Stocks gained again on Monday - no big surprise there.
Gold and silver roared to record highs during the day, only to have them completely wiped out by the obviosly-still-functional price suppressors at the COMEX.
Gold traded as high as $5,102 on the spot market, before the afternoon raid by COMEX operators brought the price down to as low as $5,001. It does not take much analysis to understand that most gold investors did not all decide to sell in the same six hour window. The same applied to silver, which had reached incredible heights of $117 before getting whacked down to $103.
Whether the sudden collapses in gold and silver at the same time were about naked shorting or simply injecting fear into the marketplace matters little. The fact that the COMEX can still exert so much influence in spot pricing over such a short time frame is significant. However, the power of the COMEX has lost a great deal of its firepower, due to exchanges - physical and derivative - in Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai, and elsewhere maintaining price controls that are unaffected by COMEX hijinks.
This can be seen in the quick rebound overnight into January 27 trading. Gold and silver have already regained much of the loss from the 26th. Gold and silver, just after 8:30 am ET, are trading at $5076 and $111, respectively. It may be advisable to simply ignore the daily noise. There are sure to be similar price smackdowns as the COMEX and U.S. authorities lose control of not just the price of gold and silver, but of their own economies and the entire fiat paper debt-based global system.
Unless your investment horizon is less than six months out, daily fluctuations and COMEX-induced scary declines should be almost completely ignored. Those events are the final grasping at straws of a drowning financial system, at which the U.S. is the center, though the heaviest impacts are first being felt in Japan, and next in the EU. Fiat debasement is real and ongoing, but it is very difficult to time. All one needs to know in this environment is that debasement is at the root of all trades, has not ceased, and is unlikely to cease. Gold, silver, stocks, real estate will all continue to appreciate until fiscal policy becomes more responsible, which, considering the current crop of politicians endlessly raiding the treasury, would equate to approximately never.
The debasement trade has been underway for the last fifty years, though it hasn't been as manifest as it is today except in the late 1970s, and during the boom-bust cycles of 2000, 2008, and 2020, the most prominent being the 2008 GFC for precious metals and the 2020 Covid crisis for extreme dollar creation.
As currency debasements go, this one seems to be in the latter stages, and appears to be heading for a climactic endgame within the next three to five years. It could all blow up tomorrow or it could take until 2030 for the wheels to fall off completely. One thing is certain. The system will reset. Inflation, be it the three percent the government continues ot peddle or the seven to 12% that consumers realize on every shopping trip, will be the death-blow.
There are loads of moving parts, from BRICS de-dollarization to Minnesota anti-ICE rebellion and everything in between. What's good for investors at this point is that all assets will appreciate. The trick is to make gains in excess of inflation. Gold and silver kicked inflation to the curb in 2025 and are doing the same in 2026. Stocks were well behind, but still won out over currency debasement. So, keep stacking, and keep trading is about the only investment strategy one needs to stay liquid and prosperous. It's unlikely to remain this blissfully easy for much longer, but probably at least until the US midterms in November or until something breaks badly.
Taking profits at this time would depend largely on one's own investment horizons, but the big question is what to do with the depreciating currency - which Matthew Peipenberg describes as holding "a melting ice cube" - after the sale. Big item purchases with lasting value appear to be the most sensible choice, which would explain why durable goods orders have been on the rise for the past nine months. New or used cars, big ticket home repairs and renovations, large appliances, or re-allocating from one asset class to another are all reasonable choices.
Futures are mixed with the Dow diving as the opening bell approaches. The likely reason for the drop on the Dow is the market's reading on some of these earnings reports: UPS (UPS), General Motors (GM), Synchrony Financial (SYF), American Airlines (AAL), Northrop-Grumman (NOC), Kimberly-Clark (KMB, Boeing (BA), United Health (UNH).
At the Close, Monday, January 26, 2026:
Dow: 49,412.40, +313.69 (+0.64%)
NASDAQ: 23,601.36, +100.11 (+0.43%)
S&P 500: 6,950.23, +34.62 (+0.50%)
NYSE Composite: 22,829.14, +71.97 (+0.32%)
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