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Every time gold or silver rallies, the same question pops up: “Is this the top?” It is the wrong question. Precious metals are not growth stocks or valuation stories. They are monetary assets. Trying to pin a tidy “top” on them misunderstands what bullion is, why it exists, and how it behaves.

Physical gold and silver are held for long-term protection. Protection against currency debasement, financial system stress, and policy mistakes that no model can forecast. No one buys bullion because they expect to sell it perfectly at the high. They buy it because they want something that does not rely on earnings forecasts, central-bank credibility, or politicians getting it right.

You can value a stock. You can debate margins, growth, multiples, and where a top should be. Metals do not play that game. Gold does not have earnings. Silver does not issue guidance. There is no terminal value. Metals trade on trust in money, confidence in governments, real rates, and fear, the kind that shows up without an invitation.

The biggest metal moves rarely come from tidy economic cycles. They come from the unpredictable. Policy shocks, banking failures, wars, sanctions, emergency stimulus, regulatory shifts, debt problems. When governments move, metals respond, often fast and without warning. That makes confident “this is the top” calls more opinion than insight.

Yes, people speculate in metals. Even then, metals move in bursts, not valuation arcs. Something can look “overbought” for months and then reprice sharply because the world changed overnight. Metals have a habit of making certainty look silly.

The better question is not “Is this the top?” but “What just broke, or is about to?” Bullion is not about precision timing. It is about understanding risk, incentives, and confidence. Metals do not top out the way stocks do. They reprice when the world changes, and the world rarely gives advance notice.

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