崔敏 retweeted
The Gulf countries are getting visibly frustrated.
A Saudi official is openly accusing the U.S. of prioritizing Israel’s defense while Gulf states, who host U.S. bases and buy U.S. weapons, remain exposed to Iranian missiles and drones.
This is not just geopolitics.
This is monetary plumbing.
Remember: the petrodollar system is the foundation of the dollar’s reserve status.
If Gulf trust in U.S. security guarantees weakens, the very architecture that forces global dollar demand begins to shake.
Security guarantees → Oil pricing → Dollar demand → Reserve status.
When the security pillar cracks, the currency pillar feels it.
We may be watching the early stress fractures in the system.
崔敏 retweeted
Rick Rule: Why he prefers silver producers over physical silver
- A silver producer’s margin is ~$20
- Silver price doubles $40 -> $80
- Producer margins don’t double... they quadruple
In other words:
- To make money in physical silver, prices must keep rising.
- To make money in silver miners, prices simply need to stay above ~$70.
Current valuations of silver stocks are unrealistically low if silver prices remain elevated
崔敏 retweeted
This is incorrect.
China developed because it fought tooth and nail to escape a subordinate position in the world economy — a position that Western liberal economies welcomed and wanted China to occupy so they could benefit from cheap and efficient Chinese labour.
Plenty of developing countries have been given access to the markets of Western liberal economies but have remained in subordinate positions. Why did China succeed where other developing countries failed?
Because China successfully used trade and industrial policy to defy the deeply asymmetric structures of the capitalist world economy, which were largely put in place to benefit the West.
The fact that China defied these structures is precisely why we’re seeing an anxious response primarily from Western liberal economies right now: they are struggling to accept — and even comprehend — a world economy in which they are no longer at the top of the food chain.
崔敏 retweeted
A.I. & THE NEW STOCK MARKET REGIME: Anthropic's New Business Productivity Plug-Ins, the "Creative Destruction" Cycle, White-Collar Jobs in the Crosshairs, & the Incredible Economic Upheaval Coming! open.substack.com/pub/metals…
崔敏 retweeted
At 12,121 contracts, managed money longs in the Comex silver contract are the lowest for 20 years, even below levels seen in 2008!
崔敏 retweeted
Repeated instances of “everything sell-offs” over the last 3 weeks.
Equities. Commodities. Risk assets, all hit together with falling yields.
That’s not healthy rotation.
That’s liquidity stress creeping in.
Broader market internals are weakening.
This may be the early phase, not the end.
Stay nimble.
崔敏 retweeted
You know those daily COMEX NY open #Gold & #Silver slams? This is how the Banksters do it:
1) Open a crap load of paper #Gold & #Silver short positions at the COMEX.
2) Buy a crap load of corresponding LBMA unallocated promissory notes (EFP basis trade).
3) Potentially get their proxy Bankster buddies to sell a crapload of LBMA unallocated promissory notes so that the LBMA #Gold & #Silver prices don’t shoot up too much.
This way they can “SLAM” #Gold & #Silver prices and skim off the top at the same time. If #Gold & #Silver prices rise, who cares. The Banksters still make money as long as their EFP spreads are positive (COMEX price less than LBMA price).
4) Also the Banksters would “cover” most of their COMEX shorts via EFP (cash settlements or physical deliveries) so that it is not short cover directly on the COMEX. This way their “short covering” have minimal upward pressure on the COMEX #Gold & #Silver prices.
崔敏 retweeted
Juan Sartori from Tether Gold was asked for his gold price target.
The man sitting on $20 billion in physical gold, buying 3 tons a week, with zero hedges.
His answer...
"I won't give you a number, although we have it, because you're going to think we are crazy."
崔敏 retweeted
Here is the full explanation of how the biggest exploit in the history of precious metals likely unfolded 👇🏻
Comex futures price settlement at the Comex is based on a VWAP between 13:24 to 13:25EST
LBMA price settlement instead happens at 12:00 UK time
Most of Silver OTC contracts settle using the LBMA reference and many OTC contracts expire into month end.
On the 30th Jan LBMA silver price benchmark settled at 103.19$ while the Comex Benchmark a few hours later settled at 78.29$.
The following chart (credit @KingKong9888 ) is a great representation of how bullion banks hedge and transact in the silver market (both paper and physical).
It is an open secret now how many banks and brokers were under water on their silver positions, gold and other precious metals especially after the rally in January. Beware this flow chart roughly applies to all these metals that all crashed on Friday (not silver alone).
What’s even more remarkable is how precocious metals crashed on Friday in isolation, stocks, bonds and other commodities were totally unaffected. Anyone that understands any basic of macro and markets knows how this is logically wrong.
Let’s add one more piece to the puzzle now: on Friday the OI at the Comex decreased by 8k contracts at the end of the day. Assuming for simplicity the price differential between the LBMA and the Comex as a reference. That means banks were able to extract ~1bn$ gain from their shorts pushing the Comex price through the floor after the LBMA settlement.
Furthermore the $SLV continued trading after the LBMA benchmark settlement creating almost a 20% discount to NAV because of that. Here is the other trick the banks pulled. If you have to settle a lot of physical contracts at the LBMA but you don’t have the metal, because of such a discount to NAV, AP banks could buy $SLV shares in the open market from panic selling investors, tender the shares to claim bars at 103.19$ and make a killing in the process.
Not surprisingly, $SLV shares count increased by ~51m shared from Thursday to Friday according to iShares. Because of the NAV discount banks extracted up to 1.5bn$ of profits exploiting this ETF assuming they bought up all that shares differential and then turned around to claim silver bars at a much higher price for contract settlement purposes (keep an eye on the data on the metals redemption from the ETF).
The last piece of the puzzle is the exploit against Leveraged silver ETFs like $AGQ that have been forced into liquidating a vast number of derivative contracts during the crash. Here brokers made a killing too, but other people here on X already covered this matter well so no need for me to say more.
All in all, it’s fair to estimate how banks and brokers made up to 5bn$ of profits (or lowered their pre existing losses depending on how you look at it) orchestrating one of the biggest price manipulation in the history to abnormally crash the price of silver in a single day. Surely they made more if you consider the same dynamics happened on gold platinum and palladium.
However this left the precious metals market in a massive price dislocation not only between physical and paper, but also across financial products and exchanges.
Trading resumes in less than 24 hours and there is a chance that what’s about to happen is going to be even more historic than Friday’s events because China and India won’t stop buying silver because of the severe industrial shortage they are dealing with.
If you look carefully into the latest Comex report, $JPM closed its silver shorts EXACTLY at the very bottom of the price crash and from there it all started to come back up
This isn’t coincidence
This isn’t conspiracy theory
This is the proof the whole Friday crash was planned
崔敏 retweeted
Silver wtf
Silver is experiencing a sharp dislocation. Spot prices are down roughly nine dollars, while London spot has moved into backwardation versus COMEX. The EFP is signaling tightness in London even as leverage is being unwound elsewhere. China is narrowing in the selloff, which is not constructive for its market dynamics, and the U.S. is following China lower as speculative positions are liquidated.
There is no single, definitive explanation yet. The environment is unfamiliar even for experienced risk managers. What stands out is regional divergence. London is currently the best bid, while China and the U.S. are deleveraging aggressively. That suggests a broad, global deleveraging cycle where futures are being sold while physical metal is being absorbed.
This does not imply an imminent price rebound. It reflects stress in a leverage-driven system. The underlying dynamic appears to be a breakdown in the neo-Keynesian, financialized market structure, with behavior reverting toward spot-market fundamentals. Metal leaving the U.S. and China is largely speculative selling, while flows into London appear to be physical demand. That imbalance explains the current spread behavior.
Markets are sending conflicting signals because events are unfolding in stages. Regional policies, taxation, price floors, and government intervention are likely influencing outcomes. The invisible hand is no longer operating freely; it has been replaced by visible state action.
From a positioning perspective, markets are not functioning normally. The situation remains unresolved and opaque, with large players acting in ways that are not yet visible. Clarity will only come once deleveraging runs its course and the dust settles.
崔敏 retweeted
It required only 266 contracts traded to move the Silver price lower by nearly $2.50/ounce…
崔敏 retweeted
Wise words of Rick Rule.
A 30% decline in silver isn’t a signal to emote.
It’s a reminder to keep liquidity for opportunity. (Buy the dip).
And when enthusiasm replaces fundamentals, you take profits. Take profits, if price goes irrational.
崔敏 retweeted
The new Chinese silver export control policy is very real and far from insignificant.
The official announcement from China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) may appear somewhat technical or understated, likely to avoid immediate international backlash; but it effectively tightens oversight by requiring government licenses and limiting exports primarily to a select list of 44 approved large-scale companies for 2026–2027. This elevates silver to strategic material status (similar to rare earths), with requirements like minimum annual production capacity (e.g., 80 tons) and substantial credit lines, sidelining smaller and mid-tier exporters.
U.S. mainstream media and certain bullion bank “affiliates” have downplayed or misrepresented the policy’s impact, framing it as routine or negligible. That’s actually beneficial for those paying close attention. Our edge in this high-stakes battle comes from seeing through the noise and understanding the real supply dynamics at play.
This is mortal combat in the precious metals arena: China’s dominance in refined silver production (60–70% of global supply) means these restrictions are already contributing to physical tightness, surging premiums, and upward pressure on prices amid persistent global deficits and booming industrial demand (solar, EVs, electronics, AI hardware, military).
Knowledge is power here—stay sharp.
崔敏 retweeted
🌮 Trump Always Chickens Out 🌮
And I'll bet he does again.
Unless the US is has some sort of "supertech" weapon they plan to unveil against Iran, I have yet to see a military buildup in the region that would permit anything remotely approximating a "decisive" strike against the Iranian military and its government.
A squadron of F-15s, a few tankers, and a couple dozen C-17 shipments of ordnance and/or AD systems has been sent to Jordan. That's a modest defensive shield against drones and cruise missiles, at best. It's certainly not a potent strike package.
Three destroyers and, possibly, an Ohio-class missile submarine are already in the region.
CSG-3 is en route, with CVN-72 and 3 DDGs. In total, the Navy could probably launch ~350 Tomahawks. But against a huge country like Iran, even if all 350 hit "something", it's not going to come close to disarming the Iranians.
The US Navy is absolutely NOT going to venture into the Persian Gulf, or even the Gulf of Oman. And it would be extremely high risk to fly refueling tankers in Iranian airspace. So that is going to limit carrier strike aircraft to their fully loaded combat radius of ~600 miles — not nearly far enough to hit targets deep in Iran.
And even if they flew a half-dozen B-2s, and a dozen B-52s / B-1Bs ... well, it just doesn't add up to much in the context of a one-off strike package. It's just a few dozen more stand-off cruise missiles thrown into the mix.
In short, I still cannot see that the US is assembling anything that could be characterized as a potent strike package. So I can't imagine what they think they're going to do.
To inflict anything like a "decisive defeat" against Iran, the US would need to sustain a MAJOR air campaign for several WEEKS, or even MONTHS. And they simply do not have the material and logistical wherewithal to do that.
Most importantly, I do not believe they can sustain an air campaign of even a few days without suffering the loss of several aircraft, and very likely a few ships. And I do not believe Trump is prepared to face ANY significant losses.
Oh, and lest I forget, we have already had it proven beyond dispute that the US/Israeli missile defense is woefully deficient against Iranian ballistic missiles.
Every US base in the region will get pounded. And Israel will get pounded. It's even quite possible that Diego Garcia will get pounded.
Then we'll have a major geopolitical crisis on our hands.
So let's hope and pray Trump chickens out again.
