tighten the supply of silver, not actually opening it up. >> Yeah, great great point on the recession and copper mining as it relates to silver. And just another related point that I've seen questions about from our audience during this silver frenzy, we've started to hear that uh companies in India and and China are reaching out even to silver juniors. So, companies that aren't producing silver at the


moment and talking about trying to secure supply from them. So, is that something that you've been hearing about? Is there is there truth to what's being said there? >> There is truth to it. Yeah, there was an interview. I forget who did it. I give them credit. I think it was Kuna Silver. And uh definitely um that's been verified by two CEOs in the mining business. I trust them both explicitly. They they wouldn't lie to me or the public. I mean, they're good good guys. And and surprisingly, in the


second one, uh there was a bid spread between the current spot price and what um this approach was willing to pay, which was substantially above the spot price. And that's what I've always thought. And I never was able to get the exact contract out of David Wolfin. It's private. It's it's a business deal. But I did allude to the fact that it would be something like a spot price plus 5% based on the average spot price per quarter, something like that. In other words, if I want to secure a deal and


make it friendly, I would be paying the bare minimum silver price on an average basis because you can't trade it every day. You're buying a long-term contract. But I'd sweeten the deal. I'd say, "Okay, if the average price is X, I'm going to pay you X plus 5%." That way, you know, we got a deal that's going to be locked in for years, that decade or the life of mine or whatever, and both sides are happy and they gladly pay um, you know, an extra 5%. I'm just making


up that number. I don't know even if that exists. That's the way I would write the contract. The idea being that I've made a secure investment for the ongoing business activities that I have to to maintain. >> That's that's really interesting to get your take on that. So thank you for going into it. On the note of China, I also wanted to raise the point of these export controls on silver. So there's a lot of questions surrounding that and how impactful it could be to the market.


How how would you put it? Is this going to be significant for silver? >> I'm not going to call it nothing burger, but I do think it's overdone. Uh, I did speak with uh Mike Dorenzo and I know he's popular and unpopular, but I've known Mike from almost day one when I started on the internet with the Morgan Report and I didn't get a lot of new information out of Mike. Uh, but from what I've been able to determine reading what it says, trying to take it as factually as I can, it's overblown.


There's already agreements in place with like the big exporters. They're just making sure China's making sure that they could track and trace basically all the silver flowing out of China. But it is not stopping the flow out of China. And this is what I discussed with Mike. And that is if I'm XYZ mining in Peru and I ship over my concentrate to be refined in China, which by the way is about 60% of all silver refining, I'm going to get my product back. It's a deal's a deal. And they're not going to


mess that up. At least in my strong view. Now, as far as what the um the outflow is, will it be different than the original contract? Probably not. But if there isn't a licensing agreement with the exporter, there will be one now. And I think it's really just more to get a handle on what the flows are in and out than stopping silver flows to the west. And I want to go one step further. It may be in your question deck. I'm not sure. But people say, "Well, let's um, you know, we'll quit


exporting our silver." I mean, I almost had to, you know, throw out my coke. I was coughing so loud because first of all, going back into the silver eagle program. This sounds off base, but we'll get into make a real important point. When the strategic stockpile was used to build the silver eagle program, after they ran out of the stockpile, the legislators when they enacted the silver eagle program said, "We can only use domestic silver and in the production of our US coins." Well, they found out in a


big hurry that we don't mine enough silver to even keep up the silver eagle program, let alone all of the electronics that passes to the United States of America. It was ludicrous. So they immediately changed the bill and so we could source silver from anywhere we could get it to make the coin program. Well, the coin program in a good year is 40 million ounces, which is a pretty fair amount of a of a pressed coin from the government. But it pales in comparison to the industrial need of silver of like 500 billion ounces per


year. So, I'd laugh because to restrict the amount of silver going out of the United States from domestic production is such a pitifully small amount. We're in we're in the opposite driver seat. We're kind of the beggar saying, "Please, please, please, can I get silver from anywhere?" So, I just want to set the record straight on that one. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's great to go into. And it does tie into where I wanted to go, which is I think since we last spoke, silver's been added to the US critical


minerals list. So I was going to ask you about the significance of of that and what it could mean for silver mining in the country. Do you think it actually makes an impact? >> Absolutely. I think it will. It really depends on the flow rate. I mean the silver strategic stockpile when we went to silver eagle program was 139 million ounces. Based on the petroleum reserve, the strategic petroleum reserve and looking on a per capita basis, I would guesstimate that we're looking at least 100 million ounces of of silver needed


for uh the strategic stockpile. Maybe the 140, maybe 200. I pro they the government of the United States probably does not have a number right now, but let's just use that 100 million talking. In that case, the average retail purchase of silver on a physical trajectory is about 200 million ounces a year. So if you added 100 million in one year, which I think is reasonable, could be two, could be five, I don't know, could be three months, I don't know. But it was 100 for the year. You're adding


about 33% additional physical requirement on top to what's already an average offtake, which of course we're above average in offtake now. Um, not only North America wise, I'd have to look at the numbers. We don't have them yet, but I suspect here forward 20 2026 onward, I think there going to be a lot of retail comes back into the market at 70 and 75, believe it or not. because where else are you going to go as the empire starts to crumble more and more you know what just took place in Venezuela is an


absolute verification of the two books called resource wars so I'll give it back to you Charlotte [clears throat] >> thank you for going into that as well I think it's good to have that context there overall it looks like silver's silver's big price move has created a lot of interesting situations online I've been going through questions I'm seeing from our audience and one of the things I've been noticing out there is this this proliferation of videos and information.


I'm thinking about the the AI Asian guy videos. I'm sure there's other ones out there. I wanted to get your take on that because from what I understand, this is not entirely false information. There's true information there mixed in with information that is not true, which is very tricky. So, what's your take on what's happening there? >> Well, it's kind of a couple things run across my mind. One is the old adage from PT Barnum, you know, and most of your viewers probably don't know who


that is, but it was, you know, just give me news. Good news or bad news, as long as they're talking about you, it's essentially a good thing. So, the AI Asia guys certainly, I think, got not only the silver crowd enthused, but a lot of Johnny come lately that are just starting to lick in the silver uh pretty pretty hyped up. And there's a lot of factual information in most those AI generated uh missives on on the YouTube channels. However, that's not 100% [clears throat] truthful all the way


through. One of the main ones it's so easy to verify is what's stated about the COMX being drained and that the COMX is at the lowest level it's been in 20 years and there's only I think the number is 35 million ounces of silver in the register category. All that was true about a year or so ago. I'd have to check my records but right now we are at um and I don't have it in front of me. I didn't quite prepare but that's in my head. I think we're at least 135 million


houses in the registered category. So that's a lot more than 35 million houses. So that's readily available to be distributed out of the comx into whomever buys the physical contracts. On top of that, there was u an indication on X and I forget who did it about um what the first notice days were like. And he went into pretty good detail the truth about uh what's so often misunderstood about standing for delivery, what actually takes place. and he went through that. But the uh amount


of transfers were rather substantial, but still about 4 and a half% of that number I just gave you. So the indication from the X hosting was that, you know, this is going to drain out, you know, so much silver, it's going to be a hardship. And the reality was they were using the wrong number as far as the amount of registered silver in the CMAX. And as I just said, it was a, you know, less than 5%. So certainly that would The other thing is how that silver moves around. Now, a lot more in recent


years has moved out of the ComX warehouses. In other words, a semi-truck pulls up, they load the pallets on there, they bail, they don't really do bailment, but they do a manifest in and out, serial numbers, etc., and it it leaves. It goes somewhere. It goes on a boat. A lot of times that shift between owners wasn't movement out of the comx warehouses. It was a retagging. So some two pallets of fine silver would have HSBC on the tag for example. Those tags would come off and you throw on JP


Morgan on and the silver really didn't move. The location stayed put the ownership change. So I want to get that out there as well. But no, there's been a big there is a big physical demand for silver. it is taking care of of the price mechanism. There are disparities between different locations and I wouldn't say it's a mess. It's very very intriguing. So I don't want to belittle any of that which you're bringing to the board and thank you for it Charlotte. But within that context there's a lot of


exaggeration. I think that's definitely fair to say at this point. And you know, just going back to your PT Barnum quote, would you say that we are we are getting to a point where silver is going more mainstream? To what extent do you think that's happening? >> I do think so. Uh, you know, I mean, I I have to laugh about the debasement trade. I mean, the whole premise of the Morgan report really is, you know, monetary instability and that you should be hedged no matter what your likes or


dislikes are uh investing wise that it is wise, excuse the pun, to have some physical metal because we're in a situation where we're debasing the currencies and therefore you need to hedge for it. And now, of course, it's become a mainstream term. And I'm answering your question in a in a long- winded way, but I do believe that people are now waking up to the fact that when inflation is insidious and you kind of expect things to cost more, you know, oh, maybe that restaurant upped its


prices a little bit or it's a little bit more to park my car. They kind of just blow it off because my computer costs less than it did last time I bought one and it's a lot better. And my cell phone actually cost a couple hundred bucks less than my last one. It's even better than the last one I own. So, there's kind of this little bit of a balance as long as there's let's say inflation where it's at a level where you see other things that kind of replace it or it doesn't hurt very much. Well, we have


not been there for a very long time at least in the states and you know I still get to Canada from time to time meaning that uh most average middle class whatever Canadians Americans South Americans whatever are really feeling the pinch now and noticing and once that happens you can't unsee it as the expression goes what is causing it oh debasement of the currency oh what do you do about oh the basement trade what does that mean oh it means I better have some sound money just in case just money


starts to lose value at a faster clip than it already is. So yes, I do think we are going to see a re uh resurgence of people that have never thought about buying gold or silver. Even people that make fun of us, gold bugs, silver bugs, or whatever, saying [laughter] I'm in AI, you know, or whatever the the investment deour is, and turn around and say, "Wait a minute, even my AI stocks aren't doing as well as the silver market." Well, and again, this relates to another direction I wanted to go in,


which is that typically we hear in these precious metals bull markets, gold moves first and then silver follows and the silver move is toward the end of the cycle. But it doesn't really feel like we're toward the end of that cycle right now. So, where where would you place us? >> Well, I'm trying to really this is like the hardest job I have in my own opinion, but you know, I've been pretty much on the mark all the way up. Certainly, I call the tops. Certainly haven't been the best bottom picker. I


admit that. But, you know, I think the long-term pitcher, I've been as objective and as accurate as anyone. I mean, I don't know how many times I said over the years, and you've known me for years, you know, if you could buy silver long-term under 30, you're going to be very happy. And I think anyone that bought silver US30 or Canadian 30 is pretty happy right now. So I think we're going to continue, you know, to see that. So in the cycle, I've said for years, 90% of the move in the last 10%


of the time, and I still believe that we are in the acceleration phase of the cycle. I would argue anyone that we're not. I mean you look at one of the um more prominent analysts in our sector now uh [clears throat] that does the momentum analysis he's uh phenomenal and he talks about the acceleration phase and a repricing of silver and um and he's absolutely correct and I do think that we could get to 100 or maybe 200 or maybe more. I don't know. The market knows more than any of us. But Michael Oliver really


lays it out succinctly and you know just a very good student of the markets and and Michael Oliver just goes through why you could see this acceleration that no one expects. So that's it. That doesn't negate my overall thesis. Meaning that if we have a 25-y year bull market and we're in the last 10% of the time, that's about two and a half years and you want to count the gold breakout at 2000 and I don't have the chart in front of me. Maybe that's the start of it. Maybe we only have a couple years from


there. Now, people argue fundamentally, well, David, you're out of your mind. I mean, anyone the student of silver that you are should know we've got, you know, at least 10 years to go because of the deficit. They won't be solved probably for 10 more years unless there's a huge technological breakthrough of some type or you know there's a meteor right pure silver that's as big as Africa or something. Sorry for my sick humor, but I agree with that analysis based on the status quo. But one of my main themes


isn't just, you know, the precious metals. My underlying theme of Morgan report is money, mining, [clears throat] and markets. And the money equation is what are we doing with the money, which is a a falsehood. Everyone knows it at this point, at least anyone that tunes into IN. And they're going to realize we are looking toward a new system. And the new system exists, has existed in China for quite some time. And believe it or not, it works quite well. So I do believe that's where we're headed. So


because of that strong conjecture on my part and others, I think this market does only have a few years left. And what do we do during the transition? I really don't know. Obviously we know silver, gold, platinum, copper, lithium, everything that you do at inncluding the energy markets are extremely valuable. This is what makes the world go round is is the energy sector and hardcore commodities. So those won't go away. It's just how will they be repriced in the new system and that I


really do not. >> Great answer. I think that was very very well explained. And we're getting toward the end, but I I don't want to let you go without bringing out the silver stocks. So, we do hear silver outperforms gold. The silver stocks outperform silver. To what extent are we are we seeing that so far? Where where would you say the best opportunities currently lie among the silver equities? Well, the silver equities can really be the, you know, or used to be the Bitcoin of, you know, the early days when I was


in my youth in my early 20s or whatever. I mean, a penny mining stock could go from 12 cents to a buck 20, some even well beyond that. You know, 10 baggers are pretty common in the penny stock world and 100 baggers were unheard of. But where we sit right now is they're undervalued. Um the mining shares on aggregate like the XU and HUI have outperformed the metal itself but not by much. I think the silver uh the HUI and XU are actually about par with the um with the metal itself. But going forward


the best value right now if you're new would be to buy the equities. I would still stress the top tier companies and then mid tiers and then maybe junior producers. But there will come a time where the G the expiration companies do far better than the majors. But you got to be careful how you do it. It's a timing thing more than anything else. And we're not there yet in my view. If you want to think long term, you can sift through the juniors. We put about three on the new report that just got


published yesterday or day before. I'm a little winded from uh every time we finish a report and post it up for our members. But we have some ideas um for silver and you know mining shares but that is the place to catch up. I think you're going to see these stocks get overvalued at some point. They're undervalued right now. They're trading in the majors as if silver is like 35 $40 a ounce when we know it's like pushing toward 80. So the earnings have not been believed by the market or hit


the bottom line. I mean, a lot of these silver companies are looking on last quarter's earnings and what they're going to report in their, you know, 10Ks in their financials are going to be different than the current price. But then when another quarter goes by and perhaps the average price for silver is 75 and that number hits the earnings reporting, then a lot of Wall Street's going to say, "Oh my, what a value stock these silver companies are. They're really undervalued. Maybe we better buy


some." So we're going to see I think a lot of uh money come in out of whatever sector perhaps AI I don't know the general equity market I'll call it that and moving into the resource sector and that's why you know IN is kind of one of the forerunners for looking uh I would call say as a visionary for what really really matters in the in the world. It's it's it is resources. >> Well thank you so much for for saying that and I agree. I think we're going to see some big changes for the silver


companies moving forward. I'll let you go unless you had any final thoughts for investors heading into the new year. >> I don't have any real words of wisdom, Charlotte. Thanks for the first interview. I will be a bit philosophical here at the end. Let everybody know there's things more important in the world than money. But I think that we need to be on our toes and be alert and try to stay calm during what I continue to see as very tenuous times with, you know, what I'm not very proud of with uh


what we're doing here in the United States versus, you know, countries that don't agree with us. Uh I do want to repeat one statement that I've said and others. I don't know if I was the first to say it or not. I really don't care. it. I think the biggest mistake made over the last decade or more was that the United States basically froze the assets of the US or of Russia uh during this sanctioning. I really believe that was the the shot across the bow as expression goes that woke up a bunch of


other countries and said we can't trust the United States. What if they don't like our politics? What if they take our money from us? And that's really when you started to see the gold purchasing increase for safety uh from the central banking community globally. And I think that trend will not will continue. I think that that trend will just absolutely continue. And I just want to get that on the record because I think the big big picture is always one of the best one of the foundational reasons to


think or rethink what your portfolio position may be because people think well it's too late to buy gold. It's 4,400. But if you think longer term as far as not price so much but value. What's the value of not losing much in my portfolio now if gold is that counterweight on the seessaw that if something goes wrong geopolitically at least gold will counterbalance it. So let me thank you for letting me finish with that. >> Yeah, I think very valuable thoughts to end on. So thank you for going in that


direction and thank you for coming on to be the first interview of 2026. This was always great to have you. >> Well, thank you Charlotte. I appreciate those words. >> Of course. And once again, I'm Charlotte Mloud with investingnews.com and this is David Morgan with the Morgan Report. Oh, [music]