“When the tide goes out, you find who is swimming naked” – Warren Buffet

UPDATE: Saturday February 7th, 2026

Florida To Make Gold & Silver Official Means of Payment (via Zerohedge.com)

Paul Craig Roberts explains why gold and silver crashed so quickly after setting new all-time highs in a parabolic move last month:

Unlike equities, it is possible to short the precious metals market without holding collateral against the short. The futures market for gold and silver permits the printing of paper gold and silver in the form of futures contracts that are dumped  in the futures market where the contracts drive down the prices of the precious metals. The peculiarity of the precious metals market is that the price of gold and silver has not been determined in the physical market where it is bought and sold, but in the futures market where it can be shorted by printing claims to gold and silver.

Recently in response to uncertainty of the value of increasing amounts of paper dollars not backed by anything, the demand for real money in the form of precious metals has overwhelmed the ability to use short-selling to hold down the prices of gold and silver.

As gold and silver prices rose, speculators joined the rise.

Speculators simply see opportunities, and when they had accumulated sufficient gain, they cashed out of the rise, resulting in a sharp fall in gold and silver prices.

However, the underlying situation that raised the dollar prices of real money has not changed, and therefore once speculative profits are removed from gold and silver prices the rise in the value of precious metals will resume.

UPDATE: Tuesday February 3rd, 2026

What we witnessed in the last 5 days of trading in precious metals was unprecedented. Last Thursday’s gold and silver crash was not a pump and dump, and the recovery in gold and silver prices is not a dead cat bounce.

So, what caused it and who was on the wrong side of the crash? That is the question that remains unanswered, but speculative retail buyers, aka weak hands buying on margin, were most likely the victims and there was most certainly some retail profit-taking.

The banks didn’t sell, and neither did long-term holders of precious metals. Sure, some in possession may have taken profits, but could it also have been some broker-dealers that were long on margin without offsetting hedges? It’s reasonable to assume that a few were hauled off on stretchers and as Warren Buffet famously said, “when the tide goes out, you find who is swimming naked”.

We await the answer but someone, somewhere was most certainly swimming naked, and it could have been as simple as a cascade of margin calls in the “paper” market that triggered it. Is the bull market over? Nope.

I agree with Ed Dowd on four bullet points below. See below for the interview on USAWatchdog.com.

Reminder: Gold is a tier-one asset on bank balance sheets.

Futures at 1:00 AM ET, February 4th, 2026.

Ed Dowd warns he’s never seen risks like this in his career. (USAWatchdog.com Video)

• Dowd: Stock market bubble – “The valuations are as bad as the Dot Com bubble.“
• Dowd: China is in the acute phase of their crisis – will lead to global contagion.
• Dowd: Gold bull isn’t over by a long shot – $10,000 by 2030. (26:40)
• Dowd: Real estate market frozen – gap between homes on the market and homes sold has never been greater. (33.25)

Update: Thursday January 29th, 2026

The word for the day is “unprecedented”.

DEVELOPING: Somebody came to the rescue, but nobody knows WTF just happened at the cash open. “Unprecedented” would be the word of the day. We’ll update this post over the next few weeks with news and commentary on any developments in the precious metals market:

Wednesday January 28th, 2026

Gold is going parabolic.

A $500 range in 24 hours indicates a systemic issue that nobody is talking about on the nightly news. Could it be a that Comex will be experiencing a “failure to deliver” on silver futures contracts that will settle on Friday for delivery in March?

Bill Holter (aka Mr. Gold) seems to think so. Here’s the video via Greg Hunter at USAWatchdog.com.

Bullion Price Forecasts “Laughably Low” As Holter Warns ‘Failure to Deliver Calamity Coming’

Add to that, the unwinding of the Yen carry trade and an Armada sailing to Iran, and things could get very exciting very soon.

Futures at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time: (WTH is going on? From lows to highs, that’s nearly $500 in one day.)

Futures at 5:30 a.m. Pacific Time: