<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On a recent episode of the Money Metals podcast, host Mike Maharrey </span><a href="https://share.google/3ueMmDzj1bx2PqUGx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">interviewed Greg Weldon</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gold had pushed past $4,300, and silver broke $54 on the day of recording. Asked if that’s bubble territory, Weldon said you can argue both sides, but futures open interest remains relatively low; the bid looks like accumulation, not a blow-off.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He tied the move to BRICS-aligned dollar selling and gold buying, repatriation of bars, tight vaults, and a U.S. dollar that hasn’t yet cracked.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Silver’s $36.50 breakout gave way to a sprint toward $50 and beyond, with $54 flashing intraday.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">From there, the discussion widened to physical tightness, trust in the dollar, consumer and labor strains, a fragile equity market, and how a Fed pivot could propel the next metals leg.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If the Fed pivots back to easing and balance-sheet growth, Weldon expects the dollar to get hit, a setup that makes five-digit gold and silver’s march toward $100 plausible.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>(Interview Starts Around 8:00 Mark)</strong></p>
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<h2><b>About Greg Weldon</b></h2>
<p><b><img src="https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/Greg-Weldon-Money-Metals-2025–1-.jpg" width="400" height="600" alt="Greg Weldon, Money Metals" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></b></p>
<p><a href="https://share.google/MoPslQhiLkX6ZyUsK" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gregory T. Weldon</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, also known as Greg Weldon, brings 42 years in markets, starting on the COMEX floor in the silver pit. He has been a floor trader, institutional futures broker, hedge-fund manager, </span><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gweldon" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">and CTA (Series 3)</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He publishes independent macro research at Weldon Online and co-hosts Free Money Markets & New Age Investing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">His managed-futures program, launched in 2018 around China’s crude-market shift and an inflationary monetary reset, carries a $1,000,000 minimum.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Recent reports—Debt Black Hole, Tom Cruise Market, and In Something Else We Trust—frame metals within de-dollarization, policy error risk, and physical tightness.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He emphasizes he’s not a perma-bull; he’ll be long or short as conditions warrant.</span></p>
<h2><b>Drivers of the rally</b></h2>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Weldon points to BRICS-aligned buyers selling dollars, buying gold, and shipping metal home, draining vaults. That’s a physical driver, not a paper fling.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The dollar hasn’t even cracked; in several non-USD currencies, gold has already tripled or quadrupled, implying a U.S. dollar catch-up leg without speculative froth.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Positioning fits: futures open interest is “pretty dang low,” inconsistent with a classic bubble.</span></p>
<h2><b>Silver’s breakout and tightness</b></h2>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Silver’s tape confirmed the turn. Weldon had circled $36.50 as the breakout; once through, the only question was speed to $50, not whether it would get there.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It </span><a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/silver-price"><span style="font-weight: 400;">reached $54 on the day</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of recording. He believes silver is on its way to $100, while warning that drawdowns can be sharp.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">London looks tight. The widening disconnect between New York futures and London spot reads like real metal moving, not a basis quirk.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">India’s shortage is so acute that firms recently sourced 1,000-ounce bars from Money Metals—supply stress in the wild.</span></p>
<h2><b>Cross-border metal flows</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The </span><a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/10/14/could-india-be-the-straw-that-broke-the-silver-camels-back-004409"><span style="font-weight: 400;">global back-and-forth of physical gold and silver</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is not a logistics footnote; Weldon calls it ominous.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He ties the oscillation of metal between hubs to eroding trust in state currencies and the dollar’s settlement role.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When counterparties prefer bars in domestic vaults over foreign ledger entries, the signal is systemic.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He can imagine trade relationships that insist on bullion settlement for certain flows.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Countries with deep reserves, like </span><a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/10/16/italy-enjoys-windfall-thanks-to-gold-reserves-004415"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Italy, enjoy strategic latitude</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">; former heavy sellers may find themselves short of monetary insurance.</span></p>
<h2><b>Volatility and risk management</b></h2>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Volatility is now the feature. </span><a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/10/16/silver-clears-50-breakout-confirmed-004416"><span style="font-weight: 400;">At $50 silver with $3 daily swings</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, a single futures contract can lurch roughly $15,000 in a day.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Even on $1,000,000-plus accounts, Weldon caps per-trade risk at about 0.5%–1%. With $50 silver and three-dollar intraday ranges, entries that respect those limits are hard to find.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In 42 years—starting in the silver pit—he hasn’t seen metals more volatile, more uncertain, or harder to handicap.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Respect the tape, but respect risk more.</span></p>
<h2><b>The trust backdrop and U.S. debt</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“In God we trust” doesn’t reconcile $36 trillion in federal debt, roughly $28 trillion of it held domestically.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Add households and Weldon pegs total debt near 185% of GDP. In several months of the last fiscal year, Washington spent twice what it took in.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He argues that decades of comforting narratives have masked a deficit path that erodes confidence and drives a global search for “something else” to trust.</span></p>
<h2><b>Weaponized finance and de-dollarization</b></h2>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Policy has weaponized finance. Tariffs, sanctions, and asset seizures nudged counterparties off dollar rails just as China became the world’s dominant trader by volume.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Weldon says BRICS de-dollarization didn’t stop; it moved backstage and gained urgency, with buyers sourcing metal and moving it home.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As dollar settlement becomes leverage, incentives to diversify reserves and settlement grow. Gold buying and relocation are rational responses.</span></p>
<h2><b>Stagflation signals and consumer strain</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Fresh surveys flash stagflation. The Philly Fed and a Richmond–Atlanta Fed CFO survey show firms boosting capex to replace labor, not expand, even as consumers weaken.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Savings trail credit-card debt. Delinquency rates are the second highest since 2008–2009.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The consumer looks stretched and fragile to rate and price shocks.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The mix—labor substitution by firms and tapped-out households—implies slower growth with sticky prices, a metals-friendly setup.</span></p>
<h2><b>Labor market deterioration</b></h2>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The 12-month rise in “not in the labor force” hit 3.219 million in July, a threshold that historically coincides with recessions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Roughly 1.3 million people over 65 left the labor force. Immigration delivered about 2 million fewer entrants.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Weldon views these flows as structural and additive to the slowdown. A softening labor market layered onto a stretched consumer is how an equity correction can start.</span></p>
<h2><b>Equities, Bitcoin, and the “Tom Cruise” market</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Equities look precarious. Consumer-sensitive ETFs such as XLY and XRT won’t confirm S&P highs.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Weldon calls this the “Tom Cruise market”—Mission Impossible, hanging by a few fingers over a cliff.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A near-5% 30-year once shook stocks; now the market shrugs, which he sees as complacency amid tightening conditions.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bitcoin has been equitized via ETFs and now </span><a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/10/13/its-time-to-stop-calling-bitcoin-digital-gold-004405"><span style="font-weight: 400;">correlates tightly with the S&P 500</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. He treats it as a leading indicator for risk appetite, a tell for when equities and, briefly, metals could wobble together.</span></p>
<h2><b>Sentiment and banks’ forecasts</b></h2>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Banks are scrambling to lift gold targets after dismissing such levels not long ago. TV now normalizes $4,000 and </span><a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/10/14/bank-of-america-ups-gold-2026-price-forecast-to-5000-004411" rel="noreferrer"><span style="font-weight: 400;">$5,000 gold</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Weldon recalls a 2007 Squawk Box appearance predicting Fed debt monetization and $1,200 gold when the metal was near $400–$420. He was called a nut job—then it happened.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He also recounts a recent segment in which a novice-sounding pundit touted $4,000 gold, followed minutes later by a large client asking if it was time to liquidate miners.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">For him, that’s a sentiment “tell” and a short-term risk flag.</span></p>
<h2><b>Near-term downside and the 2008 template</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If stocks crack, everything can get sold for a spell—metals included—before gold leads the rebound.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In 2008, gold fell about 25%, far less than equities, and snapped back first and hard.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He advises keeping powder dry for that moment while maintaining strategic exposure where risk tolerances allow.</span></p>
<h2><b>Fed policy and the coming pivot</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Weldon thinks the Fed is too timid. With the consumer, housing, labor—and maybe stocks—softening, staying restrictive risks a harsher, later pivot into rising inflation.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When cuts and balance-sheet expansion return, he expects the dollar to get whacked, the transmission channel for a renewed and possibly more powerful metals leg.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If the pivot arrives late, falling real rates will feel stimulative even if nominal policy stays “tight,” and metals tend to front-run that.</span></p>
<h2><b>Five-digit gold scenario</b></h2>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Five-digit gold becomes conceivable if the dollar’s credibility erodes and financing needs force repeated devaluations. The magnitude, he stresses, is about the currency, not the commodity.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nominal highs can mask real decline—Argentina’s MERVAL is his cautionary rhyme.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In that world, central-bank gold buying persists, and private investors treat bullion as savings rather than a trade.</span></p>
<h2><b>Deglobalization, tariffs, and 2018’s turn</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Deglobalization and tariffs cut both ways. On balance, Weldon says it’s bad for the largest debtor nation and relatively good for China, Russia, and OPEC, which gain leverage over pricing and flows.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He dates a key turn to 2018, when China launched crude futures benchmarked to OPEC grades with non-dollar pricing and Russian oil referenced to that lane—the beginning of the end of dollar monopoly in that slice of trade.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He argues this pivot seeded today’s bifurcated system—one where settlement options proliferate and bullion matters more.</span></p>
<h2><b>Historical backdrop and paper shorts</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He doesn’t dismiss the GATA-era context. The Washington Accord in 1999 ended official selling after the Swiss and Bank of England dumps and reset central-bank behavior.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Allegations of large paper shorts have lingered for decades. The present squeeze, he thinks, looks like those positions reconciling with physical reality.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">For the first time in years, physical tightness—not just a narrative—is writing the plot.</span></p>
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<h2><b>What it means for investors</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He is not a perma-bull. He’ll be long or short as conditions merit. At these prices and this volatility, new entries demand patience, strict sizing, and acceptance of wider ranges.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If stocks roll first, metals may offer the last great pullback before the next advance. Silver’s structural tightness and central-bank gold buying are secular forces worth aligning with.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Watch Bitcoin and consumer-sensitive equities for the first crack, then use that window to scale in.</span></p>
<h2><b>Where to find Greg Weldon’s work</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Read his research at Weldon Online, follow him on X </span><a href="https://x.com/WeldonLIVE" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">@WeldonLive</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and listen to the Free Money Markets & New Age Investing podcast on Buzzsprout and major platforms.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He offers a free trial to his research and manages money as a CTA; inquiries can be directed through </span><a href="https://www.weldononline.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Weldon Online</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>