Silver Soaring Following Fed Rate Cuts, Public Attention -

Welcome to this week’s Market Wrap Podcast. I’m Mike Gleason.
Coming up, we’ve got a special roundtable conversation between Mike Maharrey and the three Money Metals owners. Learn about the founding of our company, what drove each of us to get into this industry, and the success formula that enabled our family business to grow into the leading online retailer and depository in the United States.
We certainly hope you will enjoy this discussion, so be sure to stick around for that, coming up after this week’s market update. And as a reminder, please download, like, rate, and subscribe to this podcast wherever you consume this content.
Well, the Federal Reserve cranked up the inflation machine this week, despite acknowledging inflation has moved up and remains elevated.
The FOMC voted 11-1 to cut the federal funds rate by a quarter percent, setting the interest rate between 4 and 4.25 percent, and it projected two more cuts before the end of the year.
In its official statement, the committee expressed concern about the softening economy, noting that “economic activity moderated in the first half of the year,” and that “job gains have slowed.”
However, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell characterized the rate cut as a move to mitigate risk, not to rescue the economy.
Many market observers took this as a more hawkish sign, assuming the cutting program will be limited.
Metals markets have certainly responded well to the news. Gold is slightly below its highs from earlier in the week here on Friday, but is still up 0.8% since last week's close to come in at $3,686 an ounce.
Silver, meanwhile is seeing a big advance here today and is back up near the $43 an ounce level we saw a few days ago. The white metal currently checks in at $42.92, up 1.3% for the week. This will be the 5th straight week of gains for both gold and silver.
The PGMs are somewhat mixed with platinum up 0.5% to trade at $1,415, but palladium is off 4.3% to come in at $1,165 as of this Friday morning recording.
Although he didn’t use the word, Powell described a stagflationary setup, noting higher unemployment combined with rising inflation.
The only no vote on this week’s FOMC rate decision was recent President Trump appointee Governor Stephen Miran, who advocated for a half-point reduction. But Powell said there wasn’t widespread support for a bigger 50-basis point cut.
The FOMC released its dot plot, indicating two more rate cuts this year. However, the committee now only anticipates one cut next year.
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?
Well, 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 humorously 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.
While the rate cut may provide some relief for an economy buried in debt, it will also ramp up inflation.
The cut will incentivize more borrowing. The downside is that in a fractional reserve banking system, an increase in lending grows the money supply.
Powell said the rate cut put monetary policy in “a more neutral” position. After the June meeting, he characterized policy as “moderately restrictive.” In fact, policy is historically loose and wasn’t even tight at the height of the tightening cycle.
After contracting during the hiking cycle, the money supply has been expanding for well over a year.
This is, <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2024/01/12/common-definition-of-inflation-you-hear-today-is-wrong-government-propaganda-002925">by definition, inflation</a>.
Looking at the historical data also reveals that the current interest rate level <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/07/03/are-interest-rates-too-high-004168">isn’t high at all</a>.
So, why cut rates? Especially given <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/09/11/its-zombie-inflation-004332">the CPI data</a>, which indicates inflation is alive and well.
The economy is showing cracks, and Powell acknowledged that he didn’t want to see any further deterioration in the job market.
This underscores the <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/news/2025/01/12/trump-vs-powell-and-a-catch-22-003748">Catch-22 facing the Fed</a>.
Price inflation is clearly alive and well based on the CPI, and monetary inflation is expanding. This would indicate the need to hold rates higher for longer.
However, the debt-riddled bubble economy is addicted to easy money. It simply can’t function in a tighter monetary policy environment.
In other words, the Fed needs to cut rates and hold them higher at the same time.
It appears the central bankers have chosen to try to keep the air in the bubble economy at the risk of unleashing more inflation.
Well, now, for more on the founding of our company and for more background on our owners, let’s get right to this week’s interview. And please bear with us on some of the echoey sound you will hear.
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Mike Maharrey: Greetings. I'm Mike Maharrey. I'm an analyst and reporter here at Money Metals, and I'm really excited because I am here with the people I'm interviewing today. I'm with the directors, the behind brain-trust behind Money Metals. Stefan Gleason. Mike Gleason and Clint Siegner. I knew I was going to say that wrong. I shoulda asked you before we started. That's bad journalism. I'm sorry. But anyway, it's really exciting. We're all here together in the home office in Idaho, and we're just going to have a little chat. The first thing that I want to do and just ask each of you to talk about a little bit about, well, let's first give people context. This is a family affair. It's one of the biggest online bull dealers in the country, but it started out as pretty much a family vision, and Stephen and Mike are brothers, and then Clint is the brother-in-law. And so it's not only a business, but it's a family thing, which is kind of cool. So I want to ask, just growing up, did any of you ever imagine that you were going to be gold bull dealers? How did this come about in your background?
Clint Siegner: I got into it for ideological reasons. I got turned off on big government, too much borrowing, too much, spending, precious metals, or sort of a way of protecting yourself against the declining dollar. So I was an investor in metals before we actually launched this business. When the opportunity came along to actually be in the precious metal business, it made tons of sense to me.
Mike Gleason: Yeah, as Clint said, similar reasons why I got into it. When Stefan approached us about the idea back in 2010, it was really a perfect fit because we all were so ideologically aligned with the vision of precious metals and the importance of ownership, all being, I guess, personal investors leading up to that time period. But when it came to growing up with that vision, I wouldn't necessarily say that. Say our father was pretty involved in politics as a hobby. He was a political campaign button collector, and we'd tag along with him at different meets that he would go to as he was dealing, and his memorabilia there, and the campaign button. So I think that's kind of how we originally got interested in the subject of politics. And then of course, that's led to monetary policy and finance and so forth. But it all ties together, as we all know.
Stefan Gleason: Yeah, I guess I didn't know that I would go into business, actually in high school. I thought I wanted to be a professional bowler, actually college, but college engineering for me, my first career was in public policy, and what got me into that was being at a university and being exposed to a bunch of very left-wing forces that were trying to indoctrinate students. It gave a bad taste in my mouth. And I got involved in public policy in Washington, DC right out of college in support of free market and conservative-leaning causes. And I guess for me, marketing was a big part of what I did and do, and that kind of carried me into investing. And also then, in interest in precious metals, for me it was actually first understanding the interest rates and just learning this crazy system, this federal reserve system we have, and what dominates or controls interest rates. And it just led me to the whole Austrian economics hard money conversation, and personally was started investing. And then when I wanted to move on to a new career, precious metals was something that was right there and something I was interested in. And it also fit into some of my worldview, which is in favor of limited government and individual rights. And the idea that sound money is actually part of the solution to the problems in our country, and the lack of sound money is a big cause of the problems.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, absolutely. Now, Stefan, a little birdie told me that when you were a kid, you drew a picture of a mint and said that you wanted to have a mint. Is that true? And how does that get into the head of a kid?
Stefan Gleason: I dunno. My mom brought that to my attention recently. Maybe it was in the box of stuff that they handed to me when they wanted all my stuff out of the house. I think that's when I found it. But anyway, yeah, apparently when I was four years old, I had drawn this crayon picture of this money machine where you put in paper and coins or metal. At that time, I thought paper was money. Actually, today, most people still think paper is money, but at least I had the metal part. So there were two slots and you put it in and out came these minted coins and dollar bills. So I dunno, I guess I had a fascination at a young age with what is money and how you make money physically, what makes money, money. But anyway, it was kind of ironic. But yeah, that's the story there.
Mike Maharrey: So basically, you wanted to be the Fed, you wanted to be the moneymaker.
Stefan Gleason: Maybe that would suggest that I want to own a mit, which frankly is certainly part of a potential business plan for a company like ours. But we have a lot of great mid relationships. Our main business, of course, is everything sort of next to that, which is the dealer, the depository, the lender. So yeah, it's a neat story, but who knows?
Mike Maharrey: So here's something that I'm curious about. Any group of people, you have a group of director,s and there be tension and differences of opinion in vision and whatnot. That's just natural. You guys are throwing an extra kind of thing into it as you have the family dynamics as well, which we all know family dynamics can be a challenge as well. How has it been working together as also having these familial relationships? You think that's a plus? Has it been a struggle? How does that kind of play out?
Clint Siegner: Well, who wants to tackle
Stefan Gleason: That? How much dirty laundry do you want to air? Well, I mean, we do have a majority owner, so sometimes that helps settle disputes. But the bottom line is it's extremely fulfilling to be able to build this business shoulder to shoulder. With my brother-in-law, my brother, frankly, when I launched the business, I needed to have people I trusted. You're talking about high values, you're talking about very small margins and security and everything else related. So it just made sense. Clint was already investing in precious metals. He was actually the anchor. He's the guy, the first guy we approached to build the business, and it very quickly took off. We had already had a customer base through our publishing company, and then Mike joined. Honestly, it's just an incredible blessing to be able to work with these guys, and especially as it's gone well, I mean, honestly, we're all motivated by the same thing, and that is to help our customers and to help our country. And we feel like we're able to do that every day. And the other thing is that we each bring different skills to the table, which frankly is the success formula. I couldn't have done it without Clint. Clint couldn't have done it without Mike. I mean, the three of us together kind of compliment each other. It just happened that way. And so anyway, it's worked out. But there are, of course, we're three different people, but the good news is that we can't get rid of each other.
Clint Siegner: Sure enough, I think what Stefan just said is exactly right. We've had our moments of disagreement, of course, but I think over time for what I've learned how to be a minority owner in a business, that was a learning curve for me. But everybody is confident. Of course, the main thing when you're trying to build successful businesses, everybody, something to the table. And that's true here. We've had a lot of fun. Business has been successful, that really helps of course. And at this point, we're all sort of pulling the same direction, certainly ideologically and otherwise, it's been a great ride.
Mike Gleason: Yeah, just echo those sentiments for Sure's point. It's really neat the way that it's come together just from the different skillset standpoint. I'd say that's probably one of, I think the secret to the success of the business is the fact that we do bring different strengths and they're unique individually and collectively. It's been a really great team aspect. We have great people too. I mean, it's a lot more than just the three of us. It's a big company, many, many people that work here. But when it comes to management or different skill sets, operationally, technically, marketing wise, leadership wise, it's pretty neat to see that dynamic at play over the years, just the way that we all compliment each other and the different skill sets that we have.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, for sure. From my perspective, this is my first time being here at the home office and meeting everybody. And I can see the synergy between you guys just in talking to you and watching you interact and going into what you're saying. Mike, it's really interesting, and I think a testament to the work that you guys have done and the culture that you've built, that everybody that I've met that works here just seems like quality people, passionate about their job. I've not met anybody that seems like I don't want to be here at work. And everybody seems very enthusiastic. And that says a lot about you guys coming from the top and the culture that you've created, which is not an easy thing to do. As you guys were starting the business, what was maybe the biggest challenge in terms of getting this off the ground?
Clint Siegner: We were lucky to launch at a great time in the markets. When we launched a business in 10, it was just after the oh eight financial crisis and people were really interested in gold and silver. We launched with just a single product, and we were immediately successful, started adding products and people. So because of the advantages we had opening came from the publishing business, we had a list of subscribers there that we could market to. We had mostly advantages. There was really not a giant hurdle at that time. There have been hurdles to get over as we've gone along. We've had to learn how to secure the business, and we've had issues come up along the way, but we had a lot of things working in our favor right out of the gate.
Stefan Gleason: Yeah, yeah. I think it was in the early years, it was very much just building the infrastructure and dealing with the staffing and getting a better handle on all the dynamics of the business. Even with very quickly we had eight to 10, 15 people within a year or two. Now we have over managing growth is definitely a challenge.
Clint Siegner: If things, it could be hard to deal with the
Stefan Gleason: Growth. Another thing frankly, is the banking sector, particularly for small business, we're very large now, but back in the early years, banking was difficult. Credit card stuff was difficult. There are a lot of learning how to deal with the fraud situations that come up. People are trying to defraud businesses all the time. And precious metals is definitely an area where fraudsters target. So learning how to protect the business, protect the customers, definitely a lot to be done in that area. And early on when you don't have a lot of resources and people and just know how it's more tricky. Banks were difficult at first just because most of them don't like precious metals. They don't understand precious metals. They're more regulated if they do business with precious metals dealers because of the operation choke point and the Obama, the Obama Rules and Patriot Act and all that stuff. So those things were tricky, but honestly, we have no complaints. We had a lot of advantage to start and a great group to start with.
Mike Maharrey: So one of the things in my view that makes a successful business is that you are meeting a need. And I think a lot of people think that maybe, oh, the whole objective of business is making money. And obviously if we're in business, we all want to make money, but really a successful business is not going to be come about just because I want to make money. It's going to come about because you're meeting a need and serving a community. So I'd like for each one of you to just articulate how you feel like this particular industry and the business that you're in is helping your customer.
Mike Gleason: I guess I'll start. Yeah, I think that's critical. I mean, obviously I don't think we would, one, have probably gotten into the business and two lasted as long as we have and been as successful as we've been if we didn't really believe in what we were doing. So I just completely view it as a critical component of anybody's financial portfolio to have diversification into precious metals was doing that myself before we launched this business. And it's all the reasons for doing that have only become more and more prevalent over time. When we first started, of course, we had run the heels of financial crisis and a big wave of quantitative easing and money printing as the government's response, which is what governments do. They inflate the currency, the paper over their problems. That's just creates more and more need for people to have real money and protection against what's happening all around the world when it comes to paper, fiat currency and go on your own personal gold standard. And so yeah, just view what we're doing as critically important. And we all still, I think, are very passionate about the idea of helping folks in that way. Really gold and silver is in essence financial insurance and everybody should have it.
Stefan Gleason: And then going past that, I mean agree with everything Mike said, and that was my motivations as well. Another thing though was really that most of the dealers that were out there and still are unfortunately a prevalent part of our industry. Were trying to put people, especially on the national level, maybe not local coin shops, but there's a whole business model within our industry that's trying to pressure people into the upsell of rare coins and so-called collectible coins that are not rare, not collectible, they're fake collectibles. They may be made of precious metals, but they're certainly not collectible. They're just, in fact, they're worse than just a bullion item. Because when people want to sell, you end up selling something that nobody wants other than for its metal value. So we really made a big emphasis on we're the answer to the scammers, the answer to the high pressure markup.
Stefan Gleason: People mostly who are still out there advertising on TV with celebrity spokespeople and people, it's hard enough to break through all the propaganda. Your financial advisor is not telling you to buy gold, silver. That's another discussion why they don't have incentive to do that. But some people figured out, wait a minute, there's something wrong with our money, or my savings is being destroyed. How do I protect this? Oh, precious metals, constitutional money, it's a hedge. And then at the last second, some of those people are hijacked and put into these rip off hundred percent, hundred percent of melt value items. And it's just such a travesty because it's so hard just to get yourself to that point when everything is not telling you to do that, and you need to do that, and then at the last minute, somebody sells you on that. So we really made a big push like we're bullion.
Stefan Gleason: We're focused on bullion. Look at what the melt value is, understand what you're buying, how much you would get when you sell it. At the same time, the spread should be very small. Don't buy these oddball things. Don't buy a story. At the end of the day, it's worth what the gold and silver is worth. And so that was kind of our unique selling point. Now there's a lot more bullion dealers that were very few at the time, and that's really where we think people should be investing and stay away from the markup and the collectibles.
Clint Siegner: One of the things that we do isn't so much that we're meeting a client's need, or at least not made the sense everybody thinks part of what we do is first have to educate somebody about why they might need precious metals. We as owners believe everybody, literally, everybody probably needs to own silver physical metal, but there are a whole lot of people out there that America has largely forgotten about metal and its relationship to money. They've been told by their financial advisors that they should not worry about that barbers relic or be buying pet rocks or whatever. Metals have been disparaged by Wall Street. And so people have to fight through that. And that's a lot of what we do is try to educate people about penetrate that nonsense and remind people why metal is important to own. We have a whole arm of the company that is putting out educational content, things like this podcast specifically to reorient people understand why it's important to
Stefan Gleason: Commitment to content and education. And we're certainly the most prolific publisher and creator of content, educational content in our industry.
Mike Maharrey: And I think that's important. I mean, I think that's a huge service to folks. As Clint mentioned, there's such a lack of education and really education, if I can make up a word in terms of a precious metal. And I think that speaks to what you guys have touched on, this passion that you have, that this is not just a business for you guys. It's rooted in your foundational principles. And I think that definitely comes through. Stepan, you kind of touched on this, but I'd like for each of you to articulate in a short form, what do you think makes money metal stand out among all of the other dealers and potential places you can go buy gold and silver out there? Why should folks that are listening today say, you know what? I want to get some gold and silver. I'm going to go to money metals.
Stefan Gleason: Yeah. Well, I think it has to do with the fact that we believe in our product, we understand the reasons own gold and silver, and we articulate that we fight to not just help our customers get access to it, but we're also working at the state and federal level to promote sound money as a policy, because that's such a big part of the problem we have in our country, including the big government and debt that flows from that. And so I think that we are aligned with our customers who believe in this and who believe that they want to do business with somebody who understands it's not just a widget that happens to be gold. The other thing is that we are very much sort of a dynamic business in that we can help people in many different ways, whether it be storage, whether it be with a monthly savings plan. And of course we have a lending program for people who want to have a line of credit secured by their gold. Lots of different interrelated offerings. I think that would make us a one-stop shop.
Mike Gleason: Yeah, I'll just expand on that. I think on it, the fact that we're not just selling just some random product, people want to know why they're buying it. They need to be sort of educated. I mean, that's a huge problem. I think it's the education problem that we have when it comes to finances and monetary policy in specific. And I think just the fact that people can know that they're dealing with people that are sort of in the trenches with them on that whole subject. And then also put a primary importance on education and commentary and just arming people with knowledge. We're not just arming them with the actual products themselves, the gold and silver that they can have in their possession, but arming them with the knowledge and knowledge as power as we know. So I think that's probably one of the things I love about our business the most, is just that we're helping folks in that educational process. We're always learning.
Clint Siegner: Just a couple of things, maybe on top of what Mike just shared, our company does a pretty good job of paneling. Just the little things, if you call money metals, get actual live person to answer the phone. We have really great people who can answer questions. They're friendly. And so customers of course pick up on that. We also, I think this day age people enjoy doing business with companies that do not hate. Certainly, we're pretty much ideologically aligned with vast majority of our customer base, and people will immediately pick up on that if they read something that we put out or if they call here and talk to one of our people. That's something that's important to us.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah, very good point. Alright, one more question. I'm going to get you out on this. Everybody knows that brothers fight. Who can take whom?
Stefan Gleason:
Well, Clint's got us on that one. Yeah, I knew the answer to that football player. Well, Mike, actually. Mike, you're six five. Clint six four. I'm six three. We could probably do well as a basketball team.
Mike Maharrey: Yeah. I said when I got here, I'm too short to work on this. I'm right about at six foot.
Stefan Gleason: I think when Mike was a little kid, I probably could take him. I don't know about now. We won't try, but although you guys did Sumo wrestling at the company party yesterday and Clint won that.
Mike Gleason: Yeah, that one about us. Everyone that's exactly former offensive lineman took,
Clint Siegner: Don't need to go into details. Let's just say that physics were on my side.
Mike Maharrey: Well, I just want to say while I've got you guys in front of you guys, I really, I've been here a little over a year and a half now, and this is a good thing to be able to say. I'm extremely proud to be associated with what you guys have built and coming here this week has been eye opening in a good way. I've had a good sense and a good feeling. But actually being here and seeing everybody interact and getting to know all the quality people that are here and being able to firsthand the processes that have been in we don't podcast and the details that have been worked out here. So I just want to compliment you guys on building a fantastic company and excited and happy to be part of it and also believe in the vision. So it's been great having you guys. Three, three here you, three guys here together and being able to talk to you. So thanks a lot.
Stefan Gleason: Well, Mike, you've been a huge part of our team and in the last year and a half, I mean, I dunno how many things you've written, how many podcasts, you've probably done podcasts and written 300 articles, and you come from a background too, of the same kind of ideology and passion that we do. So it's a.
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Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation. We certainly enjoyed doing that and hopefully it was informative for our audience and gave you some background and some insights into our team here at Money Metals.
Well, that will do it for this week. Be sure to check back next Friday for our next Weekly Market Wrap Podcast. And don’t miss our second weekly podcast, the Money Metals Midweek Memo, which airs each Wednesday.
To check out any of our audio programs just visit <a href="https://www.moneymetals.com/podcasts">MoneyMetals.com/podcasts</a> or find them on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or on other popular 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 great everybody.

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