At the time, silver was trading at $54/oz.
I told him my plan, which is exactly what has been written here. And that is to hold for years to come. My basic reasoning is that the Fed would eventually have to start printing gobs of money again, and inflation would return.
Plus, if I sell gold, silver, and miners, what am I going to switch into? So I told him all that, and added that if he needs the cash in the very near future, it might make sense to take some profits.
Silver dipped as low as $47 in late October, but has since rebounded to $67.
Of course, it could have gone the other way. Short-term moves are extremely hard to predict. Which is why most of my portfolio is held long-term.
But his question got me thinking. What are the signals that will tell us when the precious metals bull market is nearing a peak?
Let’s dive into this important question.
Debt & Deficit
The most obvious reason to own precious metals and miners is out-of-control government spending.
Until global governments get their houses in order, money printing will be required to help pay the bills and keep the economy alive.
We saw this clearly during the pandemic, when U.S. money supply jumped 41% in just 2 years from March 2020 to March 2022. Inflation jumped as a result, helping launch the precious metals bull market.
On December 12th the Federal Reserve began $40 billion of monthly T-bill purchases. T-bills are short-term U.S. govt debt.
We’re officially back in money-printing mode.
This is not technically Quantitative Easing (QE), because QE buys long-dated bonds, but the difference is academic.
The bottom line is that people aren’t buying enough U.S. debt, so the Fed needed to step in. Besides, the government has largely switched to financing itself using short-term debt (t-bills and notes).
That’s because the vast majority of demand today is for short-term securities. Not many people are brave enough to hold 30 year American bonds. Who knows what the dollar will be worth in 30 years? You could sell the bonds before then, of course, but the risks (and potential rewards) are exaggerated with long-term bonds.
Until global governments begin to get their finances in order, there will be a place for precious metals in my portfolio.
This initial $40B/month Fed buying is a warmup for what’s coming.
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