Good morning GoldBuzzers, and welcome to Tuesday!

Gold and Silver are now within touching distance of their mythic targets ($4,000 and $50 respectively) and to celebrate, we have a ton of new subscribers joining us this week, so welcome to the party!

Many of you have told me that you’re buying silver instead of gold at the moment (not surprising when you compare the prices) so in today’s company corner, I’m going to be taking a detailed look at the largest PRIMARY silver producer in the Americas.

With $1.1B in cash, Pan American Silver could easily buy Endeavour Silver ($2.3B market cap) for pocket change. When you're big enough to eat your competitors, you've already won.

OK, let’s dive in.

Gold blasted closer to $4,000 on Monday, notching yet another all-time high as investors piled into the ultimate safe haven.

The culprit? A US government shutdown that's now dragging into its second week after Senate funding proposals crashed and burned on Friday. With no deal in sight, key economic data releases - including September's jobs report - are stuck in bureaucratic limbo, forcing traders to piece together the economic puzzle from whatever scraps they can find.

The alternative indicators they're seeing? Not pretty. A weakening labor market is cranking up expectations that the Fed will be cutting rates sooner rather than later.

Markets are now betting heavily on rate cuts, with a 95% probability priced in for a 25 basis point cut in October and an 84% chance of another in December. All eyes are on Fed officials speaking this week, as traders hunt for any hints about the central bank's next moves. Without fresh data to work with, every word from policymakers carries extra weight.

Both gold and silver’s momentum in 2025 has been nothing short of spectacular - up 50% in the past 12 months. It's a perfect storm driving prices higher: economic uncertainty, geopolitical chaos, rate cut expectations, aggressive central bank buying, and strong ETF inflows all converging at once.

For gold bugs, it doesn't get much better than this!

Pan American Silver (NYSE: PAAS) isn't just big – it's the Death Star of silver mining!

With a market cap around $17 billion, this Vancouver-based behemoth operates 10+ mines across seven countries in the Americas, producing enough silver to make the Hunt Brothers jealous.

Founded in 1979, Pan American has spent 45 years becoming what every junior miner dreams about at night: profitable, diversified, and sitting on a mountain of cash. They just dropped $2.1 billion to buy MAG Silver like it was lunch money, adding the crown jewel Juanicipio mine to their empire.

Think of them as the Berkshire Hathaway of silver – boring, methodical, and absolutely crushing it.

The Q3 report won’t be out for a few weeks yet but there’s plenty of relevant stuff in Q2 to get our teeth into.

Looking through the Q2 report, here are some of the key highlights:

The Money Shot:

Production Stats:

At $48/oz silver and these costs, Pan American is basically a money-printing machine with mining equipment attached.

While everyone else was playing checkers, Pan American played Monopoly and bought Park Place:

The Juanicipio Acquisition:

This isn't an acquisition; it's grand theft silver. Juanicipio is like LeBron James was in 2012. High-grade, low-cost, and just entering its prime. While Endeavour nibbles at the edges and First Majestic makes noise, Pan American just ate the whole buffet.

Cash Machine Status: $233M quarterly free cash flow. That's almost Endeavour's entire market cap every two quarters. They're generating so much cash they literally raised the dividend 20% because why not?

Portfolio Perfection: 10+ producing mines means when one sneezes, nine others say "bless you" and keep printing money. Geographic and metal diversification = sleeping well at night.

Balance Sheet Flex: $1.1B cash, $1.9B total liquidity. They could buy another junior miner with the spare change in their couch cushions.

The Escobal Wild Card: Currently suspended in Guatemala, but if it reopens, that's another 20M oz/year. It's like having a lottery ticket that might be worth $500M.

Size = Less Upside: At $17B market cap, doubling is harder than a junior going 10x.

Cost Creep: AISC at $19.69/oz isn't anything like Hecla's $5.19/oz. They're profitable but not obscenely so at existing operations.

Gold Disappointment: Production weighted toward Q4, creating uncertainty. Markets hate uncertainty like cats hate water.

Valuation: Trading at 27x earnings while juniors trade at... well, no earnings. You're paying for quality and stability.

Pan American isn't betting on silver going to $100/oz to make money – they're profitable at $20/oz and printing cash at $48/oz. With:

...owning the biggest, most diversified silver producer seems less like speculation and more like inevitability.

The Bull Case: Pan American is the Coca-Cola of silver mining – dominant market position, fortress balance sheet, and growing through smart acquisitions. When silver goes to $50-60/oz, they'll generate $1B+ in annual free cash flow. The dividend alone could hit $1/share. It's the "sleep well at night" way to play the silver bull market.

The Bear Case: You're buying the establishment, not the revolution. At 27x earnings and $17B market cap, the easy money has been made. If silver crashes or costs explode, that premium valuation evaporates faster than your dignity at a Vegas blackjack table.

The Verdict: Pan American is what you buy when you want silver exposure but also want to retire someday. It’s already up 100% YTD and has plenty of room to run, and while it may not 10x from here, it also won't go to zero.

In a sector where half the companies have historically been one bad quarter from bankruptcy, Pan American is the adult in the room – boring, responsible, and absolutely dominating.

For aggressive traders, this may be too slow. For anyone who's been burned by junior miners in the past (everyone), Pan American is like ordering a glass of wine instead of tequila shots - less exciting, but you might thank yourself tomorrow!

A quick roundup of stories you might have missed:

Tether is going all-in on gold-backed crypto with a new $20 billion investment division, because apparently backing stablecoins with dollars is so 2023. OneSafe

Gold mining stocks are absolutely demolishing AI chip stocks with 135% returns in 2025—turns out picks and shovels beat silicon chips this year. Bloomberg

Central banks are vacuum-cleaning up 80 metric tons of gold monthly (that's $8.5 billion worth) as they quietly ghost the dollar. Bloomberg

A metal detectorist in the Netherlands stumbled upon ancient gold coins that turned out to be "devil's money" from a pagan cult site – talk about divine intervention in your portfolio! Popular Mechanics

Gold just hit nearly $4,000 an ounce with a face-melting 45% gain this year, making your grandmother's jewelry box look like a hedge fund. KCRA

Central banks are back to their gold-hoarding ways after a July pause, with Kazakhstan leading the charge while Poland keeps stacking like there's no tomorrow. World Gold Council

That’s a wrap for Tuesday - I promise I tried to keep it short! See you all on Thursday.

Before you go, please take a moment to rate today's newsletter and tell us how we did.

Rick Adams
Founder, GoldBuzz
rick@goldbuzz.com