The precious metals miners are getting whacked for the third straight day on Monday in the wake of Powell’s hawkish comments on Thursday. It’s pretty incredible to me that after nearly 15 years of insanely easy money, a few words from Powell are enough for markets to treat him like Volcker. Maybe he is, but it’s going to get a lot harder for him to stay the course in tightening monetary policy as the stock market rolls over in response.

Maybe he will, in which case I’ll adjust. But my suspicion is that it’s going to be a lot harder for the Fed to right this ship than most expect, and that Powell will end up making compromises between financial markets and inflation.

If so, inflation is likely to linger much like it did in the 1970's, and the bull market in precious metals (and commodities) is far from over. In that case, the shellacking they have taken over the last three days are a terrific opportunity for investors with a longer-term time horizon.