I see a global margin call coming. Everything is broken. Our Institutions, our backend plumbing, and the systems that make it work. When global credit freezes, supermarket shelves will go bare, and we will have widespread civil unrest. Capital markets will have to close. I have a lifelong retirement I’ll never see because of my States UCC Section 8. And at the end of this I’ll have two things in my hands: a 44 magnum and a couple rolls of ‘64 quarters. When there is nothing left, that will be more than most.
Like you I think that at its heart, the system is broken. It's like an undetected flaw in a crankshaft delivered from the factory. It will one day lead to the engine stopping, even though from the outside everything looks fine. Still, that crankshaft might keep spinning for a long time before it lets go entirely.
I remember the silver peaks and selloffs in the past, and there is one important difference between them and the current situation. In former times, the paper markets were completely confident in their supremacy--there was no threat from markets like Shanghai that require physical settlement. The COMEX and the London markets made all the rules, and by tweaking margin requirements, etc., they could always stifle these rallies before they got carried away.
No longer. The COMEX is in a predicament. Either they let nature take its course and let the markets find their true price levels, or they "cheat" again, and this time watch as the entire market heads to Asia and the COMEX and paper silver becomes history. What we are seeing is a painful adjustment period that will require them to either take their licks, or surrender the market completely.
The COMEX might like to do something different than the big bullion banks would like them to do. (Yes, many of the same people are at the helm in both institutions.) Perhaps they can eventually figure out a way to move to a physical delivery basis like Shanghai and survive, but tough times are ahead for them. Get out the popcorn...
The bifurcated market situation between COMEX/LBMA on the one hand, and Shanghai on the other, does seem like a crucial difference. With huge ramifications for the COMEX/LBMA especially. While there's no denying the power that paper wields over silver, there's no denying the effect of structural demand for physical silver either. And with buyers/sellers now having an option for where to do their trading, it has to greatly reduce the options that the COMEX has to deal with the price rise. The market will flee to Shanghai if the COMEX gets too dirty, is my amateur opinion.
As of when I write this the COMEX fix is $76.49. That alone must have some traders looking for a smoking crater to die in. Yet the spot price has blown through that like a hurricane, presently (26/12/2025 22:00 UTC) at $79.31. Serious backwardation like we're seeing in Shanghai.
The problem is clarity. Silver has been manipulated for decades and comparisons to the Hunt Brothers or 2008 is just mis-placed. In neither of those instances was physical an issue. It was just all "paper". There has been a physical deficit for over 5 years now and the deficit is increasing with no end in sight. China and Mexico have stopped exporting silver. Peru has contracts with China for all their doré. The GSR rating is tumbling but silver is "THE" industrial metal. So, from this ol' man's view, thinking silver is going to crash back below $30 is just nuts. Then again, everyone has an opinion and that's mine!. Happy New Year!
True, but I'm sitting on 200% gains on my calls. And I prefer it not to evaporate too much. You don't know what the markets has in store for you. I know all the fundamentals (I invite you to browse through my articles that detail these)... And still. I've been burned more than enough to be extremely cautious.
Safe than sorry is a position. From that view sufficient silver is readily available at $30/oz or $40/oz for all the industrial usage including technology. Plenty for everything so the chance of silver continuing higher is just too risky. Better 200% safe than to see silver go back down to a GSR of 90 or 100. Well, not this ol' man's view but each to his own. At least taking "profit" off the table allows one to sleep peacefully and you can accept when Ag hits $100/oz by March. Ok.
If you’re selling at 40/oz. I’m buying! Better to cash in some gain and/or lock them and get some physical with that. I think Ag has more to rise, but there are so much sales still going on in the miner space…
I’m following it up day by day to see what I’d do, but I thought to share my strategy here. To follow or not it is your own decision.
No......but let's chat at $330/oz, say in May. I could turn in a few ounces. Miners are an interesting play.....maybe one day ahead. Besides physical - a few futures on Comex.....wondering what happens when SFDs are suspended? Any thoughts?
But with my hedging strategy I would earn about 10% less. But on a down turn, I loose around 30% less. I'll take that risk/reward any day. Especially if silver is TRULY going to 330, I will probably have like 1,000% gain on my current portfolio. And a loss of 10% because of the offsetting options.
You have skills far beyond this ol' man's ability. I applaud your views and strategy. I am just a stacker with a handful of future contracts. But - on the other hand - almost zero debt. In today's leveraged world I am lost.
"When your taxi driver is giving you crypto tips and retail investors who’ve never touched an asset class are piling in at the top"
Not seeing this. Not seeing this even a little bit. Any mention of silver still attracts weird looks and dismissive replies, even today, after recent price increases.
The proverbial shoe shine boy doesn't like silver (yet)
No, retail ain't in there yet. That's a bit of exaggeration from my part I took. However, financial media starts to talk about it. Hell, even Musk did (see my recent note). Tucker also.
So we're getting there.
But definitely not bubble territory yet. Doesn't mean it can't correct...
There was a famous guy who once said: "how did you get rich? By buying early and selling early"
I'm mostly following his advice... But now? I don't want to sell. I want to protect my gains, but still profit from any upside. That's all.
Came here to say this. I haven't heard a single person in the real world mention silver or gold. My wife is a nurse and interacts with tons of people of all age brackets, skewing older of course. She thinks I'm crazy because I keep reminding her, while never bringing it up, to just tell me if anyone mentions them. Still nothing for the last year. And she still looks at me like I'm crazy.
Thanks for the context! Which confirms my gut feeling (and my google-search-statistics 😉). Retail ain't there yet. We're at the very start of the bubble (https://no01.substack.com/p/the-dynamics-of-a-bubble -- "smart money")
No1, another gem. One I've been waiting for. BTW, I think we're relatively close in age.
Yeah, I remember what happened during the Hunt era & ver much what happened to my PM, esp. AG positions during & after 2011 - an 85% loss of my unrealized gains (I did take 15% off the table).
When AG was making & subsequently broke its triple top ~54-55 I partially hedged my cash acct. (incorrectly) by buying -2X ETFs in AU & AG in my IRA rollover. My thinking was to convert ST unrealized losses into (temporarily) tax sheltered gains. I was 1,000s up until... I first closed out my AG -2X as it was looking like AG had decoupled from big brother. But I kept the AU -2X. Well, I've lost 15K+ But made much more in the cash acct.
Aside: for months, I've been thinking to go long platinum. I could easily handle a 50oz. futures contract or add to my small PPLT position. No, let's not go by common sense instinct, let's do paralysis by analysis. Or IOWs bulls can make $, bears can make $, pigs get slaughtered. I've been kicking myself for going on 2 weeks. Never mind I wanted to aggressively add to my AG longs when it was ~25.
I like your hedging plan and will give it careful consideration... Even while this time might be different?!
A final thought. Even among the pro PM crowd, I'm a silver bull. But what's been going on lately has me gobsmacked. The GSR was bouncing between 75-105 for a long time. Since then, it began a downward channel to 75-80, and then decisively broke through that channel to the current 57! Before this recent AG surge, I've been saying to myself, 5,000 AU & a 50 GSR gives us 100 AG. Suddenly, we're almost there. Perhaps another reason to be on guard.
Like mentioned in another comment: don't overthink it too much, just stack a little bit every month. Like if you have 1k available per year: buy 100 each month. Doesn't matter what. As long as it's real. (scale to what has the lowest premium at the time) And if you do this on a monthly basis, the store will call you after a while when premiums are tight. They will know you're easy business.
Interesting times, will try to follow you on SILJ leap puts in the coming days. Trying to trim my last SLV Sept $60 calls slowly to finance the insurance.
Nothing goes parabolic up. And the PTB are fighting for their lives. So sooner or later a slam would happen. Didn't realize they are this desperate. My article "Line in the sand" (https://no01.substack.com/p/the-line-in-the-sand-54) can still be applied now, but at 75 I feel. Or maybe 80.
It's not really coincidence, but I did get lucky with the article yes. Like anything market-related: it's a calculated risk. When silver goes up very fast, it gets slammed down. The shorts can't have it any other way.
And what way is better than to go down in a blaze of glory? 10% of annual production to suppress the price like what finally? 9% I see here. That's a mild day in silver miners 😋.
Also, the weekly and monthly and yearly bars all converge this week. So: gotta keep that down for the chartists to reach the wrong conclusions!
By the time - if not earlier - of what we might consider "modern" money, when coins of AU or AG or some mix were stamped with usually some royals portrait, the moneychangers (forerunners of today’s banksters) were figuring ways to MAKE money FROM money. Throughout the centuries they have increased their power, at least in the West. IMHO 1913 was the end of the US as a constitutional Republic. Yes, I know there were other events leading in that direction. But the establishment of the "Fed" and the income tax - IIRC, one or both planks in the Communist Manifesto - was its death.
So what might be different now? Why are the PTB losing their grip? I know you've addressed this semi directly in other posts giving many reasons for PMs recent surge.
Stick to your convictions. There are structural and even generational changes happening in the world of Silver. We’ve been waiting for price suppression to result in TRUE price discovery. Now is not the time to take a bite of chicken and leave all the rest on the bone… Don’t backtrack.
I am cautious. I've been around long enough to know it's (nearly) never "different this time". I am hopeful that this time it truly is. But I'm hedging my bets.
That's all I'm giving to you: the tools to do what you want.
If you want to use it, fine. If not? Fine too. I don't know you nor your situation. Everyone's is different. I'm not here to convince you. Just to educate. That's all.
But sometimes knowing something exists and how to use it, you can save yourself a whole world of hurt.
I've doubled the size of my portfolio holding long select gold junior plays this year.
I'm selling into the strength of January to lock in gains and changing my method from buying and holding the parabolic rise to trading the volatility that follows it, taking advantage of price swings up and down. Why?
Markets, especially Nasdaq, are vulnerable to decline precipitated by the questionable circular financing structure of Oracle, Core Weave, Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Amazon, among other variables, causing gold and silver stocks and prices to be dragged lower with it and creating better value to buy back in at lower prices.
There's a high volatility probability in 2026 at specific times, not suitable for sitting ducks.
2025 worked well to buy and hold, 2026 will be more choppy, creating ideal hands-on trading volatility conditions.
I see a global margin call coming. Everything is broken. Our Institutions, our backend plumbing, and the systems that make it work. When global credit freezes, supermarket shelves will go bare, and we will have widespread civil unrest. Capital markets will have to close. I have a lifelong retirement I’ll never see because of my States UCC Section 8. And at the end of this I’ll have two things in my hands: a 44 magnum and a couple rolls of ‘64 quarters. When there is nothing left, that will be more than most.
Like you I think that at its heart, the system is broken. It's like an undetected flaw in a crankshaft delivered from the factory. It will one day lead to the engine stopping, even though from the outside everything looks fine. Still, that crankshaft might keep spinning for a long time before it lets go entirely.
I remember the silver peaks and selloffs in the past, and there is one important difference between them and the current situation. In former times, the paper markets were completely confident in their supremacy--there was no threat from markets like Shanghai that require physical settlement. The COMEX and the London markets made all the rules, and by tweaking margin requirements, etc., they could always stifle these rallies before they got carried away.
No longer. The COMEX is in a predicament. Either they let nature take its course and let the markets find their true price levels, or they "cheat" again, and this time watch as the entire market heads to Asia and the COMEX and paper silver becomes history. What we are seeing is a painful adjustment period that will require them to either take their licks, or surrender the market completely.
The COMEX might like to do something different than the big bullion banks would like them to do. (Yes, many of the same people are at the helm in both institutions.) Perhaps they can eventually figure out a way to move to a physical delivery basis like Shanghai and survive, but tough times are ahead for them. Get out the popcorn...
The bifurcated market situation between COMEX/LBMA on the one hand, and Shanghai on the other, does seem like a crucial difference. With huge ramifications for the COMEX/LBMA especially. While there's no denying the power that paper wields over silver, there's no denying the effect of structural demand for physical silver either. And with buyers/sellers now having an option for where to do their trading, it has to greatly reduce the options that the COMEX has to deal with the price rise. The market will flee to Shanghai if the COMEX gets too dirty, is my amateur opinion.
As of when I write this the COMEX fix is $76.49. That alone must have some traders looking for a smoking crater to die in. Yet the spot price has blown through that like a hurricane, presently (26/12/2025 22:00 UTC) at $79.31. Serious backwardation like we're seeing in Shanghai.
The problem is clarity. Silver has been manipulated for decades and comparisons to the Hunt Brothers or 2008 is just mis-placed. In neither of those instances was physical an issue. It was just all "paper". There has been a physical deficit for over 5 years now and the deficit is increasing with no end in sight. China and Mexico have stopped exporting silver. Peru has contracts with China for all their doré. The GSR rating is tumbling but silver is "THE" industrial metal. So, from this ol' man's view, thinking silver is going to crash back below $30 is just nuts. Then again, everyone has an opinion and that's mine!. Happy New Year!
True, but I'm sitting on 200% gains on my calls. And I prefer it not to evaporate too much. You don't know what the markets has in store for you. I know all the fundamentals (I invite you to browse through my articles that detail these)... And still. I've been burned more than enough to be extremely cautious.
Safe than sorry is a position. From that view sufficient silver is readily available at $30/oz or $40/oz for all the industrial usage including technology. Plenty for everything so the chance of silver continuing higher is just too risky. Better 200% safe than to see silver go back down to a GSR of 90 or 100. Well, not this ol' man's view but each to his own. At least taking "profit" off the table allows one to sleep peacefully and you can accept when Ag hits $100/oz by March. Ok.
If you’re selling at 40/oz. I’m buying! Better to cash in some gain and/or lock them and get some physical with that. I think Ag has more to rise, but there are so much sales still going on in the miner space…
I’m following it up day by day to see what I’d do, but I thought to share my strategy here. To follow or not it is your own decision.
No......but let's chat at $330/oz, say in May. I could turn in a few ounces. Miners are an interesting play.....maybe one day ahead. Besides physical - a few futures on Comex.....wondering what happens when SFDs are suspended? Any thoughts?
Well, if - like I think - something big is going to happen towards March (https://no01.substack.com/p/the-dog-ate-my-silver), then yes we could see 330.
But with my hedging strategy I would earn about 10% less. But on a down turn, I loose around 30% less. I'll take that risk/reward any day. Especially if silver is TRULY going to 330, I will probably have like 1,000% gain on my current portfolio. And a loss of 10% because of the offsetting options.
I take that 😉
Better safe than sorry as you said.
You have skills far beyond this ol' man's ability. I applaud your views and strategy. I am just a stacker with a handful of future contracts. But - on the other hand - almost zero debt. In today's leveraged world I am lost.
Brilliant article and strategy. Thank you for sharing?
Interesting article. Thank you for sharing your insights.
Thank you, Sir ! An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is my motto for life.
"When your taxi driver is giving you crypto tips and retail investors who’ve never touched an asset class are piling in at the top"
Not seeing this. Not seeing this even a little bit. Any mention of silver still attracts weird looks and dismissive replies, even today, after recent price increases.
The proverbial shoe shine boy doesn't like silver (yet)
No, retail ain't in there yet. That's a bit of exaggeration from my part I took. However, financial media starts to talk about it. Hell, even Musk did (see my recent note). Tucker also.
So we're getting there.
But definitely not bubble territory yet. Doesn't mean it can't correct...
There was a famous guy who once said: "how did you get rich? By buying early and selling early"
I'm mostly following his advice... But now? I don't want to sell. I want to protect my gains, but still profit from any upside. That's all.
Came here to say this. I haven't heard a single person in the real world mention silver or gold. My wife is a nurse and interacts with tons of people of all age brackets, skewing older of course. She thinks I'm crazy because I keep reminding her, while never bringing it up, to just tell me if anyone mentions them. Still nothing for the last year. And she still looks at me like I'm crazy.
Thanks for the context! Which confirms my gut feeling (and my google-search-statistics 😉). Retail ain't there yet. We're at the very start of the bubble (https://no01.substack.com/p/the-dynamics-of-a-bubble -- "smart money")
No1, another gem. One I've been waiting for. BTW, I think we're relatively close in age.
Yeah, I remember what happened during the Hunt era & ver much what happened to my PM, esp. AG positions during & after 2011 - an 85% loss of my unrealized gains (I did take 15% off the table).
When AG was making & subsequently broke its triple top ~54-55 I partially hedged my cash acct. (incorrectly) by buying -2X ETFs in AU & AG in my IRA rollover. My thinking was to convert ST unrealized losses into (temporarily) tax sheltered gains. I was 1,000s up until... I first closed out my AG -2X as it was looking like AG had decoupled from big brother. But I kept the AU -2X. Well, I've lost 15K+ But made much more in the cash acct.
Aside: for months, I've been thinking to go long platinum. I could easily handle a 50oz. futures contract or add to my small PPLT position. No, let's not go by common sense instinct, let's do paralysis by analysis. Or IOWs bulls can make $, bears can make $, pigs get slaughtered. I've been kicking myself for going on 2 weeks. Never mind I wanted to aggressively add to my AG longs when it was ~25.
I like your hedging plan and will give it careful consideration... Even while this time might be different?!
A final thought. Even among the pro PM crowd, I'm a silver bull. But what's been going on lately has me gobsmacked. The GSR was bouncing between 75-105 for a long time. Since then, it began a downward channel to 75-80, and then decisively broke through that channel to the current 57! Before this recent AG surge, I've been saying to myself, 5,000 AU & a 50 GSR gives us 100 AG. Suddenly, we're almost there. Perhaps another reason to be on guard.
Like mentioned in another comment: don't overthink it too much, just stack a little bit every month. Like if you have 1k available per year: buy 100 each month. Doesn't matter what. As long as it's real. (scale to what has the lowest premium at the time) And if you do this on a monthly basis, the store will call you after a while when premiums are tight. They will know you're easy business.
Interesting times, will try to follow you on SILJ leap puts in the coming days. Trying to trim my last SLV Sept $60 calls slowly to finance the insurance.
DYODD! I'm just PUTting out here what I'd do (pun intended).
Hey No1, how about giving us at least one more day notice? ; )
What a bloodbath in PM today =: o
I have no intention of selling core PM, but I'm closely examining your hedging idea and will implement some version of it sooner or later.
What tipped you off? I look at your weekly post of charts regularly. Was it one or some combo of them?
You're enough of a straight shooter to say the post & what happened today are mostly a coincident.
Nothing goes parabolic up. And the PTB are fighting for their lives. So sooner or later a slam would happen. Didn't realize they are this desperate. My article "Line in the sand" (https://no01.substack.com/p/the-line-in-the-sand-54) can still be applied now, but at 75 I feel. Or maybe 80.
Also my note of today summarizes it perfectly: https://substack.com/@no01/note/c-192770760?r=17w5dj&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web
It's not really coincidence, but I did get lucky with the article yes. Like anything market-related: it's a calculated risk. When silver goes up very fast, it gets slammed down. The shorts can't have it any other way.
And what way is better than to go down in a blaze of glory? 10% of annual production to suppress the price like what finally? 9% I see here. That's a mild day in silver miners 😋.
Also, the weekly and monthly and yearly bars all converge this week. So: gotta keep that down for the chartists to reach the wrong conclusions!
By the time - if not earlier - of what we might consider "modern" money, when coins of AU or AG or some mix were stamped with usually some royals portrait, the moneychangers (forerunners of today’s banksters) were figuring ways to MAKE money FROM money. Throughout the centuries they have increased their power, at least in the West. IMHO 1913 was the end of the US as a constitutional Republic. Yes, I know there were other events leading in that direction. But the establishment of the "Fed" and the income tax - IIRC, one or both planks in the Communist Manifesto - was its death.
So what might be different now? Why are the PTB losing their grip? I know you've addressed this semi directly in other posts giving many reasons for PMs recent surge.
Is the MAIN reason the growing power in the East?
Stick to your convictions. There are structural and even generational changes happening in the world of Silver. We’ve been waiting for price suppression to result in TRUE price discovery. Now is not the time to take a bite of chicken and leave all the rest on the bone… Don’t backtrack.
Don’t sell.
This ain’t over.
I ain't selling. No frickin' way!
I'm hedging any downside (see more elaborate response here: https://no01.substack.com/p/third-times-the-charm-right/comment/192355472)
What fundamentals tells you that you're within (say) 20% of peak price? I think we're entering a different paradigm IMHO…
I am cautious. I've been around long enough to know it's (nearly) never "different this time". I am hopeful that this time it truly is. But I'm hedging my bets.
That's all I'm giving to you: the tools to do what you want.
If you want to use it, fine. If not? Fine too. I don't know you nor your situation. Everyone's is different. I'm not here to convince you. Just to educate. That's all.
But sometimes knowing something exists and how to use it, you can save yourself a whole world of hurt.
My eyes and ears misread and mis-hear to me in jokes, exclusively in jokes.
I read "How to protect your grains" ;-) which is actually a big and important issue for storage silos.
Happy new year!
Grow vegetables.
The Hunt brothers cornered silver my third and final senior year of college. It was interesting.
I had a prof in a small upper-division class who was very excitedly playing that game.
I haven’t purchased puts before but you make a really good case for it. I was burned by 2011 drop….
Thanks for the look into how you hedge your gains, No1. Much appreciated.
Sage advice here, NO1.
I've doubled the size of my portfolio holding long select gold junior plays this year.
I'm selling into the strength of January to lock in gains and changing my method from buying and holding the parabolic rise to trading the volatility that follows it, taking advantage of price swings up and down. Why?
Markets, especially Nasdaq, are vulnerable to decline precipitated by the questionable circular financing structure of Oracle, Core Weave, Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Amazon, among other variables, causing gold and silver stocks and prices to be dragged lower with it and creating better value to buy back in at lower prices.
There's a high volatility probability in 2026 at specific times, not suitable for sitting ducks.
2025 worked well to buy and hold, 2026 will be more choppy, creating ideal hands-on trading volatility conditions.