Meanwhile, Trump Calls Federal Reserve Chairman Powell “Stupid” for Refusing to Slash Rates -

Welcome to this week’s market wrap podcast, I’m Mike Gleason
Coming up don’t we’ll have another wonderful interview, this time with Phillip Newman, founding partner and managing director of <a href="https://www.metalsfocus.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Metals Focus</a>. Phillip shares the insights from perhaps the most highly regarded precious metals research and consultancy firms on the globe and tells us if their analysis is still pointing to higher gold prices despite an epic run over the last couple of years in the metal. Phillip and Mike Maharrey spend a good amount of time discussing silver and what’s ahead for the white metal now that it has taken out the key $35 mark.
They also touch on the growing trend of metal shifting from West to East and the ramifications to the markets based on that dynamic.
So, be sure to stick around for another wonderful Money Metals interview with this week’s guest Phillip Newman of Metals Focus, coming up after this week’s market update.
This week, the Fed had its meeting and decided to hold interest rates steady between 4.25 and 4.5 percent. Rates have remained at that level since last December, following rate cuts that started before the presidential election.
The <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20250618a.htm?tblci=GiBEbL3W2S26GUNZPzyVH21tx-QJnjtZvxVu_bM6Zno4iyD28GQoooixiK_yuOE-MJ_bXg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">official FOMC statement</a> was little changed from the May meeting. The committee emphasized that it is “attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate.”
Fed Chief Jerome Powell remains convinced tariffs will boost price inflation. During his post-meeting press conference, he said everybody he knows is forecasting a meaningful increase in inflation due to tariffs.
Despite no sign of increasing inflation pressure in the CPI, Powell said it is in the pipeline and we shouldn’t expect it to manifest immediately.
On the other side of the coin, the FOMC is clearly worried about a slowing economy. It lowered its growth forecast down by 0.3 percent, projecting tepid growth of just 1.4 percent this year with price inflation rising to 3 percent.
And what do we call high inflation coupled with low growth?
Stagflation.
The FOMC also released its revised dot plot showing the projected trajectory of interest rates. It still calls for two rate cuts in 2025, but it eliminated one cut each in 2026 and 2027. If the Fed follows the forecast, there would be four cuts totaling 1 percentage point over the next three years.
Notably, the number of committee members projecting no rate cuts this year rose from four to seven.
While analysts tend to get all excited about these dot-plot forecasts, they are virtually meaningless.
Fed members are notoriously bad at projecting the trajectory of interest rates, even though they're the ones literally setting the rates.
How bad is their track record?
Fund manager David Hay analyzed past dot plots and found the FOMC only got interest rate projections right 37 percent of the time. And as Hay pointed out, “They control interest rates!”
For instance, in March 2021, the FOMC projected the interest rate would still be zero in 2022. The actual 2022 rate was 1.75 percent. And in 2023, the vast majority of FOMC members thought the rate would still be at zero. The actual rate was over 5 percent.
The FOMC would probably get much better results by flipping coins or throwing darts at the wall.
The ugly reality is that there isn't a "right move" for the Fed given the dynamics. It's stuck between a rock and a hard place.
When central bankers are worried about economic growth, they typically ease rates for the stimulative effect. But this move elevates inflation. (Keep in mind that <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/01/12/common-definition-of-inflation-you-hear-today-is-wrong-government-propaganda-002925">inflation isn’t rising prices</a>. It’s an increase in the money supply. One of the results of this monetary inflation is price inflation).
When central bankers are worried about inflation pressures, they tend to raise rates (or hold them steady).
What is a central banker to do when worried about both inflation and growth?
Nothing.
That’s exactly the path the Fed has laid out. Powell said the Fed is “well positioned to wait to learn more about the likely course of the economy before considering any adjustments to our policies.”
It appears the plan is to stand pat and then address whichever side of the mandate gets ugly first. If the CPI surges, rates will remain elevated, but if the economy begins to wobble, you can expect fast and aggressive cuts.
President Donald Trump is not pleased with this approach. He wants rate cuts now. He blasted Powell before the meeting, calling him “a stupid person.”
Trump is referring to the rising interest expense for the federal government. He also likely knows that this debt-dependent economy needs stimulus to keep limping along.
Trump isn’t wrong. But he isn’t right either.
The Fed’s inaction is exactly what you would expect given <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/01/12/trump-vs-powell-and-a-catch-22-003748">the Catch-22 it finds itself in</a>. It simultaneously needs to cut rates to prop up the easy money-addicted economy and hold rates steady (or even raise them) to keep inflation at bay.
Keep in mind that despite the <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/06/12/may-cpi-ratchets-up-pressure-on-fed-to-return-to-inflation-004121">cooler CPI readings</a> over the last several months, inflation (as defined by a rise in the money supply) has been increasing for more than a year.
Powell and his fellow central bankers have been <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/11/08/fed-cuts-interest-rate-powell-walks-a-messaging-tightrope-003607">walking this tightrope</a> for quite a while. He acknowledged it in April during a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago. As the AP described it, “The Fed would essentially have to choose whether to keep interest rates high to fight inflation or cut them to spur growth and hiring.”
In other news, platinum has been pushing up above the key resistance zone at $1,300 that had been a major hurdle for the last decade—an encouraging bullish signal.
At Money Metals, we've been reporting on several bullish tailwinds for platinum: a nearly 1 million-ounce supply deficit over the past three years, historically low valuations, a strong technical setup, and rising demand from Chinese jewelry buyers who are increasingly turning to platinum as gold prices soar.
Well after this week's surge which brings platinum’s gains over the past three months to over 40% — it may be ready to conquer the key $1,300 level — and if so, it is likely to head a fair bit higher this year.
As for the weekly price action in the metals, gold is off 1.9% or about $66 to come in at $3,381 an ounce, and is heading for its first loss in 3 weeks.
Turning to the white metals, silver is off 1.1% to come in at $36.12. Platinum is back below $1,300 but it is up 3.4% on the week to check in at $1,284. And finally, palladium is in positive territory this week to check in at $1,072, up 1.6% as of this Friday morning recording.
And lastly, before we wrap up the market update segment for this week’s podcast, we want to let you know about an incredibly smoking deal we’re offering right now in silver.
For a limited time we’ve slashed our ask premiums on <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/silver/junk-silver">90% silver coin bags</a>. Premiums are as low as $0.69 over spot per ounce, an unheard of deal going back to well before the current decade.
So, stock up on this highly sought after form of retail silver bullion and pay just pennies over spot. Just go to <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/buy/specials">MoneyMetals.com/buy/specials</a> to find these deals and more, or simply give us a call at 1-800-800-1865 during our normal business hours between Monday and Saturday and ask to speak with one of our no pressure and non-commissioned Precious Metals Specialists.
Well now, without further delay let’s get right to our exclusive interview a metals market insider.
<div class="pl-3"><img class="mx-auto md:float-right p-3" src="https://www.moneymetals.com/uploads/content/mike-maharrey-and-dr-vieira-podcast-img.jpg" alt="Mike Maharrey and Michael Pento" width="450" height="180" loading="lazy" />
Mike Maharrey: Greetings once again. I'm Mike Maharrey, a reporter and editor here at Money Metals, and I'm very pleased to be joined today by Philip Newman. He's a founding partner and managing director over at Metals Focus. How are you doing today, Philip?
Philip Newman: I'm doing really good, Mike, and as always, thanks so much for having your podcast.
Mike Maharrey: Well really, really appreciate it. Love your insights. We use your data a lot. Before we dig into what's going on in the precious metals markets, I wanted to give you a chance to let folks know what you guys do at Metals Focus. I don't want to assume that everybody knows who you are and what you do, So, give people the quick overview of the work that you guys do.
Philip Newman: Absolutely. So, I'm one of the owners of Melo Focus. We've been going since 2013. We've now got about 31 people in eight markets. And the reason we've got these people around the world is that we spend our time on the roads meeting companies across supply chains, holding confidential meetings, and we bring all that information back and we package that up in reports and consultancy that we put out in the market. What's really important for us is we don't trade. We're not buying and selling. So, our view I think is really a truly independent one. And I think three clients I can mention because it's quite a high profile and well known, I'm sure a lot of the people listening here, they know the World Gold Council. They have a report it's called Gold Demand Trends. Metals Focus produces the data for that. It's written by the World Gold Council, but the data comes from us. There's the World Platinum Investment Council and we put the data together for them on platinum on supply and demand, and we write a report from them each quarter there – Platinum Quarterly. And the last one, which is exceptionally important for Metals Focus is the Silver Institute in Washington DC. We pull together the data and the report, their weld silver survey. So, I think we're pretty proud of those three clients, but that gives you, I guess a very broad 30,000-foot view of what we do.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, absolutely. I use your work quite a bit. In fact, just today I wrote a report, just kind of an overview of the recent month in Indian Gold Demand and I use several of the charts that you guys send out in your packages. So, just a lot of data that you guys are compiling and analyzing and it's really fantastic. I mean, I don't know that I could do my job if you guys weren't doing your job, So, I definitely appreciate that. So, let's step into it. Let's start with the gold market. We hit an all-time high of just above $3,500 an ounce in April, and since then we had a little bit of a correction, and then it's basically been sideways trading I think over the last month or so. But I'm starting to hear a little bit of bearishness out there in particular, I saw a report yesterday or the day before from Citibank, and they're talking about the possibility of up to 25% retraction in gold prices in the coming year. And I was curious just from your perspective, as somebody who's really looking more at the data and the underlying trends, do you see anything shifting in the fundamentals that would kind of confirmed this bearishness or how do you see the trajectory of the gold price?
Philip Newman: Well, I think ultimately, we are still, I think, bullish for gold this year and also, into 2026 as well. But you're absolutely right, Mike. Since hitting that high, it has been largely range bound. From our standpoint, we think that's a positive in the sense that the market is, I think consolidating at these exceptionally high levels. We get used to a price of around $3,300, $3,400, but it's amazing the speed which is moved up. But again, I think it's encouraging that when we have had bouts of liquidations or profit taking, that those dips, those lows have been quite solidly bought into by a range of investors or the physical markets. So, I think that's one point to get across that I guess it's a cliche, but those lows are I think very well defended by the physical markets. I think also, there's a lot of investors out there on the sidelines that are coming in when you're getting some of these dips, but why are we still bullish?
Philip Newman: I think there's a few reasons for that. We still see a strong central bank gold demand. If we think back 2022 to 2024, you had roughly about 30 million ounces a year of net buying. That's unprecedented. Either that's a record high or it's a close to record high. And this year so, far overall feels a little different to that. So, we are still expecting very high levels of buying. We bought out one of our reports, our gold focused 2025 just a couple of weeks ago. And in there, we were forecasting in nominal terms a thousand tons. And as I said, that's about the 30 million ounce mark. So, that remains an important component of the golf market. It helps to defend those lows, it helps to support the price, it supports sentiment towards gold as well. From an investor point of view, there's still, I think good reasons out there why if they are not in the market, we think that encourage some investors in or encourage those that are in maybe to build some of their positions.
And again, there's reasons for that. There is still growing concerns out there about the us, about the government IT fund its debt. So, that is a concern that remains, there are concerns about the longevity of the safe-haven status of the dollar. I know we had the dollar pick up recently, I'll come to that in a moment. And that of course really kicked off after Liberation Day. It doesn't mean of course that a dollar is anywhere near about to lose its safe haven status. Of course not. But it just put that question mark in investors' minds.
And I know stocks have been pretty volatile, of course, especially recently, but overall there is still that very strong diversification argument in favor of gold. And then another reason that we are, I think, and I guess this probably tiptoes more into next year as we know that Powell's term comes to an end in May, I believe. So, at which point does this talk start about his replacement? Now I know as far as I understand it, and I'm a Brit, so, I think you're closest as I am, but it's not up to Trump who is appointed. There is a board that does so, but I think there could be marks over the independence of the new chairman. Doesn't mean there will be, but again, it's just some doubt potentially. So, again, all this causing into question dependence of the Feds and for the dollar. So, again, I think there's a lot of reasons out there and I haven't even touched on the safe-haven bids, whether it's about tariffs, whether it's about, of course, the situation in the Middle East or Ukraine and Russia. So, again, I think there's a lot of reasons out there from an investor standpoint, whatever your profile is, whatever your strategy is, I think there's reasons to be long gold.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, I agree with you. I think the Fed situation is particularly interesting. I feel like they're kind of caught between a rock and a hard place right now because there are legitimate reasons to say they should cut rates and there are legitimate reasons to say they should hold rates steady, and I could even make an argument that maybe they need to raise them a little bit. So, what do you do as a central banker? I think the Fed is doing, I mean this is hard for me to say, but I think they're doing a logical thing right now, but kind of standing pat. But it is interesting, if you look at the European Central Bank and other central banks around the world, they've cut pretty aggressively. And I just saw today that the Swiss Central bank has cut all the way to zero and has even indicated a willingness to go negative. So, when you kind of start to see that spread, it really indicates to me that at some point in the relatively near future, I think the Fed is going to have to follow suit and provides some interest rate relief, which I think is kind of bullish for gold. Would you agree with that?
Philip Newman: Well, I would do, but I think to your point, I think absolutely in terms of the consistency of the Fed has been so important. So, I think that has lent some confidence to the market. I don't think many were expecting a rate cut on this occasion, and as the fed telegraph about the concerns about and the point in say two or three months in their view when ongoing tariffs do feed through into higher inflation, the concerns I think obviously they're weighing that to your point against what is the health of the US economy. But I think for now they're obviously trying to dampen down those inflationary expectations. So, we'll see how well that does. But yes, I would suggest that the bias is much more towards reducing rates. I think it'll be quite a surprise if they were to increase them. But again, there is uncertainty about Trump and the terrorists in terms of what he's going to threaten on Europe at the moment. You've had a bit more of a conciliatory tone I think overall between China and the US, which has been good for silver. I guess we'll come to that a little bit later, but that could all turn on a six months. So, I think there was uncertainty. So, going back to the Fed, I think that does explain their cautious stance towards rates.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, absolutely. I think uncertainty is the kind of word of the month or the word of the year. There's So, much with, you talked about the geopolitical situation, the escalating tensions in the Middle East, and then on top of that you've got the, I mean I don't know any other word to use other than erratic in terms of the US tariff and trade policy right now. And I get what they're trying to do. I mean it's a negotiating tactic, but that's not helpful for folks that are trying to make investment decisions and whatnot. So, I think you're absolutely right on the nose. As far as the uncertainty level goes, you were recently at the International Precious Metals Institute conference in Arizona, and I'm curious if you heard anything there that kind of struck you or that you feel like is maybe something that's coming down the pike or the talk that kind of grabs your attention while you were at that conference?
Philip Newman: Well, we were there for a good few days with some colleagues, So, I had colleagues there that were looking more at the PGM side. My focus was much more on gold and silver. And I think there were a couple of things that struck me. I think it was, I think the, what's the word, the separation or very different trends between what I would say on one side, the high net worth, which includes say family office as well again say on the retail side, on the high net worth, some pretty good buying continues and you tend to find that the high net worth is looking much more at big picture. So, a lot of the things Mike, that we're talking about today really resonate with that kind of group of investors. And for the reasons I said that institutional I think will be coming into the market, this is what we're seeing with the high net worth and I think they've been buyers of physical.
The other thing that struck me at the conference was on the retail side that there's been, and we saw this last year, but it was really interesting to see that carrying on So, much this year, that very strong two-way activity. We contrast that so much with when I was at the IPIA couple of years ago, really heavy one-way traffic as in retail investors buying, very little selling back. That sort of changed I think very late 23. And as I said, it carried on this year and that really struck me when I was at the conference. So, a lot of two-way activity, and so, demand for a newly struck product is really struggling. But again, if you are a dealer, I think the market is I think a very good two-way trades that one can take advantage of.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, I think from what the sales guys here at Money Metals have said, that kind of dovetails with what they're saying as well there. There's buying and selling both going on simultaneously. So, yeah, that definitely resonates with what I'm seeing. Let's talk a little bit about silver. I think a lot of people are pretty excited. Now, I've told people this a lot over the last year, year and a half, probably the number one question that I've gotten from folks is when is silver going to catch up with gold? There's this sense that silver is underperformed and I don't know that that's completely fair, really. I think silver's done pretty well even though it hasn't caught up with gold as some might like. But over the last couple of weeks we've seen it clear a significant $35 resistance level. We're above $36, it seems to be holding $36 and yesterday we were even up in the $37 range. What kind of fundamentals do you think are driving this sudden interest in silver?
Philip Newman: Well, I think one of the factors that we've seen and I touched on a moment ago was I would say the unexpected news that came out in terms of the trade talks between the US and China and the fact that it wasn't just we're talking, but there was talk about another meeting, there was some positive news coming out of that. I don't think we seen anything tangible, but that really caught the market by surprise. And I think that really benefited silver getting from $35 and $36. And as you mentioned Mike, just briefly over 37 yesterday, because one of the things that we've seen, and I was chairing a session at the IPMI and I also said a few words on the silver market, and one of the things we've seen over the past two or three years is that gold silver ratio creeping up.
And I think one of the factors or one of the main factors for that has been concerns about the Chinese economy, especially property market in China. You've had, if you look at producer prices, that would also, point to over capacity in the industry, in the Chinese economy. So, I think that's weighed on industrial commodities and as you know, and your listeners will know, silver behaves as both a precious and an industrial commodity. And I think you've had that kind of contrast to your point. I think you nailed it on the head, silver's done pretty well, decent upside, but at the same time that ratio has expanded and got over a hundred for a period of time as well. And I think the reason why that ratio extended is because of concerns about China. And so, when you had that news coming out about a potential trade deal between the two, I think that gave a bit of an impetus to silver and gave it a bit of a room to run up.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I think I've been told, I'm not a big technical analyst guy, but I do try to listen to folks who are really good at that. And a lot of folks seem to think that 37 is kind of the next big resistance level, maybe 37 50 if we get past that. Can you see it running pretty quickly up to those record levels of $50 that we saw back in 2011 and then also, back in the eighties?
Philip Newman: Well, I mean if we compare silver and gold a little bit, So, gold the beginning, I was speaking about the fact that it is done so well to consolidate. So, it's not a bubble market I would suggest. I think there's legs to it. It is sustainable. I would suggest at those levels. I think for silver, which as you know, can be much more volatile than gold. There's a much smaller market where we are now in the 30 sixes, this also, seems really sustainable as a price. Can it, as you say, this 37 50, honestly, I dunno if you broke through that, it could potentially run, but then you run the risk of what you saw in 1112 around there of accelerating, but having really in a sense, spiking with not much behind it and it runs the risk of falling again very sharply.
But I think you could well see in the market the potential for the ratio to come down. There could be some investors out there that will look at gold and think, well, you know what? It's done incredibly well. We are close to record highs. Is there much more upside? Should we be thinking about silver? And if that was to happen and that spillover, then that could see silver run up. I think if you're thinking about north of $40 on, as you said, record highs, I think you do need something more in the market to really drive that. And I think it would, at least in the short term, it would need, I think gold to run up quite sharply as well, and to give you that strength or giving that impetus to rise more sharply. I think otherwise, if it was to breakthrough $40 and I'm just an analyst, but I would think you could have potentially some selling into that as well. So, you'd have some investors that were thinking, well, here we go and be buying into that rally. But equally there'd be others. I think there would be selling into that. So, very strong two-way flows, quite an exciting market, but silver would have a combination of very heavy tailwinds and heavy headwinds as well.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, that all makes sense. I appreciate that analysis. Here's something I'm curious about, and you may not know the answer to this question because I'm sure it tends to be rather opaque, but how much of an impact does defense spending have on the silver market or is that really something that we really can't know? And I asked that question for obvious reasons because we have a situation in Europe where I feel like there's going to be increased defense spending as Trump administration seems to be intent on pulling back. We've got the situation in the Middle East, we've got Ukraine, all of these things that would tend to be bullish for defense contractors and whatnot. Can that have an impact on the silver market or do we even know out?
Philip Newman: I think it would be a bit of a slow burn in the same way. The analogy would be you look at the photovoltaic market, which has been using record silver, massive of silver really going to the races the past two, three years, but it's had no real impact on the price. And that is quite transparent or relatively transparent in terms of demand when it comes to defense. And we get asked this quite a lot. So, what we do, and going back to my introduction about Melo focus and how we research the market. So, if we focus now on silver and silver industrial demand, what we do is when we're out there, we are meeting the companies that are say, turning a silver bar or silver grain into powder or a paste or some kind of semi manufactured kind of silver, whatever it may be.
And what they're then doing is they're then supplying that further down the supply chain. So, quite often the companies that we speak to, they don't know ultimately where their silver's being consumed. They may have a hazardous guess, but often the final end use can be say three or four companies or stages removed from them. And even the companies that they're supplying don't tell them because they don't want them maybe to bypass them and go to their competitor or to become a competitor. So, we measure the level of defense spending, no, we cannot. But what we can do is we know I think pretty well about the totality, whether it's in a particular country or take that back to a particular region or globally about how much silver is going into industrial applications. And I think we do a pretty good job of that. What we don't do is to say, okay, they're going to build a warship how much silver? That to us doesn't really achieve anything because again, we've got I think pretty good information going back to the beginning. And that for us is the best way and the most consistent way to measure how much silver is being consumed across globally from an industrial standpoint.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, that makes sense. It kind of goes to show too how complex any market is when you think about all of the players and all of the steps that go into it. So, it absolutely makes sense to me that you would want to step back and take that more macro approach and not try to not get too caught up in, I guess to use a worn out cliche to get too caught up in the trees and miss the forest. So, yeah, that absolutely makes sense. Wanted to ask you about the kind of dichotomy that we've seen between the East and the West over the last, I don't know really through this. I think during this entirety, this rally, we've really seen a lot of strong demand from China, from India, from Vietnam, from a lot of these Asian markets. We've seen Singapore developing their own exchange. And I'm curious as to how, from your perspective, are we seeing a shift of gold kind of from west to east or is that just a perception that's created by people like me?
Philip Newman: Well, I mean we do see that, and I think from Metals Focus point of view, this is why we have I think quite a strong commitment to the region. We've got, one of my business partners is based in Singapore. We have people in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines in China as well as a sizable team in India. So, from our point of view, it's important to recognize that and to make that commitment in terms of boots on the ground. But you're absolutely right because if you look at some of the key areas of demand, you have seen that split. And in fact, going back to the IPMI or one of my business partners, Nikos made a presentation on that very theme, or he was showing some really interesting slides looking at the strength of buying in the likes of South Asia and East Asia from a gold standpoint.
And you contrast that I spoke earlier about what struck me, the IPMI with the two way market, whereas in terms of say gold bar demand, the likes of China that you touched on, Mike has been very strong at times this year. You tend to find in quite a few of these markets that retail investors have strong price expectations, but it goes beyond retail. So, you look at, for example, in terms of the gold ETF buying earlier this year in China was exceptionally strong as well. And then you move from that into the central banking area and that's been very decent. Central bank has been a bit different because you've had very decent buying out of Europe as well. So, there hasn't been So, much of that. I guess east we're split from that point of view. But in terms of the retail markets, it's been I think quite a separation between say the like of, I dunno, Europe and US on one hand or Europe and North America on one hand and the likes of South and East Asia on the other.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. Okay, I'm going to get you out on this one, and this is just kind of a fun one, and if you don't have an answer that's fine, but I'm curious if there's anything that you see as you're looking at all of this data and talking to all of these folks, if there's anything that you see that is impacting the precious metals markets that maybe the mainstream is kind of missing, that there's something important that they might not be seeing. Is there anything like that that's kind of pops up in your mind?
Philip Newman: Well, I guess there's one thing which is really interesting, and I'm not going to claim a monopoly on this, in fact, I dunno if it's gotten out into the retail side of the market, but it's certainly the case that some of the banking analysts have been talking about this in case any of them are listening. Again, I'm not certainly claiming credit for this, but it is struck me that when we look at the silver and we look at holdings in London and what you can do, that data is transparent. The LBMA publishes that. And what we then do is we look at where ETFs are, where they're sort of store the metal. And if you look at how much of an et F is held in London and you subtract that, the amount of silver that is say I guess is unallocated because that silver is allocated, that amount of silver, which is unallocated has been declining.
And it's really interesting to think, okay, at some point, will that create a squeeze in the market? What does that squeeze look like? Is it a price rise? Is it only a lease rate rise? So, I think that's been really interesting. And I guess the other thing, and again, nothing unique from my point of view in terms of what it's been covered is just how the market's reacted over the first four months or so in terms of the threat of tariffs. And then after Liberation day, when we saw that price dislocation between the CME in New York and London and how the markets responded to that, the amount of metal that was flowing into New York, be it silver, gold, or platinum, was really quite incredible with, for silver to be air freighted from Europe was really quite remarkable. I don't think we've seen that in at least a generation. So, it was really quite staggering to live through. But it was amazing to sit the market, it was stressful if you were in it, but it was remarkable to watch how the market was functioning in those sort of extreme circumstances. We've never seen anything like that. Even for lease rates with gold and silver, how they spiked. I mean, platinum lease rates are still remarkably high now, but at the time when gold and silver was really quite dramatic, So, it was just amazing to watch how the market was, I think behaving at that time.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, it goes to something that I talk about a lot just in terms of a broad economic principle. Incentives matter. I think a lot of people forget that they look at a policy and they forget to consider what the incentivization could do. And we really, I think, saw that during that time, just that threat of tariffs and the uncertainty there and how that incentivized that, as you mentioned, this very extreme movement of gold and silver definitely was an interesting time and probably something folks should file away for future reference as we move forward. Well, I will let you get out. I'm sure that you've got plenty of things on your plate for the rest of your day, but before we go, I do want you to let people know where they can avail themselves to all of the wonderful information that you guys are putting out.
Philip Newman: Sure. If anyone's listening, if they just go to metalsfocus.com, you'll find some of the content on there and you'll find obviously our details to get a hold of us if there's anything that anyone wants to explore more deeply. So, please feel free to use that address.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, and I'll say this, if you're a precious metals investor, you definitely want to be plugged into the information that you guys are putting out. It's absolutely invaluable. And like I said, I don't think I could do my job if you guys weren't out there doing your job. So, thank you for that and thank you for spending a little bit of time today with me and we'll have you back on again, I'm sure down the road, and just appreciate what you do.
Philip Newman: Many thanks, Mike. I look forward to next time as well.
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Always great analysis from our friends there at Metals Focus and I hope you enjoyed that interview.
Well, that will do it for this week. Be sure to check back next Friday for our next Weekly Market Wrap Podcast. Check out the Money Metals Midweek Memo podcast as well. To listen to any of our audio programs just go to <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/podcasts">MoneyMetals.com/podcasts</a> or find them on places like Apple Podcast, Spotify or other podcast platforms. 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 first weekend of summer everybody.

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