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Coming up we’ll hear from our good friend David Morgan of The Morgan Report. David and Mike Maharrey have a wonderful conversation about the recent explosive moves in the gold and specifically silver markets and you will not want to miss what the man they dub the Silver Guru has to say about where he sees these markets going from here after the recent rise in price, and also what he’s targeting on the gold to silver ratio.

So, be sure to stick around for this week’s exclusive Money Metals interview, coming up after this week’s market update. And as a reminder please download, like, rate and subscribe to this podcast wherever you consume this content.

Well, it's been a truly wild week for gold and silver, with the white metal taking a round trip from $100 to $120 and then all the way back down to $100 again and then even lower as I’m talking here now – down to under $90. Gold busted through $5,000, ran to almost $5,600 and then right back down to below $5,000 where it is now.

We'll get into what all these prices means later in the program, but it's no understatement to say we are seeing truly extraordinary volatility -- and public interest -- in the gold and silver markets these days.

It was only back in October when Bank of America raised its 2026 gold price forecast to $5,000.  Now that the yellow metal has promptly hit that goal, the big bank has upped its projection again -- and is now calling for $6,000 gold this year.

BofA analyst Michael Hartnett said gold’s performance in past bull markets influenced his thinking, pointing out that past bull markets will typically have at least 300% moves.

Another BofA analyst noted that bull markets don’t end simply because prices reach high levels -- the market may feel overbought technically, but it's actually majorly underinvested. The bulls will fade when the fundamentals driving the market shift. At this point, there is no reason to think that de-dollarization, central bank gold buying, inflation pressures, Federal Reserve monetary easing, geopolitical tensions, and U.S. fiscal malfeasance will end any time soon.

Tight supplies have been a key driver of the silver market as we've reported here at Money Metals often. Widmer said he thinks supply constraints may also impact the gold market, forecasting that the 13 major North American gold miners will produce 19.2 million ounces this year, a decline of 2 percent from 2025. He said he believes that most market forecasts for output are too optimistic.

Widmer also projects average all-in sustaining costs to produce an ounce of gold will rise 3 percent to about $1,600, a level above the market consensus.

There has been growing interest in gold as a portfolio diversifier. Last fall, Morgan Stanley CIO Michael Wilson said investors should consider abandoning the traditional 60/40 equity/bond portfolio allocation and adopt a 60/20/20 distribution with 20 percent allocated to precious metals.

Yet on average, Western investors currently hold less than 1 percent of gold in their portfolios.

With the price rallying through $5,000 during the past week, it’s getting increasingly more difficult to ignore gold. Widmer said this will likely incentivize more portfolio managers to consider both gold and silver.

Meanwhile, the World Gold Council just reported that global gold demand topped 5,000 tonnes for the first time ever in 2025.

Investment buying manifested in strong demand for both ETFs and physical metal. Investors were attracted by the rising price, and the subsequent inflows helped to generate further price gains.

Meanwhile, gold coin and bar demand hit a 12-year high of 1,374 tonnes. In value terms, that was a record-breaking $154 billion.

More than half of the global coin and bar demand came from two countries – China and India.

According to the World Gold Council, “The rise in the gold price was overwhelmingly the most important factor driving stronger demand.”

However, bar and coin demand in the U.S. did not grow in volume despite a strong fourth quarter. In value terms, U.S. physical gold investment rose by a relatively modest 8 percent while retail selling of gold was brisk.

The World Gold Council also reports that rising prices has created a difficult climate for central bankers seeking to raise their gold reserves. And gold jewelry demand fell, pressured by surging prices.

Price pressure also created headwinds for gold demand for industrial and technical applications.

But all of this combined has not been able to halt gold's rise, at least not in any meaningful way, today’s price action not withstanding.

Speaking of this week’s price action, let’s recap that before we get to the David Morgan interview here.

And holy whipsaw market action Batman! Gold shot up over 10% earlier in the week but has now lost all of that and then some, checking in at $4,940 an oz to register a weekly loss – at least at this point – of 1.2%.

As for silver, the white metal is on a literal roller coaster here and we’re finally seeing the major pullback many have been waiting for. Off from its high of nearly $122 an ounce a day or two ago, silver is now coming in at $89.10 an ounce and falling fast. For the week it’s only down 14.2%, but obviously it’s off much more than that from its high – nearly 30% from the price we saw a couple of days ago.

Platinum is getting absolutely murdered here today as well, down more than 18% so far on the day alone. For the week it’s off 22.1% to come in at $2,174.  And finally, palladium is down 13.9% on the week, with virtually all of that coming today, to come in at $1,757 an ounce as of this Friday late morning recording.

My goodness, what a week!

Well, now, without further delay, let’s get right to this week’s exclusive interview… and for context, this interview was recorded yesterday (Thursday).

Audio Length: 00:34:45

Mike Maharrey:
Greetings. I'm Mike Maharrey, and I'm joined today by David Morgan. David is a globally recognized, precious metals analyst, consultant, and publisher of the Morgan Report. How are you doing today, David?

David Morgan:
Doing well. I think we hit $120 in silver today or something.

Mike Maharrey:
I know. Yeah, it was $121 and then it tanked for a minute. I'm going to actually ask you about that here in a second. But I wanted to kind of start off a little bit more broadly, and since the last time we've talked, I can't remember when it was, but it's safe to say that both gold and silver are significantly higher today than they were the last time we spoke. And with gold over $5,000, silver over a hundred bucks, I hear a lot of people starting to say, “Yeah, Mike, this is a bubble. This is a bubble. We need to get out of this.” How would you respond to folks who think that we're in bubble territory right now?

David Morgan:
In two ways. One, as far as from a casual observer, it looks like a bubble. I mean, it's parabolic. It's going straight up. I mean, if you just showed me a chart of silver or gold didn't put what it was, in other words, it could be weed, it could be cotton. I don't know. I'm just looking at the chart. You said, David, what's happening here? I would say we're going parabolic. That's a fact. And probably in a bubble, and I would probably use the word probably because there could be mitigating circumstances. So first of all, I could be wrong. Lemme get that out there. But the reason you're seeing gold, and particularly silver's outperforming gold, as we both know, platinum is outperforming gold. But the reason we're getting this movement in the metals is not because we're in bubble territory and we're over-enthused. The vast majority of silver investors that hold physical metal are net sellers, not buyers right now, but if you have more selling pressure than buying pressure, usually that takes the price down, and it's not, which indicates there's more buying pressure somewhere.

And there is. And that's an India and China, which at this point in time has an insatiable, that means an unlimited demand that can't be satisfied at this time. And therefore I think these markets are going higher. So the one is the demand, but the real one is the geopolitical uncertainty. I mean, I've made a big deal about it and others as well. I forget the date Michael, you might be able to help me there, but when Russia had their $300 billion in national reserves basically stolen from 'em, that sent the biggest message in finance over the last two or three centuries that I cannot trust the US to be a neutral party in monetary affairs. That they have weaponized the dollar. And if you don't do what we want you to do, we will steal your money. They call it a sanction, but it's theft by any other name.

Well, that was a red alert on top of every nation state in the world that uses the dollar as a reserve currency, which for all practical purposes is everyone. And the thought process says, well, if they could take it from Russia, maybe they'll take it from us. So I need an asset that is exempt from the powers of the US government coming in and stealing our reserves. I'll buy gold and no one's swapped more treasuries for gold than China. I just got off our monthly webinar, Michael, and I don't remember the exact numbers. The idea is right, I've got the numbers pretty much in my head. Roughly Chinese had about a trillion dollars-worth of treasuries. I forget how many months ago, six, seven, maybe a year ago, and now it's at 600 billion. So they almost cut it in half. And has it all gone into gold? No, but probably the lion's share of it has. So, I don't want to overemphasize it, but I don't want to underemphasize it until we get a trust back in the system, meaning the global system where China trusts the US and Russia, we trust each other for not sanctioning or stealing assets from other countries. I think there's still, and we'll continue pressure to mitigate the dollar reserves and move more money into gold. And if gold just keeps moving higher because of that fact, I think you'll see platinum, palladium and silver go along with it.

Mike Maharrey:
Yeah. Do you think that along with the weaponization of the dollar, and that's something I've talked a lot about – coupled with that, do you think that the fiscal condition, shall we say of the US government in terms of its borrowing and spending habits is also playing into this?

David Morgan:
It is. I mean, I have to laugh about the debasement trade. I mean that you hear that all the time in the mainstream financial press now, but when I started the Morgan Report and jumped on the web to start what I'm doing, I didn't use the word debasement every podcast, but that's what it was. You're debasing the dollar. It's not gold that changes. It's the value of the dollar that's changing. A gold coin is a constant, a gold coin does not change. What changes the price? What does that mean? It means that the currency is being debased. So I have to laugh again that the debasement trade, well, that trade started, started in August 15th, 1971, when Nixon debased the currency.

Mike Maharrey:
Right

David Morgan:
So, we're not tied to gold anymore. That's when it really started. So yes, that has a huge impact. In both cases as already outlined in the foreign affairs and internally, I mean, most of the subscribers to our premium service are business owners, not all but many are. And they have a bit of a soft spot for business owners because having started a few and failed and now been successful in this one, and this is more my head and heart of been all along, they finally dialed in on it, but away from me, most business owners put up with more than the average someone that works for somebody else. I mean, sure there's bosses you don't like and all conditions you might not like, but when you run a business, I mean normally, especially in the startup, you usually lose money for the first year or two and you got to put in unbelievable hours that probably no one would work for you, but you do it on your own.

Anyway, my point being is that a lot of business owners are members and all they really want, they're not greedy. They've earned it the hard way and they just want to preserve what they've earned. And that's basically what we teach what you do at the Money Metals. I mean, you guys, Stephan Gleason and I have been aligned as friends and associates and colleagues for a long, long time. And he had a different business when we first met, and then he decided to go into the bullion business, as you know, and it's taken off. But I mean, is it self-serving? Yeah, in a way. But it also saves a lot of other people. And that's the way I look at the paradox of what I call conscious capitalism, where I could serve myself being a silver and resource investor and show people how to do it, why I do it, how to structure portfolio, how to use a stop-loss, all the things that I teach and that's helping me, but it's also helping them. So, it's a paradox. It's not all about me, it's really about serving others. I'm just showing you that this is what I do. I'm pretty good at it, and if you want to come along, please do.

Mike Maharrey:
Yeah, absolutely. So we mentioned today, it was really interesting. I was working on some articles this morning and kind of watching the gold ticker, and as you mentioned, silver bumped up to, I think it was over $121 for at least a few minutes. And then all of a sudden everything dumped gold fell over $300. Silver went back down to I think $111, maybe even a little lower than that, and it's recovered a lot of that. But do you have any sense of what in the world that was?

David Morgan:
Yeah, I mean, I do. At the risk of sounding trite, it's buying pressure and selling pressure. But let's investigate that a little more thoroughly. It's the algorithms. I mean, really what happens in these trading desks are the quants, which is a fancy name for computer math programmer types. And so the math will start to figure out how to win. And so a good way to win if you are in a predicament because you've been short silver at 80 bucks and now it's pushing $121, the way to win is that last $10 capture from one 10 to 121 or 122 is to let the algorithm figure out when the selling starts and then just pound it from there with a massive order and then cover as much as you can to capture that 10 bucks in 10 minutes. I don't know how long it took. And that's a trade, and that's profit on paper, and that's how these guys work. They work on paper, not that the physical market isn't really causing them problems. It is, but nonetheless, the way they play the game is still the paper derivatives game. So, that's what it's about. It's kind of a math, it's kind of a war of algorithms, if you follow what I'm saying.

Mike Maharrey:
Yeah. So, how would you advise folks that are just your normal investors. “I bought some gold and silver and I'm holding on to it.” How should they react to these things? Because I think we're going to see a lot more volatility moving forward. How should people react to that? Because I know even for me, and I'm not prone to panic, but you see $300 drop in gold and you're like, “Oh my gosh!” how can folks ride that rollercoaster without losing their minds?

David Morgan:
Well take a deep breath and turn off a computer for a week. Do a little electronics fast. We've heard a lot about this intermittent fasting, and by the way, I believe in that, but I'm digressing. But yeah, take an electronic fast. No, I just think you got to take it in stride and try not to get hung up on it. But volatility is a sign of uncertainty as we started our discussion. Is this the top? Is it parabolic? Is it going higher? I think it's going higher for the reasons I already gave, but as I said before I even said that was I could be wrong, but really until we get trust back in the system, where else are you going to go? I mean, the trust has been with the United States debt markets, the Treasuries, the US dollar, and it's worked well for ever since the gold window was closed in ’71. That's 30 years-plus 25, so 55 years or so. But now we're, as Raffi Farber likes to call it, at the end game. The emperor, someone shouted, the emperor has no clothes, and everyone starts to say, “Hey!”

And so, what do you do then? Nation states, you – move to gold individually, you move to gold pension funds, move to gold retirement accounts. You move to gold IRAs, move to gold 401ks. Now I think starting next month, Michael, I think you guys are on top that stuff as much as me. You can start putting gold in 401k plans depending on your employer that allow you to do so. But it's open. It's the employer's choice to move to gold. So I mean, you've got a lot of, I would say, pent up demand that's been locked in either money market funds or the stock market that could take a hedge. I mean, if you're been working 30 years at XYZ corporation and your 401k is make up a nice big fat number, $400,000, and now in March you get the little card to reallocate your holdings in your pension plan, you say, Hey, I want, and I've been there 20% in gold, 60% in stocks, and 20% in the money market. All of a sudden you multiply that times all the big Fortune 500 companies that offer that. That could be a big demand in the gold sector.

Mike Maharrey:
Yeah, I actually just wrote about that today that this the 60 20 20 portfolio allocation that the Morgan Stanley CIO popped out with last year. I've seen a lot more folks out there in the mainstream financial news talking about that. And I made the point, most people are less than 1% precious metals. A lot of people are zero precious metals. And when you think about that, if this really takes hold and more and more advisors start to take this as the new model, that's a lot of demand and I think that could create some significant tailwinds. Do you agree with that?

David Morgan:
I do. I want to follow that thread just a little further, Michael. So, you just got that card and you put in 20% as you just suggested. So I'm buying gold $5,000. What are my expectations? Well, my expectation is the dollar’s in trouble. The stock market's probably overvalued and relative to gold, it still is overvalued. And so my expectations are I'm buying $5,000 gold because it's the better investment than having too much in the stock market. And my expectations might be $10,000 gold, maybe not next week, but maybe by the time I cash out, I've doubled my money gold. Maybe the stock market's gone flat or come down, but gold's going up, and so you have to think as if you're in their shoes. And from that perspective, it's like, oh, gold's really run. Yeah, it has, but who's in the market? You said less than 1%. So if you just double that to 2% and that starts at round numbers, the $5,000 gold level, but you double the demand for gold, where does that put the price higher than 5,000? That's where it puts it.

Mike Maharrey:
Yeah, it's wild because you start talking about $10,000 gold and several years ago, back 2017, 2018, there were a couple of folks that were talking about $10,000 gold. They were all considered nut jobs. And now when you say $10,000 gold, I'm like, well, yeah, why not? It does not seem unreasonable.

David Morgan:
No, that's true.

Mike Maharrey:
Curious about your take on this. For several years we've seen the gold silver ratio run in 80:1, 90:1, up above 100:1 a few times. I looked a little while ago, and it's around 46:1 now, which is kind of getting down there. In that historical average, do you see the ratio closing further in silver's favor or are we kind of maybe at that balance point and do you have a target for that ratio?

David Morgan:
I do. So I just put out in the January issue and the video update I did that many of our members want to swap silver to gold, and so I said start the swap at 50:1, so we're there, and then 40:1 put in another swap, but 20% of your holders 30:1, another one. And I went down as far as the classic ratio, which I don't know if it'll get there. I kind of doubt it, but it could. But the idea is if you want to swap, don't try to get the exact pinpoint. I do think it will do better than 30:1. And here's why. If my whole basic premise on how markets work, not just the metals markets, we see an acceleration at the end, which is at 90% of the move and 10% of the time we started that started that some time ago, and it's the most lucrative or highest capital appreciation in the shortest amount of time.

So, you could see silver go from the breakout at 35:1 if you want to call it breaking through 50, you can use that number and it goes from $50 to $250. I don't know if it's going to $250, I'm just giving an example, but it's going to do that in a year or year and a half or two years type of thing. It's not going to take 20 years to get there. And that's where the parabolic comes in. It's in a bubble. Well, maybe it is in a bubble, but the bubble hasn't popped yet. The bubble pops at $200 silver. I'm not saying that's the number, but I'll give you the right idea.
So, if you take all of that as the foundation, that implies that if it's the biggest phase, then the gold silver ratio is going to hit a new high or low depending on how you look at it.

And the new low would be below 30 or 33 is the way I calculated it, but it only was at 33 in 2011 for a few days. But we know those few days at $50 are done because we spent a few days at 50 and more at 60 and 70 and what's happening. So I would suggest that we'll get below 30:1. Now whether that means 20 or 15 or 10, I don't know, but I do think it will at least achieve that 30:1, which means if I'm right that you could swap there. But I think it's a lot more prudent and then have a plan and stick to it, swap some at 50, some at 40, some at 30, some at 20, and stick to it. And if it never gets to 30 because it might not, you've at least achieved your goal. If I want more stability, I want less volatility, I want more recognized wealth, more easily portable, easily stored gold than I do silver. And that's of course everyone's prerogative. So that's how I see it.

Mike Maharrey:
Yeah, that makes very much sense to me or a lot of sense, I guess would be the better way to phrase that. Would you agree with me that really the fundamental driving the silver market right now is just quite simply a shortage of metal.

David Morgan:
Certainly appears that way. I mean, I'm fairly well connected, as you know. And again, I am not a know-it-all, but as all the sources I've verified with, we've all said the same thing. And of course that I have to digress. The late great Jim Dimes used to say, and I'll never forget this statement. “So, when everyone's thinking the same, no one's thinking very much.” So, we're all thinking the same. And it is a physically driven market coming out of Indian China, and they are not getting enough commercial size thousand-ounce bars to satisfy the demand for the Indian ETF and the industrial activity that goes through Asia, China primarily. And until that demand is satisfied, we're going to see buying pressure and more upside potential. That's as clear as I can make it. I truly believe that's what's happening. I think it is that simple. And yet you look at North America and there's these huge discounts to buy metal back spread to 10 or 15 bucks, A lot of places won't even accept 90%. I know the refiners won't, and I know some of the wholesalers don't want anything to do with it. And so, it's a cue, well, wait a minute, if there's such a demand for physical metal in China, why can't I get spot price to silver in North America? So, why don't you carry on that thread and explain it a little further. Michael.

Mike Maharrey:
That's a good question. I do know for a fact that Money Metals sent some of those 1000-ounce bars to India, so metals going over there. I can't speak to the mechanizations there. Probably Stefan would be able to do a better job at that than I, because he's right there with his boots on the ground. But he said that buying has really picked up over the last several months too. We were seeing a lot of selling and now, now we're also seeing a lot of buying as well. So, it's an interesting dynamic. So I've got one more question for you. This is a fun one. This is from my colleague Josh, and he said, are you any relation to George T. Morgan, the designer of the Morgan Silver Dollar?

David Morgan:
I wish I was. I am not.

Mike Maharrey:
All right. Do you have a favorite coin or a favorite bullion product that you like?

David Morgan:
Well, yeah, that's a great question. First of all, I am partial to the Morgan Dollar because of the name. And I do have … not that many. I'm not a numismatic guy. But having a pristine coin in a case is always, it's cool to have. And I only have a couple of my desk, and this is, well, this is an Eagle right there, but people that are probably familiar with those. So, they're very brilliant and circulated. I have about 20, they're graded at 63, which is not a very high grade, high graded is 65 or higher. So, I have about 40 of them. But as far as actual coinage that have a sentimental meaning for me, there's a couple. One is the silver, what is it called? Silver Circle. There was an animated movie called the Silver Circle years ago. I helped fund it a little bit. I also funded a premier here in Spokane. It was ahead of its time. It was all about the Fed taking over the housing market...

Mike Maharrey:
I remember that.

David Morgan:
And so I have one of those, that's the coin. The reason it's so sentimental is because I helped the movie and I thought it was a good educational piece to help others wake up to the true reality of the monetary system. But on top of that, that coin ate that same coin, not that exact coin, but that meant that Silver Circle round was given the Ron Paul, and that round was the one that he held up in front of Bernanke and said, this buys this much gasoline. Why can't we have both? I like real money. You like paper money? Why can't we have both? I like the Constitution money. It was a very good moment. Really put Bernanke on the spot, and it was that. So, that one has sentimental value. And then one or two more, and I know you probably expect a long answer from me, but there's ones that have the print very small. You have to get a magnifying glass to read it, but it's the Declaration of Independence inscripted into the back of the coin.

Mike Maharrey:
That's cool.

David Morgan:
That I think is pretty cool. So, I'll leave it there. There's others that have sentimental value for different reasons people gave them to me at investment events and that type of thing. But I'd say the Silver Circle and the Constitution one, or excuse me, the Declaration Independence one are the two that I can just right off the top of my head say, yeah, those things have real meaning.

Mike Maharrey:
Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I get the whole sentimental thing for me. I love gold Krugerrands. That was my grandfather's thing, right? That's what he collected and used for his investment, and he passed some of those down to me as well, so I get that whole sentimentality. That's pretty cool. Okay, so before I let you go, I do want you to let folks know where they can avail themselves to the Morgan report and all of the wisdom that you have to impart.

David Morgan:
Thank you for the compliment. Yeah, just the main landing page, the MorganReport.com. Go ahead. It's a 1, 2, 3 step process. Step one is get on our free report. Step two is to watch the Silver Sunrise documentary or the Four Horseman documentary. And step three is to get involved in the premium or paid service if you care to do so. And if you do care to do so, we do have money back guarantee. So there's really tried before you buy. I mean you have to buy, but if you buy because you're sincere and you don't like it, we don't want to twist anyone's arm and just give you your money back and march off with hopefully more information and more knowledge. Thank you, Mike. I always enjoy our gatherings and you got a couple years on me like me, but with that usually comes some wisdom.

And usually, as we said in the beginning about the volatility, I mean since I've been in this market for so long, the old expression I have ice water in my veins is kind of true. I mean, I've been through so much, so many times that it starts to have less and less effect, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't use some common sense and have at least a mental stop in there if the market starts down hard. Don't watch all of my profits evaporate. I've been in this market way too long to see everything. I don't think it ever disappear. I don't think we're ever going back to $50, and even at $50 I would still have a pretty sizable profit, but nothing near where they have at a hundred. So, you got to kind of plan ahead. So, a good back to you, Michael. Thanks for the interview.

Mike Maharrey:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for being on, and yes, a little bit of wisdom is at least the one advantage to getting older. It compensates a little bit for the arthritis and back problems and all of that, so we'll take what we can get. But I really do appreciate it. Always enjoy talking to you and always enjoy your perspective and I'm sure we'll have you back here in a couple of months or so. And I hope you have a fantastic rest of your day.

David Morgan:
Well, thanks so much. You too.

What wild markets we’re experiencing these days, and it’s great to have wonderful guests like David Morgan come on and join us and help to break it all down. And I certainly hope you enjoyed that… good stuff there as always.

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