Is Gold’s Runup at All Likely to Slow Down?

Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.

Later in today's program we'll bring you a special interview between Mike Maharrey and Money Metals content manager Joshua D Glawson, talking about all the features and resources available at MoneyMetals.com as well as some updates on Money Metals Depository and the Sound Money Defense League.

So be sure to stick around for that interesting discussion, coming up after this week’s market update.

As the U.S. dollar bounces back versus foreign currencies, gold and silver markets are showing resilience.

The Dollar Index is moving up sharply in the early goings of October after falling steadily for three months prior.  Currency traders ditched the Japanese yen after Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba suggested the economy can’t handle any additional interest-rate hikes. The yen suffered its biggest drop in more than two years, causing a wave of inflows back into to the U.S. dollar.

Continued weakness in the yen could reignite the so-called carry trade. Opportunistic traders are incentivized to sell or take out short positions against a depreciating yen and use the proceeds to buy other assets, including currencies, bonds, equities, and precious metals.

Of course, the yen carry trade can reverse suddenly at any time and cause sharp drawdowns in the assets that had benefited from it. But analysts at JPMorgan note that a broader “debasement trade” is likely to continue driving global central bank and individual investor demand for gold.

More investors are growing concerned about the risk of all fiat currencies being debased.  They face the prospect of being unable to get enough yield on paper instruments to compensate for that risk. They also seek protection from geopolitical risk as conflict in the Middle East intensifies and the U.S. continues to fund a war against Russia that could even spark a nuclear confrontation.

For these reasons, gold’s run to new records may be far from finished. The monetary metal posted a new all-time weekly closing high last week.  The gold is off a slightly, down 0.5% in this week’s trading however to bring spot prices to $2,654 per ounce.

Turning to silver, bulls are eyeing a potential breakout to new multi-year highs above the $33 level. As of this Friday recording, silver checks in at $32.27 an ounce, up 1.5% for the week.

As for the platinum group metals they are off a little bit this week. Platinum is down 1.2% to trade at $1,001, while palladium is posting a weekly loss of 1.9% to come in at $1,032 per ounce.

Although the PGMs have been struggling to gain traction in 2024, their supply and demand fundamentals are looking better and better.  The World Platinum Investment Council estimates that the physical platinum market will record a deficit of over 1 million ounces this year. Platinum supply is forecast to drop by 1% even as demand increases by 3%. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in economics to recognize what falling supply combined with rising demand means. It means there will be shortages unless supply rises or demand falls -- or both.

There is one thing that will encourage mines to produce more platinum and industrial users to consume less of it. That one thing is higher prices.

We’ve talked about the silver deficit many times.  Silver demand has outstripped supply for three straight years. The deficit is on pace to grow to over 200 million ounces in 2024, which would be the second highest on record.

Again, the one thing that will push supply and demand back into balance is higher prices.

In other news, the first and likely only Vice Presidential debate took place on Tuesday. Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance squared off in what turned out to be a surprisingly cordial exchange of ideas.

At one point, CBS News moderator Norah O’Donnel pressed the candidates on the ballooning budget deficit. She cited a study that concluded Kamala Harris’ proposals would increase the deficit by $1.2 trillion and that Donald Trump’s policies would bump it up by even more.

Of course, the Trump campaign disputes this.  But the reality is that neither Trump nor Harris has any sort of plan to actually shrink the deficit. Both Vance and Walz dodged the question of what they would do about it.

It may be the politically smart thing to do. The only way to put federal finances on a sustainable path would be to make massive cuts in spending that is considered mandatory in Washington.

The candidates aren’t going to call for cuts to entitlement benefits that have been promised to millions of people.  They aren’t going to call for cuts to national defense. And they aren’t going to call for the government to default on its bonds. The government currently spends more on interest payments to service its debt, by the way, than it does on defense.

That leaves a relatively small amount of discretionary spending that could be put on the table for cost saving. Trump has talked about getting rid of the Department of Education and defunding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices, among other things.

But as happened so often during his first term, various attempts by Trump to drain the swamp would likely be thwarted by Congress, the courts, and the entrenched deep state bureaucracy. Even if Trump finds ways to more successfully drain the swamp in a second term, he will face an overwhelming abyss of politically untouchable spending.

The national debt will keep rising at a steep trajectory regardless of who wins in November. And in turn, the U.S. dollar will continue to get debased.

Well now, without further delay, let’s get right to this week’s exclusive interview.

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Mike Maharrey: Greetings. I'm Mike Maharrey, a reporter and analyst here at Money Metals, and I'm here today with my colleague cohort and all-around awesome dude, Josh Glawson. Josh is our content manager here at Money Metals, and we're going to talk a little bit today about some of the resources that we're working to make available to you folks out there in the realm of sound money and investing. How are you doing today, Josh?

Joshua D Glawson:  Hey. I'm doing fantastic, Mike. Thanks for having me on the show. How are you doing?

Mike Maharrey: I'm doing all right. This is my third attempt to record this show, so it's going to be totally awesome. One of those days of technical problems. So for folks who are listening, we're winging it a little bit here, but it's still going to be amazing. And Josh is going to tell us about some cool things that are going on here at Money Metals. And I guess, the first thing off the top is that just over the last couple of months I've really noticed an uptick in the amount of content that is going on the website over at Money Metals.com/news, which is our space where we do reporting on what's going on in the world of precious metals, and the economy, and finance, and whatnot. And you'll find my work there and recently the work of a whole lot of new folks. And Josh, what's the goal here? What are we working towards as we flesh out this content page?

Joshua D Glawson:  Absolutely. Well, first I do need to comment, Mike, the content that you've been producing over the years and here at Money Metals has been absolutely fantastic. I love the work that you do as far as historical and constitutional sound money aspects go, and also just the geopolitics and economics of the world today as it pertains to precious metals. So love your work.

Mike Maharrey: Well, I appreciate that.

Joshua D Glawson:  Yeah. Here at Money Metals, one thing that we are constantly pushing is just more education. We want to make sure that people are really educated on not only how to get involved buying and investing precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, et cetera. But we also want to make sure that no easy ways that they can maximize those efforts, whether or not that means taking out a loan against that or being able to store it at the depository to be able to save money when compared to banks or make it safer for them and their families or maybe those that want to just get started investing in precious metals.

We have monthly programs with just as little as a hundred bucks down a month, they can actually get started with it. And this is actually, as simple as that may seem, this is actually revolutionary in the industry. Money Metals is actually one of the leaders in precious metals sales and as well as content. So we like to tie it all together to make sure that people know what they're getting and how to get involved.

Mike Maharrey: For sure. And I think that we're offering a perspective that you're not often going to see in the mainstream financial news sources like Fox Business or CNBC. And not necessarily to knock those folks, but they do tend to just follow the conventional wisdom, if you will. And I don't think the conventional wisdom works real well in this day and age, and so I think if you really want to be a well-rounded person, sure, watch the mainstream folks, but you also need to probably try to find these different perspectives, and I think folks will find a lot of really interesting perspectives and insights from folks that you may not see on some of those mainstream channels.

Joshua D Glawson:  Yeah, absolutely. And the mainstream is really mostly just advocates of big government, they're apologists for the Federal Reserve, and they're going to be apologists for fiat currency. So a lot of the information that we're putting out there is going to be counter to a lot of what they're saying. But the good thing is we have history on our side. We also have sound economics on our side, and also sound money on our side. And time and time again throughout history do we see when governments begin to print more money arbitrarily and they begin to tax precious metals such as gold or make it illegal, such as FDR's Act in 1933, we see how the dollar begins to devalue from there and how currencies devalue from there. So precious metals right now, gold is at the highest numeral number it's ever been over 2,600 an ounce, silver's rocking over 32 an ounce. This is huge.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. And if you follow the work over at Money Metals.com/news, you'll get some good insights as to why these things are happening. Looking at, I call it monetary malfeasance of our central banking system, and the impact of debt and all of these things that, I think, politicians and their spokesfolks like to shove under the rug because it doesn't look good for them. But it's important to understand just to be able to protect your own wealth and your hard-earned money. So some great resources there. And not only do we have the news page, we also have a really good resource page that folks can go to that have some more, I guess, you'd call it evergreen content, where you can learn about what are some of the good investment coins, what is the difference between a gold stock and physical metal, and those types of things. Give people an idea of what they'll find over on that resource page.

Joshua D Glawson:  Yeah, fantastic. I mean, you highlighted a couple of the great things on there. I mean, we could also highlight scams to avoid-
Mike Maharrey: Oh, yeah.

Joshua D Glawson:  ... or maybe you would want to find out about how to sell your precious metals, or maybe you want to find out charts comparing other products, maybe you want to see what the gold to silver ratio is, things like that are going to be in the Resource Center. And I mean, we're constantly updating that information, and we're always taking new ideas for expanding that area. So if we ever hear things that maybe repeat customers are mentioning, maybe they're saying, "Hey, we're getting scammed," or, "we're seeing all these scams on the news, and we have no idea what's going on out there," that's the area that we like to make sure that we're putting that content out there.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. And you've added some really cool articles just over the last several weeks, some really cool historical perspective. Most recently you did one on the US gold rushes, which I thought was really interesting. So folks will also find that going back in time. What's the value of that in your mind?

Joshua D Glawson:  Yeah. When you look at the history of gold rushes in the United States, it's interesting to see where wealth really was. It was in the hands of the people. It was a place where anybody could go out there and they could make a hard-earned living on their own by panning for gold or doing some basic mining. And I think that we've strayed so far away from that today with the Federal Reserve and fiat currency, and we're losing our purchasing power every day, and we're allowing politics to be the dividing factor in that when in actuality it's basic economics. It's a basic understanding of principles of what money is, what it's not to be, and what sound money is, and what it's not to be.
So it's interesting to hear the election right now you're having Kamala Harris and you're having Donald Trump debate on economic issues, yet you're not really hearing them debating on, "Well, what is the money that we're using today? What is the system that we're using today? Why is it losing so much purchasing power?" Instead, you're hearing people say, "Well, we need more per hour." You need more per hour because you're losing your purchasing power.

Mike Maharrey: It's symptoms and not causes that people tend to focus on, and I think that's a very important thing. It's interesting because economics doesn't change. It's the same today as it was yesterday, sound money 200 years ago is sound money today. Those types of things don't change. As we look at that history, we can learn from it. And the saying is, history often repeats, or if not, it at least rhymes. So we're excited to be able to provide those types of resources so folks can learn how it used to be, and so that's a valuable insight or a valuable resource. So talking about sound money, that's another area that Money Metals has been very involved in advocating for sound money and even being involved in the policy side with our support for the Sound Money Defense League and the work JP Cortez is doing over there. And there's a couple of really cool things that are available now for students and researchers who are interested in sound money. Can you outline what those opportunities are?

Joshua D Glawson:  Yeah. So, the Sound Money Defense League is doing some exciting stuff right now in partnership with Money Metals Exchange. As you mentioned earlier, we are going state to state helping states eliminate various taxes in precious metals transactions, especially with gold as it relates to gold and silver and restoring sell money policies state by state as a grassroots effort really. So the Sound Money Defense League is also, every year we are promoting a scholarship opportunity. Now, this scholarship opportunity gives out thousands of dollars to students in high school, undergrad and graduate, and it's actually around the world. So we've given opportunities to people in various countries and places, and different majors. You don't have to be an economics major, we just ask that you don't use AI for this. We want to see your true thoughts and your skills, your writing, and submit it on over to us.

This year we're going to be going through them, reading through them, and we have a panel of judges who will be judging it, and then determining who those winners are. So we'll have a handful of winners. And as well as that we are starting, this is the first time, the first year that we're also doing a journal. And so this is going to be the prestigious Sound Money Review, and it's going to be highlighting essays, academic essays of up and coming thinkers, and on their thoughts on the work of sound money and the importance of sound money in today's economy, and that's a paid opportunity. That is a paid opportunity, Mike.

Mike Maharrey: Ooh, yeah.

Joshua D Glawson:  Exactly. So tell people out there, this is a paid fellowship for Sound Money Defense League, and they should go to the website, soundmoneydefense.org, and see if they can get signed up today.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. And that's such important work right now because as you've alluded to, we live in this world of fiat money, and it's a world where the government can basically just create it out of thin air, which means it's going to constantly devalue. And I keep telling people, "This is not a bug in the system. This is the system," right? Inflation is on purpose, and it's why folks really need to understand sound money and why we need to try to create an environment where sound money is more accessible and easier to use, and that's really the crux of the work over at the Sound Money Defense League, particularly working at the state level to facilitate and implement policies that are more friendly to gold, silver, and sound money in general. So make sure folks check out the Sound Money Defense League over at soundmoneydefense.org, is that right?

Joshua D Glawson:  Yeah, that's right.

Mike Maharrey: Cool. So is there anything else that you've got in the works as far as content or whatnot here as we move towards the end of the year in the holiday season? What do you got on your plate?

Joshua D Glawson:  Yeah. Well, we're excited because we're continuously expanding our content section. I don't know if you know this, Mike, you may have actually mentioned this on your podcast, but Money Metals Exchange now has the largest depository in North America.
Mike Maharrey: Yes, I've talked about that.

Joshua D Glawson:  Yep. And so what we're going to do is we're going to continue to let people know about that and let people know more about how they can get involved in buying gold and silver. And as you know, we've had a few guests on the show over the past few months who've suggested they believe, and their respective companies believe that the price of gold and silver are going to continue to go up as the value of the dollar continues to plummet. And so we're going to continue to maybe investigate BRICS, the geopolitical happenings and occurrences around the world as well as the United States, maybe keep an eye on the Iranian-Israel conflict, and also any possible further incidences with Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve interest rates.

Mike Maharrey: Yeah. I'm sure there'll be plenty to keep us engaged in the news, and folks can follow all of that over at Money Metals.com/news. You can also go to our resource section, and I would also recommend folks sign up, get on our email list. It's pretty extensive, isn't it?

Joshua D Glawson:  It is. We have over 1.2 million people that receive our emails every day, and we're really getting that content out there, letting people know what's going on in the precious metals market, what's going on with their Federal Reserve dollars. We want them to be able to just trade their Federal Reserve dollars in for gold, which is real sound money, so that they can start maintaining that purchasing power the long term.

Mike Maharrey: I've also got here, sitting on my desk is our printed newsletter, so the information is out there, and we're doing our best to try to get it into as many hands and in front of as many eyeballs as possible. So we have also got a pretty good reach. You've really been working hard, I think, on expanding our reach over at LinkedIn. You can follow our social media on the Twitters. It's not Twitter. I cannot, I'm so boomer. I cannot get it to be in my head to be X, but we're there. We are on X, we're on Facebook, we're on Instagram. You can find us in all of those places.

Josh, I know you're a busy man, and I appreciate all the work you do, and appreciate a lot of the stuff that you do on the backside. I don't think people are aware of. It's nice to know that I've got your eyes on my work and helping with editing, and making me a better writer, and you do so much. I don't know how you get it all done in the day. So really appreciate the work that you're doing. We've got a mutual admiration society going here. But I think one of the things that I've learned about Money Metals since I started at the first of the year, working with you guys is such an amazing team. And when you have an amazing team, you can create an amazing product. And I feel like that from the retail side of selling, the vaulting facility, the work we're doing in terms of information, the advocacy, all of those things work because we have such good people. And if I wasn't associated, I would trust Money Metals with my gold and silver investing needs because it's just a good quality bunch of folks.

Joshua D Glawson:  I really appreciate that, Mike. And it's great to have you on the team. You definitely boost us up to a whole new level. So grateful to have you on the team, love your content, read it every day, and I love listening to you every Wednesday and Friday. And I want to encourage our audience, please come visit us on Money Metals.com/news. Sign up, make sure that you're on our email subscription. And look, stay on alert for some new coupons and things in the mail, so we've got a lot of excitement coming up.

Mike Maharrey: Awesome. Well, I'm going to let you go back to doing what you do, and I'll go back to doing what I do. And I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Joshua D Glawson:  Thanks, you too. Bye.

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We have made precious metals market news and commentary a key focus here at Money Metals and I hope you are finding these value-added services to be beneficial. Keep reading and listening, and we’ll definitely be continuing on in our mission to educate and inform the precious metals community.

Well, that will do it for this week. Be sure to check back next Friday for our next Weekly Market Wrap Podcast. And remember to tune in as well to the Money Metals Midweek Memo, hosted by Mike Maharrey. To listen to any of our audio programs just go to MoneyMetals.com/podcasts or find that on whatever podcast platform you prefer.

Until next time, this has been Mike Gleason with Money Metals Exchange, thanks for listening and have a wonderful weekend everybody.