But in terms of more silver allocation by central banks, is that a possibility in your view?

Well, I'll answer that last.

I'll deal with the last question first.

You know, it's entirely possible, like you just mentioned, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia bought shares in SLV.

So it's entirely possible.

that some central banks in the world are accumulating physical silver and they're just not reporting it.

But if it is being done, it's not being widely done because if they were accumulating in size, it would have certainly showed up in the market by now just because the supply-demand fundamentals would dictate that you can't go in there and take 100 million ounces of silver off the market.

So what do you think it's going to take for people to realize the issue and also realize that gold and silver can help preserve their purchasing power as it's getting destroyed?

Can you give us an insight into what you're watching there that convinces you that that's what's gonna be coming?

I mean, China is the largest, you know, is, has the largest population on planet Earth, uh, beside or along with India.

You know, they've gone from being a backward society twenty-five years ago, I mean, they were, they were nothing twenty-five years ago, into the, the leading economic powerhouse they are today, and they're the biggest, uh, biggest consumers of raw materials on, on planet Earth.

And, uh, they've, they've been importing gold, uh, for...

They keep all their, almost all their own production, uh, within the country.

They've been importing gold like mad out of New York and London.

They say they have what? Thirty-three thousand tons or thirty-five hundred.

Uh, any words of wisdom that you would share with Of people who approach you and say, "What the heck is going on with this?" To help them to regain a sense of perspective at this moment, at this turning point.

So could we kick it off with you, uh, giving us your view of what was broken a, a week or two ago, this big position that e- for fifteen thousand to twenty thousand dollar gold out of the money calls placed for January 2027, which got a lot of eyebrows raised across the industry.

Well, you know, I've-- I, I first came across this in February sometime, and I think I posted something about it in my column in March.

And, uh, of course, uh, as you correctly pointed out, uh, as time has gone along, it's getting more and more attention.

I got, uh, something in the mail from one of my subscribers this morning, um, pointing out that yesterday, okay, this has just happened yesterday, the six thousand strike, a thousand seven calls were added, eight thousand strike, two thousand calls were added, ten thousand strike, four hundred and seventy-five calls, and fifteen thousand, a thousand and twenty-nine calls were added, and at a twenty thousand dollar [chuckles] strike price, another nine hundred and eleven calls, uh, contracts were, were added.

So there's tens, many tens of millions of dollars being bet on the fact that gold [chuckles] is gonna be priced at some, some horrendous price, really high price between now and, uh, the end of the year.

And, um, it, it-- this has been building and building.

They added on Monday, they added on Friday.

Is that what you're describing here from the shorting opportunities that, that seems to be spent its... run its course?

I guess first off, what do you see needing to happen? What do you think needs to happen to get gold and silver going again in either direction? And what, in your view, is the most likely next step for the precious metals, up or down?

Okay, well, look, I just want to back up a bit and go back to last year sometime when the rallies that we saw that culminated at the end of January occurred.

And what we saw was that the bullion banks, the eight large traders, began covering their short positions last year, sometime around May or June.

And that was one of the reasons, you know, as the price began to tick higher.

I remember back at the start of this all, it was $27 an ounce.

Silver was $27.

And, you know, as the banks covered more and more of their short positions, of course, you know, they're buying long contracts, so the price starts to rise.

Yeah.

And you touched on it a little bit in your answer to the first question, but I'd love you to dive a little bit deeper on your thoughts there on, on how if the, the, the bullion banks hadn't come in and, and, uh, stopped the price from rising, that we would be at a spectacular silver price right now.

Oh, yeah, absolutely, and thank you for re- bringing it up again.

Um, like I said, you know, the r- silver started to rise about last year sometime, March, April, May, whenever it is, it started to edge higher.

And everybody's looking and saying, "My goodness sakes alive, you know, this is really great." It got through 27, then 28, then 30, and everybody was getting ecstatic about it.

One of the reasons, or the main reason, that silver and gold were rising at that time is because the commercial traders who are mega short the g- uh, gold and silver market, and all precious metals actually, were beginning to quietly cover their short positions.

And of course, you know, as they covered the short positions, uh, that, uh, caused the price to rise, and I could see it in the n- in the Commitment of Traders report every week that, you know, the, the, the big H short positions in both silver and gold were starting to decline.

And they continued to decline and decline as they covered more and more shorts, the price rose higher and higher and higher.

Could you s- help us separate signal from noise here and give us your current view on, on the health or lack thereof of the USD?