Happy Sunday, GoldBuzzers!

Gold is flirting with all-time highs above $4,300, the Fed delivered another rate cut, and silver reminded us why it's called "the devil's metal" - touching records before retreating nearly 4% in a single session.

But the real story this week - JPMorgan. Yes, that JPMorgan.

When the bank that silver bugs have blamed for a decade of price suppression suddenly flips long, you pay attention.

Ok, let’s dive in!

What a week to be watching the shiny stuff!

Gold climbed above $4,300 per ounce on Friday, testing the record highs reached in October. The big story? The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 25 basis points at the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Wednesday, bringing rates down to 3.50%-3.75% – the central bank's third cut of the year.

But here's where it gets spicy: Chair Powell signaled that additional rate hikes are essentially off the table, and while the Fed only projects one more cut in 2026, traders are betting on two. Classic Wall Street optimism! Plus, the Fed announced it will purchase about $40 billion in short-term Treasury bills to ease money market strains - more juice for the precious metals punch bowl.

Meanwhile, silver had its own roller coaster ride. Silver fell back to $62 per ounce on Friday after touching record highs earlier in the day. Silver isn’t just your grandmother's tea set anymore - industrial demand accounts for more than half of total silver consumption, highlighting solar, EVs, and semiconductors as structural demand drivers. Some analysts are even calling it an "AI play" thanks to data center infrastructure demand.

The fundamentals remain rock solid: Rising lease rates and borrowing costs for physical silver in London reflected genuine delivery stress rather than pure positioning, while robust ETF inflows and strong retail demand reinforced expectations of a market deficit next year. Translation? The physical market is tighter than a drum, and that's before we even consider the solar panel and EV revolution really kicking into high gear.

Bottom line: We're witnessing history in the making, folks. Whether you're stacking physical or riding the paper wave, these aren't your typical commodity markets anymore. The smart money is positioning for a world where central banks keep printing, governments keep spending, and precious metals keep doing what they've done for 5,000 years - preserving wealth when everything else goes sideways.

Remember, in a world of infinite money printing, finite resources tend to do pretty well!

The World's Most Notorious Silver Short Just Went Long. Here's What It Means.

Well, well, well. JPMorgan Chase - the bank that silver bugs have blamed for price suppression for over a decade - has reportedly done a full 180.

According to multiple recent reports, JPM has closed its entire 200-million-ounce paper short position and flipped to a net long stance of 750 million ounces of physical silver. That's nearly a full year's worth of global mine supply - making JPMorgan the largest private holder of silver on the planet.

As Silver trades around $62, and has more than doubled in 2025, it appears the biggest bear just turned bull.

Let that sink in.

The reports claim JPM used proceeds from covering their shorts to hoard physical metal between June and October 2025 - adding 21 million ounces in just six weeks. For the first time in history, JPMorgan reportedly holds zero short contracts in silver.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Mint announced coin shortages, COMEX open interest now exceeds registered stocks by 244%, and JPM has been reclassifying millions of ounces from "registered" (deliverable) to "eligible" (non-deliverable) - effectively tightening supply.

For years, JPMorgan has been accused (and in 2020, fined $920 million) for manipulating precious metals markets through "spoofing" - placing fake orders to move prices. Silver bulls have long argued that JPM's massive short position was the single biggest force suppressing prices.

If that short is truly gone, one of the metal's biggest headwinds just became a tailwind.

And the timing couldn't be more interesting:

Industrial demand is surging. Solar panels, EVs, AI infrastructure, and data centers are projected to consume 1.2 billion ounces in 2025 alone.

Supply can't keep up. Silver is mostly a mining byproduct, and we're in our fifth consecutive year of structural market deficit. The cumulative shortage since 2021 is approaching 820 million ounces.

Safe-haven flows are accelerating. With fiscal deficits ballooning and dedollarization trends continuing, monetary demand for hard assets keeps climbing.

The Fed just cut rates again. This week's 25bp cut plus hints of continued accommodation add fuel to the precious metals fire.

In 1980, the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market using leveraged futures. Regulators stepped in, froze their credit, forced margin calls, and the whole thing collapsed spectacularly.

JPMorgan's approach is different. Their alleged hoard is physical-dominant - actual metal sitting in vaults, not paper derivatives that can be unwound with regulatory pressure. If the reports are accurate, they've learned from the Hunts' mistakes.

Some viral speculation suggests JPM could be aligning with policy shifts - perhaps even building a position ahead of a strategic reserve announcement. (Take that with appropriate grains of salt.)

Now, before you mortgage the house for silver bars, let's pump the brakes for a moment.

JPMorgan's history with precious metals includes billion-dollar manipulation fines. Some observers are skeptical that this "flip" is genuine rather than repositioning for new games. Banks this big don't telegraph their moves unless there's an angle.

Others point out that silver has already more than doubled in 2025. The easy money may already be made. Overbought conditions at record highs can lead to violent drawdowns - as we saw on Friday when silver dropped almost 4% after touching $64.64.

The smart play is always position sizing and patience, not FOMO.

If these reports are accurate - and silver's price action since October suggests they might well be - this is a structural shift in the market.

The biggest, most persistent short seller in the silver market has removed a major downward force and replaced it with massive physical accumulation. The fundamentals were already bullish: industrial demand, supply deficits, monetary uncertainty. Now the technical picture has potentially cleared its biggest obstacle.

In my opinion, triple-digit prices are coming, but nobody knows how long it will take. While we wait for that to play out, volatility will remain the price of admission and significant drawdowns will occur. But the setup for higher prices in 2026 and beyond looks increasingly compelling.

A few recent stories you might have missed.

New Gold stock explodes 201% this year – proving that even mid-tier miners can deliver life-changing returns when gold goes parabolic. TS2 Tech

The dark side of gold's rally: illegal mining now makes up 30% of global supply – as prices soar, farmers in Ghana and elsewhere are ditching crops for pickaxes. Mining.com

BRICS nations are dumping dollars and stacking gold like it's 1971 – central banks have flipped the script for the first time in decades. Mining.com

Gold ETFs finally catching a bid after years in the wilderness – the big funds like GLD and IAU are seeing massive inflows as Western investors wake up. World Gold Council

That’s all for today, folks! Enjoy the rest of your weekend and I’ll see you Tuesday.

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Rick Adams
Founder, GoldBuzz
rick@goldbuzz.com