August 30th (Previous Month) Year-End Targets AU: $4,454 ($4050) ATH ($5608) -21% $5500 to $6000 AG: $66 ($58) ATH ($121) -45% $125 to $175 HUI: 839 (638) ATH (986) -15% 1200 to 1400 DXY: 99 (100) 93 to 96 S&P: 7711 (7484) ATH (7816) -1% 4500 to 5000 10-Yr: 4.7% (4.7%) 4.0 to 4.2% Oil: $83 ($84) $65 to $80 Gold was having an excellent month (up 15%), and then Fed Chair Warsh spoke on Friday (August 28th) at Jackson Hole with a hawkish tone. Gold promptly dropped $150, and silver dropped $3. The HUI was nearing 880 and got smacked down to 839. Ouch. Well, no big surprise. I expected gold to reach $4,200 before $5,000 once the S&P corrects, which is still my expectation in the near term. The good news is that gold has never looked better (and I’ve been following it closely since 2004). I don’t see a path where gold doesn’t trend to $7,000 to $8,000 over the next 36 months. I find it amazing how bullish I have become for higher gold prices. I’ve experienced a clear step up in bullishness. As many of you know, I tend to have a negative bias for the near term, always talking about the next correction. I’m often called the most bearish gold bull. The other thing I often talk about is that gold can’t break out until it wins its final battle against the stock market. Thus, I have constantly remained bearish on gold in the near term, waiting for the stock market to roll over. My overall tone for the past decade (or longer) has been bearish for gold in the near term. Although, I’ve always said that eventually gold would win. But I have never really seen the end zone. Now I see it. I sensed it at the beginning of the year, when I said 2026 would be the last year of American Greatness. But I wasn’t this bullish when the year began. I was more hopeful than bullish. That hopefulness has turned into ebullience. In fact, I’ve come to realize I wasn’t bullish enough. I’ve been warning people that the gold bull market could end in 2028. Now I think it could easily last until 2032. It likely will have legs. Why my change in outlook? The place to start is why I have been collecting gold/silver miners since 2004, and gold mining stocks since 1991. I didn’t buy my first crypto until 2016, so from 1991 until 2016, the only stocks I owned or bought were gold/silver miners. My portfolio was always 95%+ in precious metals. I have never doubted my thesis. Since 1991, I have always believed in the outcome – gold eventually wins. I own gold/silver miners for only one reason: I expect the debt bubble to lead to some type of monetary reset. Some think that is impossible, but I think it is a fait accompli, and that we are getting close. With Bessent recently helping Japan support their currency so that they won’t sell our Treasury bonds shows how close we are. Then, when he intervened in the 30-year bond market to lower the long-term interest rate, we got another clear sign. The debt bubble is starting to burst. Government debt bubbles always burst, and they always burst the same way. There are only two outcomes to a government debt bubble: 1) A default. 2) A reset (explained below). That’s it, and it is like clockwork. Once the debt gets too big, a doom loop begins. Then, it’s just a matter of time before you get one of those two outcomes. There are seven stages (my opinion) to look for when the doom loop begins. Let’s list them. 1) A debt bubble has emerged. That has clearly become apparent. 2) The debt is acknowledged to be a problem. This is proof that the debt bubble exists. 3) A consensus forms that the debt is an unsolvable problem, and for this reason it begins to be ignored. When did Congress begin ignoring the deficit? My guess is 2001, over two decades ago. It has festered and reached $2T. 4) The debt bubble begins to have ramifications. Proof of this is when central banks started buying gold (see chart below), and foreign countries began either selling US Treasury Bonds (China) or stopped buying them (especially on the long end).
5) Fed/Treasury intervention begins. This intervention has only one purpose: stability. Any perceived fragility needs to be avoided. We began to see this intervention this summer, when the Fed/Treasury began offering countries in the Middle East and Japan swap lines to prevent them from selling US Treasury bonds. Hint: A healthy bond market could have handled these sales. 6) Investor confidence in US Treasury bonds begins to wane. This is when the doom loop begins to bite, as sellers begin to overwhelm buyers. We are close to this outcome. It is simply a matter of time. This stage is next. Tick-tock. The clock is ticking. 7) The doom loop becomes obvious. At a certain point, most investors will begin to realize the doom loop scenario is playing out. This is when we become close to either a default or a reset (discussed below). My outlook has become ebullient (for gold to soon win) because the debt-bubble doom loop has reached stage 5 and is entering stage 6. Debt has reached a level where it begins to create problems. Those problems are becoming apparent. This is why gold has been trending and will continue to trend. The US economy has several problems, but the doom loop is the biggest problem. Once debt reached a level that could not be paid back (probably around 2008), the Fed was forced to focus on one thing: prevent the bond market from becoming fragile. The Fed is supposed to have a dual mandate of price stability and full employment. This is a façade. Those two objectives are nowhere close to their main objective, which is economic stability. To create economic stability, they have to do one thing: ensure economic growth. Can they say this out loud? Of course not. How do they ensure economic growth? Only one way: print money and expand the money supply. Because without money supply expansion, you don’t get economic growth. Conversely, without economic growth, government debt becomes an enormous problem. However, the more they print, the more inflation they create. But if they don’t print, then the economy fails. It’s a classic Catch-22. This is where we are, and why we have reached stage 5, and are entering stage 6. Ironically, gold dropped on Friday (August 28th) because investors now believe the Fed will raise rates in September. Investors are naïve if they believe we will get a rate hike. Why? Because the Fed can’t raise rates! Stage 5 has been reached. It’s too late to fight inflation. The debt bubble problem has gotten too big! Wall Street remains in denial, and that’s why gold dropped on Friday. Bessent just showed us that higher rates have become a problem. Wasn’t anyone paying attention? Higher rates will make the bond market and the economy fragile. Higher rates are currently a lose-lose outcome. Inflation is also bad for the economy, but the bond market and economy come first. Inflation is not their priority because it only hurts a portion of the economy, and why it has been ignored by the Fed for the last two years. Conversely, a fragile bond market or a recession will hurt everyone. Of course, inflation can cause a recession, but the bond market is the bigger threat. My thesis was always solid, and now it is playing out. Governments throughout history have constantly ignored economic facts. The number one fact is that if you create a debt bubble using debt, there are only two possible outcomes: 1) You pay it back. 2) It bursts. George Bush Sr tried to warn us, but everyone ignored him when he called Reagan’s economic plan Voodoo economics when they vied for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980. Washington has been using a form of the Reagan economic policy (debt expansion) ever since. In 2004, I thought the debt bubble would burst when the national debt reached $15T. I did not think we would get to $40T. However, my confidence that it would burst has never waned. Now that we have reached stage 5, we are very close. The banksters trying to push gold down is going to become harder and harder, and uptrends in gold prices are likely to get fast and furious. The wind is soon going to be at gold and silver’s back. * * * * * In addition to reaching stage 5, the gold miners have finally begun to outperform the metal (see chart below). They did not do this during the first leg, which ended in January. This is a clue that stage 6 has begun, and investors are finally starting to realize that they need to pivot away from the S&P 500 and into miners. You probably felt this with your portfolio. I was shocked to see my portfolio completely retrace in August, with gold well below its ATH of $5,600. This happened because the miners have been outperforming the metal. This will not only continue, but it will pick up speed.
We are waiting for Leg 2 (the next gold run) to begin. It looks like it began in August, but we will need confirmation in September and October. Ultimately, we can expect Leg 2 to reach around $6,500 gold in 2027 (hopefully higher). I’ve always thought Leg 2 would be the best Leg because this is when sentiment improves. When we get to Leg 3, it will be a bit more precarious because that will be the mania phase. Let’s look at the most important chart for gold/silver miners. I’ve shown you this chart several times in recent months. It’s the gold/S&P 500 ratio (see below).
This chart goes from 1957 until 2026. The ratio is currently .57 ($4,454/7711), which is really just the starting point. We need to get to .7 to break out and enter stage 1 (see chart above). This will coincide with Leg 2. Then we need to get to 1.5 to enter stage 2, which coincides with Leg 3 (reaching $7,000 to $8,000 gold). So, we are waiting patiently for the S&P 500 to roll over, so that we can watch this chart play out. The next important level is .7, with .8 as a clear breakout that Wall Street can’t ignore. We will begin to feel the wind at gold’s back at .7. * * * * * Below is a chart of silver stock performance in August. I wanted to point out how poorly exploration stocks have done (see green arrows below). Now you know why the value of exploration stocks in my portfolio is currently only 2% of its total value (I have avoided them). Do not bet heavily on drill stories in a bull market. Bet on producers and developers, which will participate in a big way. Sure, some explorers will do well, but the risk-reward doesn’t make sense in a bull market with rapidly rising gold/silver prices. You make money on exploration from the drill bit (drill results), and not from rising gold/silver prices. Of course, optionality plays can make sense, but it is not the sweet spot.
* * * * * I finished my 4-Part MasterClass video series. They are posted on YouTube. Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/@ If you read my book first and then watch these 4 videos, you will gain a lot of knowledge. I also posted a Low Hanging Fruit video of 15 stocks (all are 15-baggers with a good risk-reward). Plus, a video on using the Share Price Forecast Tool. * * * * * I just realized that I forgot to explain the two options: default or reset. First of all, I doubt they will do a full default, but I expect some type of default. If you own US Treasury debt or US Dollars, expect some type of rug-pull. The only question is how hard the pull. My guess is that it will be at least a 20% devaluation, and perhaps as high as 40%. The easiest way to reset is to issue a new currency, and this is what I expect. I think they will go full digital, and we will have to turn in our paper money. This new digital dollar will be valued at 60% to 80% of the old dollar. Best guess. I also expect them to orphan Euro Dollars (dollars outside of the US borders). Those are not the US’s responsibility. We can expect Euro Dollars to crash in value. This will lead to the end of the dollar as the global reserve currency. The question arises, how will the US Government pay interest and principal to foreign owners of US Treasury bonds/bills after the reset? That’s uncertain. It could be the new digital dollar or perhaps a stablecoin. One thing is certain, they will not get paid 100% of the value of those bonds on the day of the reset. Hint: they can expect a haircut. This reset is going to be devastating. It will create instant inflation in the US, plus it will reduce the wealth of most Americans. Most assets valued in dollars will be reduced in value. The stock market will likely crash. Home values will drop. Who wins in this scenario? Got Gold? Got Silver? Got Bitcoin? Got Ethereum. I think those four assets will hold their value. Some of you loathe crypto, but I think it will have a place after the reset. I expect stablecoins to thrive, and if stablecoins thrive, that means Bitcoin and Ethereum will likely survive the tumult. Best guess! --Don Durrett (wrote the book on PM investing) |
