Key Price Targets on Silver | Gold & Silver Market Infrastructure Problems Brewing -

Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast, I’m Mike Gleason.
Coming up, don’t miss another amazing interview with Greg Weldon of Weldon Financial, a renowned commodities trader with over 40 years of experience. Greg weighs in on what it will take for gold and silver to really get moving up again, what he is looking for as a key level on silver on the upside and also shares his views on when, if ever, the stock market may roll over.
Greg also keys in the lack of participation in the labor market, shares some truly mind-boggling stats about that, and then tells us how the war with Iran all but cements the likelihood of stagflation gripping the economy, and what that means for precious metals, the dollar, oil and the financial markets as a whole.
So, be sure to stick around for Mike Maharrey’s conversation with one of our very favorite guests, the wonderful Greg Weldon, coming up after this week’s market update. And if you enjoy this material, please do us a favor and like and subscribe to this podcast wherever you consume this content.
At yesterday's U.S. House Agriculture Committee oversight hearing, Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Michael Selig pledged to assist efforts of members of Congress who recently introduced the SILVER Act.
This bill, introduced by Rep. Russ Fulcher of Idaho and Rep. Mark Harris of North Carolina, seeks to address longstanding geographic limitations which have blocked out most of the nation from the public markets for gold and silver.
Under current exchange practices, precious metals storage facilities are confined to the Greater New York City area, creating what lawmakers and industry participants like Money Metals describe as a concentration risk with negative implications for market stability, national security, liquidity, and investor access.
Here's an exchange on the topic at yesterday's hearing on Capitol Hill…
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Rep. Mark Harris said: “Mr. Chairman, I was concerned to learn that the only approved metals depositories used for deliveries on gold and silver futures contracts are heavily concentrated in the single geographic region around New York City.
“And this level of geographic concentration is troubling to me from a point of national security, market efficiency, and operational resiliency standpoint, which is why I chose to be an original co-sponsor of the SILVER Act that seeks to correct this issue. After all, we've seen firsthand, whether through terrorist attacks like 9/11, extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy, the New York region is not immune to disruption.
“And so concentrating critical financial infrastructure in a single region like New York does tend to create potential risk and vulnerabilities that we just wouldn't accept in other sectors, especially one that is so crucial to our financial system.
“So with that and our national security, this is why I believe geographic diversity is an important component of operational resilience and risk management. Mr. Chairman, let me ask you, while it made sense 100 years ago for these depositories to be located in the greater New York area, why in our modern age are they still centralized in a single location where they're susceptible to these kinds of events, terrorist attacks, and foreign threats that I just mentioned?”
Chairman Michael Selig: “Well, Congressman, as a regulator of our commodity derivatives markets, it's absolutely critical that we have deliverable supply available as it's possible to take our futures contracts to delivery. And to the extent there's concentration risk, that's certainly something that we'd evaluate as a regulator in ensuring that our contracts have integrity and that our markets are well functioning. So we applaud your leadership on this issue, and we’d be happy to work with your office on it.”
Congressman Harris: “So are you willing to study whether the current concentration of precious metals depositories in a single geographic area does pose a systemic risk to market stability and national security?”
Chairman Selig: “Congressman, we'd certainly work together with your office to better understand the risks caused by this concentration.”
Congressman Harris: “Super. Well, these markets really were designed to help participants manage and mitigate risk, so it stands to reason that we should also ensure the market structure itself is resilient and capable of mitigating its own risk.”
</blockquote>
That was Congressman Mark Harris of North Carolina questioning CFTC Chairman Selig.
In other news, consumer spending is “under strain” according to a recent New York Times report. That’s bad news for an economy that depends on people buying stuff.
We see this consumer strain reflected in the slowing growth of consumer debt.
Consumer spending is the engine that drives the U.S. economy, making up about two-thirds of American economic output. As the Times put it, “The enduring strength of consumer spending… has been the main reason that the United States has evaded a recession through successive drubbings over five years: roaring inflation, a rapid run-up in interest rates and a barrage of tariffs.”
The dirty little secret is that “enduring strength” was courtesy of Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Amex. And the problem with running an economy on credit cards is a pesky thing called a limit. And it appears Americans are getting close to that line.
Showered with stimulus while having no place to go and little to do during the pandemic lockdowns, Americans saved money and paid down their credit card balances. But as post-pandemic price inflation rocked the economy, they blew through their savings and turned to credit cards to make ends meet.
By the end of 2020, revolving debt, primarily reflecting credit card balances, had dropped below $1 trillion to $979 billion. Today, outstanding revolving debt stands at $1.33 trillion.
However, debt growth has slowed to a crawl over the last year or so.
After several months of slowing credit growth, December was an anomaly, as Americans put Christmas on their credit cards. Revolving debt spiked by 7.4 percent that month. But it slowed again in January, charting a tepid 2.3 percent gain. Revolving credit slowed even further in February, growing by just 0.6 percent, according to <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/Releases/g19/current/?utm_source=chatgpt.com&amp;tblci=GiCB9a4pBBlehdsJSAXBSvtzY7kC2AKY69BgUiVdqNpQmSDKuWUo-sCAu_nVmNN8MK67Pg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the most recent data released by the Federal Reserve</a>.
Looking at the broader trend, the growth of revolving credit has slowed markedly over the last year.
Meanwhile, the personal savings rate is at the lowest level since 2008.
Americans have run up a significant amount of debt in just a few years. They currently owe $5.12 trillion.
It’s clear that Americans are struggling under the pile of debt. Meanwhile, consumer debt is just one factor contributing to the massive <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/podcasts/2025/11/12/the-debt-black-hole-004473">Debt Black Hole</a> dominating the global economy.
And even if consumers still have some borrowing power, an economy run on Visa and Mastercard simply isn't sustainable. When Americans finally hit their credit limit, it will have major implications for economic growth.
Well before we get to this week’s fantastic interview with Greg Weldon, let’s take a look at the weekly market action here. And with today’s latest news coming out of the Middle East, indicating the Straits of Hormuz is now open again upon the announcement of a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, precious metals and stocks are both ripping higher with oil selling off hard on this news.
Gold is up about $120 or 2.5% now on the week thanks to a nice advance today and checks in at $4,881 an ounce.
Silver is up more than $6.50 an ounce, with nearly 2/3 of that move coming here today. The white metal currently trades at $83.14 an ounce as of this Friday morning recording. If this news of the potential end of the conflict in Iran sticks, this could be exactly what silver needs to continue its march higher after a 2+ month long consolidation period.
As for the PGMs, platinum checks in at $2,133 an ounce, up 3.6% since last Friday’s close. And similarly, palladium is up 3.8% to check in at $1,597.
Well now, without further delay, and for much more on what may be ahead here for metals moving forward, let’s get right to this week’s exclusive interview.
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Mike Maharrey: Greetings, I'm Mike Maharrey and I'm pleased to be joined once again by my good friend Greg Weldon. Greg is a veteran analyst who has spent years, as he put it, grinding it out in the trenches. And he's a frequent guest on the show and it's always good to talk to him. How you doing, Greg?
Greg Weldon: I'm doing great. Great. Good to be back.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I was looking back. The last time we spoke was actually in January, so it's been a little bit while. It seems like it wasn't that long ago, but I guess it has been. But since then, we've had a pretty significant correction in gold and silver prices. And then we also have this crazy war with Iran that keeps going on and on and on. And I want to start kind of there. The war has created all kinds of volatility in the markets and we basically had gold and silver kind of range bound over the last few weeks between gold $4,500 and $5,000, and then silver's kind of running between $70 and $80. And I'm curious, just the first question is, are you surprised at all by the way medals have behaved as this war has kind of unfolded?
Greg Weldon: No, I'm really not. Frankly, I said before the war that if we did attack Iran and this turned into something that was more than a one-off shot, that the dollar would probably rally and that would hurt metals because they were primed for correction, technically speaking anyway. What really does surprise me is that it was January since we last spoke, and it feels like we've had a whole year of trading between now and January. I mean, the first quarter was like five different quarters because I mean, we had huge profits and then gave a good percentage of back. Then we had huge profits and gave a good percentage of them back. There were huge profits. And luckily, I think just on a side-note, I think people that do this regularly, either for themselves or professionally, will tell you that the hardest single thing to do is take big profits, deciding where to get out of a profitable trade. And you can't win if you have too high an expectation because you're never going to get out to peak. You're going to give some back whether you get out too early and the market runs to a higher high or whether you wait too long to get out and then the market gives a lot back and you get out on the correction.
So, what I have found, and this again is a side-note, but it leads to the bigger answer, is that over 42 years of doing this and seeing this movie so many times, and the one thing that doesn't change while everything else changes, information, the markets, technology, trading on the computer in milliseconds versus phones into the floor where I used to work, is human behavior. It never changes. And you're talking hope, faith, and fear. It's cliche, but it's true. And it really, I think becoming a good trader is very much in the same kind of psychological modality of becoming a good parent. It's like a war with yourself and to the degree to recognizing yourself, recognize your flaws, and then trying to correct them in trading and trying to correct them in your children or whatever. So, it's one of the hardest things to do. And I think that instincts, seeing this before, understanding how the markets work, seeing how people do get out of these kinds of big monster moves, spike-like moves, helped me exit these positions very well towards the end of the quarter.
And we booked very large profits. A lot of the people was their best quarter I hear. Certainly from your monetary standpoint, it was our best quarter. But moving forward, I would say that yes, I was not surprised by the decline in the medals. We got out very well. And it's funny because what I just said applies, I got out 98 and a little bit higher, and then when it went to like 115 or whatever the high was and silver, I was pissed that we got out in 98. And then when it was 75 in two days, I was like, "Oh yeah, we got out in 98." So this is a psychological war you go through with yourself. But having said that, it's the dollar. And the dollar was right on the precipice, right on the long-term trend line. It goes back to the 2011 low, which is part of a double bottom from 2008, which is a major bottom from the 1985 high that linked to the plaza accord.
It is a secular bear market. The wave counts, the Fibonacci numbers, the math and the geometry are so specific and precise, you can't draw it any better if you were making a textbook and trying to come up with charts to illustrate your points. So when you have an ABC correction in gold, you now have an ABC correction in silver. If you remember, I think I said with you that if you've got silver below $65, if the last time we talked was January, then it wasn't you. But somebody like when silver started coming off, I said, "If you get this below 65, it's what I call a back the truck up moment where you back up the pickup truck or the front back loader, whatever, the dump truck and put as much better out as the tires will carry." And I also said, so I was right on that one, but I was wrong when I said, "I don't think you get below 65." And you did.
And that was the double bottom, that was the sea wave bottom, that was the Fibonacci bottom. And now, the dollar on the precipice of a major breakdown saved by the war, which is why I said this thing could rally. It's pretty short market. People were longer the currencies, and that's the way it played out. This was a position move, not a based on the war, not an anti-flight of safety. This was really a technical move involving gold and silver. And it was one of these things where all asset prices could get whacked if oil goes up and you have a total demand side collapse because of higher oil prices, which is still very possible. But I think from here, and I said last week, the second you think that deceased fire might actually be real, at least sustained for some period of time, we're selling dollars and we're looking for the renewed breakout and the next bull leg in gold and silver.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I really appreciate the fact that you brought up the psychological aspect of it because I think everybody struggles with that. I certainly do. And I ended up selling some of my silver both because I wanted to book the profit and also because I needed to deal with some tax issues. But it's one of those things that's like, I got out, I made good money because I was in some of my silver positions. I got in like 12 bucks. But then the day after I sold, it went up three or four dollars. And so then like you said, you're kicking yourself.
Greg Weldon: I think that's probably might even be the same day. It was like a $4 the next day. We're like, crap.
Mike Maharrey: Exactly. But you're right, you do. It's a discipline thing, isn't it? You kind of have to stay focused on the big picture, especially when you have all these crazy headlines. Trump can go on Truth Social and say something and then the market's whipsaw and it's pretty crazy. Well, he's trying to walk the tightrope, the political tightrope across Niagara Falls, like what was that guy, Lequalenda or whoever he was. I mean, Trump is trying to take out Iran, but not allow this to lose the midterm elections for the Republicans. And this is a fine line, man. And he tilted a little too far the other one way. He kind of brought himself back. I mean, honestly, when it comes to this, I really wish … I mean, we know Trump from his first term, we know Trump, and I thought Trump would win in 2016, months before it was … He was only like four or 5% support at the time. But I also say he's going to have problems. He's a CEO. He's not a politician. He is not a diplomat. He is not diplomatic in any way, shape or form. He's used to telling people what to do, and if they don't do it, he fires them.
So, we knew he was going to be like this. He's kind of a bombastic bully and kind of bravado and this ego that has to be satiated every 10 minutes on social media. If he would stop talking and do his job, he'd be great. He'd be great. It's his own worst enemy and his mouth is the biggest problem. If he would just not say some of the things he has to say, which is pure ego, it would just be a smoother sailing in some of these things. And now, I mean, frankly, I think he needed an off ramp. And this is why I think this would be a real ceasefire because he can't allow this to move into the summer, into May, June with November elections lurking and Democrats using outrageous rhetoric to bash him. It's really sad to see the division. But we said this too, and you know this, Mike, I mean, we talked about the polarization, the physics on the planet and how each end of the spectrum is going to resonate more with more volatility and everything would be polarized to the max.
And man, there's nowhere else you see this than weather and politics and human behavior. And animal behavior, to be honest with you too.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So what do you think is going to take? What dynamics need to kind of be in place to break out of the kind of rangebound place we're in with precious metals right now?
Greg Weldon: I think it's coming. It's the dollar. It is 100% the dollar. And I think the dollar is such big picture stuff that it transcends the war. It goes well beyond the war. I think that's also why you saw some of the downside action in the dollar even when the news was maybe the ceasefire won't hold. And that to me really caught my eye. When you see kind of a break in the patterns of correlations, and that was a big one. So one of the things we've done is alienate NATO, alienate the UK. We've already alienated Canada on trade. We alienated Spain and Italy. And now Spain and Italy are meeting with Xi. All right. Xi met with the UAE. Xi wants to be, and he said this, he goes, "We have a world in chaos and moral decay." Those were his words, basically talking about the US and the degree to which moral decay is aimed at Trump.
And some of the things he does and some of the things he says is fodder and fuel for these kinds of comments, right? But we know Xi, we know the history. I've talked about this so much in the last six, seven years, since 2018 when the Chinese opened the Shanghai crude oil futures. It was the beginning of the end for the petro dollar and for the dollar. So, now we've alienated all our allies too. I mean, come on, man. And we're forcing the UK and Canada to make trade deals with China. So to me, this is where the dollar gets really sketchy. If you recall, my January, beginning of the year thing was the biggest trade of the year is going to be the Chinese renminbi and the decline the dollar and being long currencies that are commodity and resource exporting currencies that have links to China, like the African Iran, the Brazilian reality, even the Mexican Peso.
And these are the currencies that are making waves right now, the Australian dollar would be another one. And to the extent that now you also have, and I think the next biggest story that nobody's talking about, which shocks the hell out of me, is that the opposition party leader in Taiwan, who is the party that is the opposition now in Taiwan, is the party that ruled China when it was mainland China from 1912 to 1949 when Mao took over. Now, Aji's father was in the Mao administration, quote unquote, and was killed during an assassination attempt on Mao. So they took Xi when he was six, wisdom away, and he's been indoctrinated in the Maoist manifest destiny vision. This is why Vietnam, because of gas and oil drilling rights, the Philippines, because of fishing, Malaysia and Indonesia and Korea, because of shipping lanes. And all of this, and this is the … So Taiwan's always been the place where the US and Korea kind of stuck their flag and said, "We're going to defend here." Well, this opposition leader, she became the leader of the opposition party in November.
She spearheaded the blocking of the expansion of the Taiwanese budget deficit to 5% of GDP that would have allowed them to make that huge purchase of US weapons and technology that never happened. And no one talks about the fact it didn't happen. All of a sudden it's this huge thing and Trump's talking it up and Xi is like, "No, no, no, don't you dare." And all of a sudden it disappeared. After that was blocked in the couple of weeks since, the opposition leader name is Cheng. She has educated Beasley, Temple Law School, Cambridge, PhD and doctorate degrees. She's a rockstar and she once called the Chinese communist tyranny regime, right? So she is now asked to sit down with Xi and got a sit down with Xi. And I'm going to read you what she said two weeks ago before the sit down with Xi.
And this is her; I'll quote her. "Could it be that the United States has treated Taiwan as a chess piece upon to strategically provoke the Chinese Communist Party? I want all Taiwanese people to be able to proudly and confidently say, ‘I am Chinese.’ At least 90% of Taiwan's culture, history and bloodline are Chinese. We speak Chinese. We write Chinese characters. We eat Chinese food. We worship Chinese gods. Taiwan and the mainland should join forces to reach new heights in human civilization. I mean, that's epic commentary and you know this is going to feed right into Xi's manifest destiny view and China taken down Taiwan without shot firing shot. The US crawls away with their tail between their legs. That's a big deal to me. And this strengthens the renminbi. All the other things around the weather and commodities, and again, since 2018, a world war for commodities and resources, that side of the world versus this side of the world.
And we blew it by not bringing in Canada and Mexico and even Brazil and Argentina, Peru. When the trade deal started, we should have brought them in first, had a unified hemisphere and then approached China and all the others. We didn't do that. We went after everybody like a rabbit dog. It was really not well planned, I didn't think.
And we're paying the price for that now. The dollar is the price for that, and that's the biggest thing. And I think that that's the next big move. And I think once you get gold, I mean, 48, 41 is kind of a trigger for me. Silver … What is my silver? Let me look. I wrote these down yesterday. We actually bought silver two days ago. You really got to get through $92, but I'm not waiting until $92. The risk will be way too much. So I think you can buy it here and kind of risk somewhere just under $70. And I think that's a good place. So dollar down, gold and silver up, and I think it's imminent.
Mike Maharrey: That's really interesting with China. And I did not know that. That's one of those things that-
Greg Weldon: Because no one's talking about it. You don't see it on the news anywhere, man. I mean, I had to go … I read some of the couple of Asian papers. It's great sources of information.
Mike Maharrey: So, let's talk about stock market in a second. It seems kind of incredible, right? With everything that's going on, we have both the down, the S&Ps on the verge of record highs again. And this actually comes from Mike Gleason. He asked this. Is it possible that stocks are just going to remain elevated forever?
Greg Weldon: The Gleasons always come up with the best questions.
Mike Maharrey: I know they do.
Greg Weldon: I mean, next to you, of course. So wow. I mean, that's a rhetorical question and the answer is no, even though the answer certainly appears to be yes.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah. It feels like it sometimes, doesn't it?
Greg Weldon: The disconnect in my mind has never been bigger. Again, talk about seeing this movie before. And we call the 87 Crash to … These are dates … 1987 and 2008 were the biggest years of my career money-wise. Why? Because there were crashes and why? Because they were easy to see coming because of the disconnect. The disconnect here is that AI is the economy and the consumer doesn't matter. Or you get all these people on financial television, and of course they talk their book because they're all selling bonds or an ETF or stocks. I mean, come on, let's be real. They don't really have people that are going to tell it like it is because their ratings go with stock markets. So everyone has a vested interest to see a stock market go up in perpetuity. So from that perspective, the answer to the mics is yes, absolutely.
They will always go up. And frankly, that probably is kind of the answer because dollar down in a new bear market will be bullish for stocks. And I think stocks will rally from here on that, but then the reality check of where the consumer is who was already suffering big time, and I'm going to give you some stats right here if we got time on the consumer as to why the disconnect is so massively wide right now and why ultimately, while stocks are rallying when the dollar's declining with gold and silver, with Bitcoin and Ethereum too, by the way, I think crypto's about to break out just like gold and silver. It's a very similar kind of dynamic, different technical look, but it's the same thing. And I like owning both. I think this argument over one or the other is kind of silly.
I mean, there's cases to be made for having a digital. There's a lot of cases to be made for having something in your hand that's fiscal. So I like both, but nonetheless. So, I think the disconnect comes later and that's when the dollar really accelerates to the downside because the capital outflow and oh my God, the economy's crashed and the Fed. And especially if the Fed follows their own projections and where the market is now pricing 100% probability of one rate hike next year, Bloomberg and the Reuters and CNBC, I mean, they're still all talking that one of the headlines last week when the CPI number came out was traders expand bets on rate cuts. And it's just like, wait a minute, all right and I'm going to show you why that might be the right move given the labor market number, which was terrible.
But the inflation number, no way, right? Because the Fed is more tone to inflation. The minister tell us clearly they think the labor market's going to be fine. Their SEP shows no change in the unemployment rate through 2028. I mean, that's about as fantasy land and delusional as it gets that AI is not going to do anything to move the unemployment rate up. They haven't arranged from 4.3 to 4.5. It's been in that range just in the last several months. So it's going nowhere according to the Fed. So, I think the reality check will be that and the lack of final demand, which is problematic, especially if the Fed hikes rates, that'll bring it on faster. And if you get there, then it'll become a bond market problem because you can't have this dynamic where you don't have growth and expect to service the debt.
But let me give you a couple. I want to give you some labor market stats and some CPI stats because the bottom line here, Mike, is stagflation is here. The winner of the war is to solidify concrete stagflation, which I've been expecting really since the middle of last year. You can see it in a lot of places. It's not just even in the US. All right. Let's talk about the unemployment number. All right. So 170,000 increase in jobs, and everyone was all excited about that, right? Well, if you read the Fed minutes from the March meeting, January, February had strikes in several places that kept the employment down and they expected a big rebound in March. They got it. But here's the crux of the matter, all right? You had a decline of 339,000 in the number unemployed, which you would think would be great, but 339,000 people didn't get jobs. :
The payroll increase was only 170, right? Why? Because 339,000 was just a part of the 488,000 people who dropped out of the labor force in March. That's a massive, massive one-month number. Let's take it another step because over the last 12 months, not including deportation, self-deportation, immigration, all this, we're talking about people in the labor force this entire time. 2.4 million people have dropped out, all right? The participation rate is 61.9. The only other time, except the worst time in the pandemic when the global economy was shut down and nobody was working. The last time the US participation rate was below 62% was in 1977.
Mike Maharrey: Wow.
Greg Weldon: So, when you take now the 2.4 million that have dropped out, and then you take the 12 month rolling net change in non-farm payroll growth, all right? So over the last 12 months, you've created 260,000 jobs, but you've lost 2.4 million people. All right? Two things. Number one, when you move below a million in 12 month job growth, every time that's happened seven times in history dating back to 1971, it went into negative territory and you had a recession. 1974, 1979, 1990, 2000, 2008, 2020 and now. But secondly, excuse me. If you take the difference between the dropouts, 2.4 million and the new jobs, 260,000, you're left with 2.14 million people that are no longer counted. If you added that to the 7.2 million unemployed that gets you your 4.3 rate, the unemployment rate would be 5.6.
Do you think the Fed would be so sanguine about the labor market? If the unemployment rate was 5.6 up from 4.3 a year ago? Yeah, dang straight. Not only that, ours worked fell. Our earnings fell. Thus, average earning a weekly take home pay deflated. It fell for the month. And this is the same month. You had the largest single month increase in gasoline prices in history in the CPI, going back to 1967, CPI at 3.3 and weekly average earnings for a 12 month basis fell to 3.5. You had a percent and a half real income six months ago. You got 0.2 now. And you're talking about credit card debt still above personal savings. The real wages only 0.2. Second highest delinquency rates on credit cards except for 2008, subprime auto loans, delinquency rate, the highest ever. And now even the people over 100,000 in income, according to the Fed survey, expect that their income growth will only match inflation.
And people are now expecting to actually cut spending. You almost never see from the Fed surveys. People say they're going to cut spending. You're there now. And I also said, by the way, that if this war is problematic because the last thing you need is another round of inflation. Because you had the whole picture, big inflation, you had exactly what we said it was going to do. You had disinflation. A lot of the food things came down like cocoa and coffee were way up there, came all the way back down, orange juice, lumber even too. And then you'd have higher highs and higher lows and then a breakout to new inflation. We weren't even talking about the war, but the war caused that to happen. But the thing about it, Mike, is this is so much bigger than the war. It's just a cover.
Again, the Fed, being the Wizard of Oz, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. In service sector, CPI, X energy. So not including any energy, let alone we know what fertilizer is going to be with food and some of these things, but CPI services. Services is still 70% of the economy. Consumers still 70% of the economy. There's your disconnect from the stock market, all right? But in this context, 81 service CPI indexes, I break them down every single month. All right? I can tell you that 32% of them, a third of them, a third of CPI service inflation numbers are above 5% year over year. 26% or 21 out of 81 are above 6% year over year. That's more that is below the 2% target. And fully 65% of these indexes are above three year over year. I mean, so you're not even close to the Fed's target.
Inflation is running away again. The consumer is already strapped and this is a doom and gloom economic scenario that will catch up with the stock market.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah. I watched the M2 money supply pretty closely and that's kind of my inflation gauge and it's going up at a very rapid rate. And then interestingly…
Greg Weldon: And so is Fed's balance sheet again too, by the way.
Mike Maharrey: I was just going to say that. Yeah, the Fed is increasing its balance sheet, It's not QE though, so it's okay, right?
Greg Weldon: The reserve adjustment dynamic. Yeah, of course.
Mike Maharrey: All right. Well, we're running out of time and I've got like five more questions, but I'll skip those. But I do want to ask you something that just kind of a little fun, personal question. I want you to think back into your youth. If you're like me, that gets harder and harder all the time. But can you remember what your first personal investment in gold and silver was? Was it a physical? Was it an ETF? What was your first exposure to … And this could even go back to when you were a teenager, if you had a gold coin or a silver coin or something. Yeah,
Greg Weldon: That's a great question. It's because my dad gave me a collection of silver bars that were all from the Bullion banks at the time back in the '70s. And I was a teenager. I was maybe 13 or 14, probably 12, maybe 12 or 13. And I was always a math and science geek, always. I was a huge into the NASA. I made my father wake me up when I was a child to watch the moon walk even though my mother was protesting, my dad woke me up. But yeah, no, and it was one of the close things. And it's unfortunate because it got stolen out of my house in New Jersey at one point never recovered. But yeah, that was my first introduction and the silver bars. And I still have one of them, which is the Bank of Ireland, okay? Luck of the Irish, right?
Because I use it as my card protector when I play in the World Series and poker and the world poker tour. So I still have one of them and that's very cool. But yeah, that was the little Bullion Bank silver bars.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, that is very cool. It is interesting too because those kind of things as a teenager can really make an impression. I got to do a little object lesson with my daughter the other day because a couple of years ago I gave both of my kids silver rounds, and so I was talking to my daughter, and I was telling her how much that silver round is appreciated since I gave it to her. Her eyes got big because she's not one to really follow financial markets. So that's a neat anecdote. All right. Well, you have a wealth of information available to folks. And so I would like for you to point them to where they can find that.
Greg Weldon: They can find the story that we didn't get to talk about, which is El Nino. Yeah. Weather and water. The lowest level of snow cover in the West US ever, how the runoff and water's going to be low, how the AI data centers are just water mules and how the PHO and PIO water ETFs are doing quite well right now. Water is a big deal that no one's talking about. The sea surface Arctic ice is the lowest ever. Took out the 2012 low. The snow cover in the western part of the US had very warm, even though it was brutal in the east, very warm in the west. And you have the lowest snow cover now taken out to 2015 low. So these are recorded history lows in these things. They're going to affect food crops big time. El Nino coming, they say NOAA says one in four chance the worst El Nino we've ever seen.
You want to talk about inflation, talk about food, talk about the weather, that's a wild card that no one's talking about. And these crops, a lot of them have no margin for error because you got record crops, you also have record demand. You want this kind of information, you can come and just shoot me an email, Greg Weldon, G-R-E-G, W-E-L-D-N-O-N @weldonline. And I'll tell you what we're doing right now. I had another interview last week. We did this, so we'll do this for your people too. Give you the rest of April for free in my daily global macro strategy report. So you can get a better idea of what we do, how I think of things, how deep we go with the data analysis. And of course, we are doing very well in our individually managed accounts in the regulated futures contracts. I'm a series three registered money manager.
So, if you want information on that for accredited investors only, we may not be for you, you may not be for us, but everything is very transparent and above board and the performance has been stellar, frankly, if I don't say so myself. You can get any of that information by either going to the website or weldonline.com or shoot me an email at Gregwelden@weldonline.com. I'll also say just a plug for my producer, the podcast, Money Markets and New Age Investing, I can be found at Weldonlive on X and the podcast is @money_podcast.
Mike Maharrey: Outstanding. And just to reiterate, the breadth of information that you cover is phenomenal. And as people got a little flavor of in this interview, you're keeping up with a lot of things globally that fly under the radar here in the United States that are very important. So folks, you need that information, so avail yourself to it. And Greg, I always appreciate having you on the show. It's always a pleasure. You're one of my favorites, but don't tell anybody else, but I really do appreciate it. And it's always good to talk to you.
Greg Weldon: Well, it's my pleasure. You guys do a great job and the whole money and metals crowd, I mean, it's really good. The Gleasons are fantastic. And I think that for me, when anyone asks me, you guys are the go- to guys.
Mike Maharrey: Well, we appreciate that. And I hope you have a good rest of your week and we'll look forward to having you back on in the near future.
Greg Weldon: Me too, Mike. Take care.
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Another fantastic interview with our good friend Greg Weldon, and I hope you enjoyed that lively conversation with one of our very favorite guests. Greg really does have a tremendous handle on these markets, and his track record absolutely speaks for itself.
Well, that will do it for this week. Be sure to check back next Friday for our next Weekly Market Wrap Podcast. And to check out any of our audio programs, including our second podcast, the Money Metals Midweek Memo, just visit <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/podcasts">MoneyMetals.com/podcasts</a> or find them wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And as a big help to us we would ask you to please like, subscribe, download and rate our podcasts. Doing so helps us extend the reach of this material.
Until next time, this has been Mike Gleason with <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com">Money Metals Exchange</a>, thanks for listening and have a wonderful weekend everybody.

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